19 December 2023 - 1st Post
Configure Firefox with extensions on MacOS using Nix, Home Manager and nix-darwin
TL;DR To install install Firefox with extensions using Nix, install Firefox using homebrew (via nix-darwin) and configure extensions using Home Manager. Make sure you tell Home Manager to not install Firefox.
I am new to Nix, but have been looking for an excuse to dive in. I am interested in two aspects of Nix:
- Declarative configuration to make it easier to set up new machines;
- Fully reproducible environments.
My first goal was to get a pleasant development environment established. For me that involves vim, tmux, a tiling window manager, and a browser with vimium, bitwarden and uBlock origin; Advertisements hurt my eyes, and I don't want to have to type out long passwords.
After a couple of false starts, and doing some learning about Nix fundamentals, I was able to get a nice set up with Nix flakes, Home Manager and nix-darwin. Huge thanks to DeterminateSystems for their nix installer script and Patrick Walsh (zmre) for their excellent video detailing a simple nix on MacOS set up. However I had a really tough time getting Firefox installed with extensions, which is a pretty critical requirement for me - the internet without an adblocker is an unpleasant place.
You can use Home Manager to install and configure Firefox. Here is the documentation for configuring Firefox Add-ons and Extensions that I was so looking forward to having.=
Unfortunately Firefox on nixpgks is broken for `aarch-darwin`.
error: Package ‘firefox-120.0.1’ in /nix/store/wk5dq7iwpd8yb4mnhb98k687kgdqachh-source/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/firefox/wrapper.nix:418 is not available on the requested hostPlatform:
hostPlatform.config = "aarch64-apple-darwin"
I was encouraged when I found a blog post detailing how to install Firefox on MacOS with nix using an overlay However I don't yet have an understanding of what overlays are, AND I was already using nix-darwin to install some software via homebrew so decided to check if I could use that to install Firefox too. You can. I did. It worked. Hoorah! BUT when I tried to add configuration in Home Manager to control Firefox settings the error about not being able to install Firefox on my platform returned.
As is often the case, the answer was found by reading the docs. I was making my way through the Home Manager configuration options, and I found a setting to stop Home Manager from trying to install Firefox.
I tried a darwin-rebuild and switch... and it worked!! The first time you open Firefox, you have to manually enable the nix-installed extensions, and hey presto you are done!
Nix can be very overwhelming to try to get your head around. I was delighted to have had a challenge that suited my level of understanding, and to have found a solution. Hopefully this post is helpful to someone experiencing a similar battle.
Here is a minimal example flake.nix below:
{
description = "MacOS Nix set up with Firefox and Firefox Extensions";
inputs = {
nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager/master";
home-manager.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
darwin.url = "github:lnl7/nix-darwin";
darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
firefox-addons = {
url = "gitlab:rycee/nur-expressions?dir=pkgs/firefox-addons";
inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};
};
outputs = inputs: {
darwinConfigurations. =
inputs.darwin.lib.darwinSystem {
system = "aarch64-darwin";
pkgs = import inputs.nixpkgs { system = "aarch64-darwin"; };
modules = [
({ pkgs, ... }: {
# here go the darwin preferences and config items
environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.coreutils ];
environment.systemPath = [ "/opt/homebrew/bin" ];
nix.extraOptions = ''
experimental-features = nix-command flakes
'';
system.keyboard.enableKeyMapping = true;
system.keyboard.remapCapsLockToEscape = true;
services.nix-daemon.enable = true;
users.users..home = "/Users/";
system.defaults.dock.autohide = true;
# backwards compatability; don't change
system.stateVersion = 4;
homebrew = {
enable = true;
caskArgs.no_quarantine = true;
global.brewfile = true;
masApps = {};
casks = [ "firefox" ];
};
})
inputs.home-manager.darwinModules.home-manager
{
home-manager = {
useGlobalPkgs = true;
useUserPackages = true;
users..imports = [
({ pkgs, ... }: {
home.stateVersion = "22.11";
# Specify some home-manager configs
home.packages = [ pkgs.ripgrep ];
home.sessionVariables = {
EDITOR = "vim";
};
programs.git = {
enable = true;
};
programs.firefox = {
enable = true;
# the command below was the critical addition
package = null;
profiles. = {
isDefault = true;
extensions = with inputs.firefox-addons.packages.${pkgs.system}; [
ublock-origin
bitwarden
vimium
];
};
};
})
];
};
}
];
};
};
}