An update on the efforts:
Running nix commands like `nix run nixpkgs#hello` works. And that's all that works
from what I've been able to test. Installing Nix software like `home-manager` fails.
You can actually do a `nix run home-manager/master -- init --switch` and you will get a
"barebones" initialisation of home-manager activated but as I will discuss
later, variables related to activation don't get sourced and it is rendered useless.
However, I cannot build my home-manager configuration.
This issue stems from improper initialization of several things. What the Determinate
Systems' installer and the official Nix installer do is fetch a tarball from
[
here](https://releases.nixos.org/?prefix=nix/), extract it in `/nix/store` and add/modify
the shell rcs (for bash, fish and zsh) in `/etc` to source a few files from the nix store
that contain environment variables like `NIX_PATH` which is crucial for nix to build
anything more than the `hello` package.
As such, I'm looking into [`nix-portable`](https://github.com/DavHau/nix-portable)
which seems to solve this exact issue for us. Hopefully, I am able to dedicate some time
and test it out by the end of next week.
Pratham Patel