Configure nix-shell to use a shell other than Bash?

Question

I'm on NixOS 15 and nix-shell v1.10. I use Zsh as my main shell now, and would like to use it in conjuction with Oh-My-Zsh within the nix-shell as well when I'm working in development environments built by a Nix expression.

If it helps, here is one of the Nix environments I have set up for a Rails project:

with import <nixpkgs> {}; {
  cannyFreeRadicalEnv = stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
    name = "canny-free-radical-env";
    version = "0.1";
    src = ./.;
    buildInputs = [
        stdenv
        ruby_2_2_2
        bundler_HEAD
        zlib
        postgresql94
        sqlite
    ];
  };
}

** Edit **

Running the command this way does not indicate in the CLI prompt that I'm in the nix-shell. Is there an easy way to detect this so that I can script it up quickly in my zshrc?

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 26 '21 at 05:09

6

Open a shell using:

nix-shell . --command "zsh"

Thanks to the guys on the #nixos IRC channel for getting me a quick answer.

edited Nov 26 '21 at 05:09

Mateen Ulhaq

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answered Oct 09 '15 at 13:42

josiah

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I'm leaving this unaccepted in case someone has a better answer. Maybe there is a way to do this that gets more to replacing the actual base shell nix-shell runs on? I think using `--command` only executes Zsh from the original Bash shell on shell creation. – josiah Oct 09 '15 at 15:41
As it's been a few days, I'm assuming I won't get a better answer at this point. – josiah Oct 13 '15 at 16:04
1

This works well as long as you don't need to call the shell functions nix-shell generate (`configurePhase` etc) – olejorgenb Dec 24 '16 at 04:53
Not enough information to help users of `zsh`. – Romeo Jan 28 '23 at 10:09

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 07 '15 at 18:40

5

there is PR #545 opened recently which will address this

answered Nov 07 '15 at 18:40

Rok Garbas

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 03 '22 at 15:27

0

You might want to try this Zsh plugin.

https://github.com/chisui/zsh-nix-shell

answered Sep 03 '22 at 15:27

Cyrus Yip

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tobiasBora · Answer 4 · 2022-09-07T00:44:40.213

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any-nix-shell worked for me. There is also a more manual approach presented here https://ianthehenry.com/posts/how-to-learn-nix/nix-zshell/

Note however that these solutions are not forwarding alias and phases like unpackPhase.

edited Sep 07 '22 at 00:44

answered Sep 06 '22 at 21:17

tobiasBora

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Configure nix-shell to use a shell other than Bash?

4 Answers4