do we have a standard recommendation for how to handle meta.mainProgram/nix run compatibility for packages that produce an app bundle? I've seen:

1. symlinking the binary to $out/bin via something like ln -s $out/{Applications/${name}.app/Contents/MacOS/${name},bin/}
2. using makeBinaryWrapper to do something similar
3. putting a wrapper script in $out/bin that calls open -na on the produced application bundle

Is one of these unambiguously "better" than the others? I recall the symlink approach having issues (and I can find comments in nixpkgs and on PRs to that extent), so makeBinaryWrapper seems better than that for not a lot of overhead. I vaguely recall some cases where even that approach doesn't work (properly), and see some examples in nixpkgs (libreoffice, mongodb-compass, beekeeper-studio, jetbrains, tigervnc) using open instead, but that has some other behavioral differences (such as exiting in the terminal immediately, unless we standardize on using -W). Maybe there isn't a universal right answer, but I feel like it'd be helpful to have docs either way

In reply to @samasaur:matrix.org

do we have a standard recommendation for how to handle meta.mainProgram/nix run compatibility for packages that produce an app bundle? I've seen:

1. symlinking the binary to $out/bin via something like ln -s $out/{Applications/${name}.app/Contents/MacOS/${name},bin/}
2. using makeBinaryWrapper to do something similar
3. putting a wrapper script in $out/bin that calls open -na on the produced application bundle

Is one of these unambiguously "better" than the others? I recall the symlink approach having issues (and I can find comments in nixpkgs and on PRs to that extent), so makeBinaryWrapper seems better than that for not a lot of overhead. I vaguely recall some cases where even that approach doesn't work (properly), and see some examples in nixpkgs (libreoffice, mongodb-compass, beekeeper-studio, jetbrains, tigervnc) using open instead, but that has some other behavioral differences (such as exiting in the terminal immediately, unless we standardize on using -W). Maybe there isn't a universal right answer, but I feel like it'd be helpful to have docs either way

In reply to @benjaminsparks:chat.alugha.app
consider not setting a meta.mainProgram, then providing script aliases that point at the executables of that bundle

nix --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" run --impure -E "((import <nixpkgs> {}).hello).overrideAttrs { doInstallCheck = false;  meta.mainProgram = \"../../../../usr/bin/true\"; }"
❮ echo $status
0

❮ nix --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" run --impure -E "((import <nixpkgs> {}).hello).overrideAttrs { doInstallCheck = false;  meta.mainProgram = \"../../../../usr/bin/true\"; }"
❮ echo $status
0

Thanks for the reminder. I'm looking for maximum performance and seamless integration with the host. In my experience, Lima is best (among OSS solutions, at least) for headless and UTM for GUI, but I can't say that I've tried (the latest versions of) everything.

VZ is not Open Source but is built-in to macOS and is (in theory) higher-performance (especially for local file access. Given that we're already running on a closed-source system I make an exception to my Open Source rule for it.

One of my goals is to have a GUI NixOS VM that is performant enough to be a daily-driver. I'm hoping the latest UTM with VZ will be able to deliver that.

For headless Linux, I really like Lima (though it is adding support for displays and for macOS guests, too) and have been using it for much longer than I've been using Nix. I created the nixos-lima project based on the work of others so there could be an actively maintained public repo for NixOS VMs on Lima.

I use nixpkgs qemu via Nix Darwin for a Linux Builder VM, but to date I haven't found it nearly as friendly as Lima or UTM. I definitely need to take a another look. Do people use it for creating interactive VMs for development?

Thanks for the reminder. I'm looking for maximum performance and seamless integration with the host. In my experience, Lima is best (among OSS solutions, at least) for headless and UTM for GUI, but I can't say that I've tried (the latest versions of) everything.

VZ is not Open Source but is built-in to macOS and is (in theory) higher-performance (especially for local file access.) Given that we're already running on a closed-source system I make an exception to my Open Source rule for it.

One of my goals is to have a GUI NixOS VM that is performant enough to be a daily-driver. I'm hoping the latest UTM with VZ will be able to deliver that.

For headless Linux, I really like Lima (though it is adding support for displays and for macOS guests, too) and have been using it for much longer than I've been using Nix. I created the nixos-lima project based on the work of others so there could be an actively maintained public repo for NixOS VMs on Lima.

I use nixpkgs qemu via Nix Darwin for a Linux Builder VM, but to date I haven't found it nearly as friendly as Lima or UTM. I definitely need to take a another look. Do people use it for creating interactive VMs for development?