Mac M1 setup for Plutus Pioneer Program

some useful infos: https://cardano.stackexchange.com/questions/6287/lessons-learned-setting-up-plutus-playground-feedback-welcome

https://docs.plutus-community.com/docs/setup/MacOS.html (do not use the "plutus" repo! instead use "plutus-apps")

For Intel Macs: https://github.com/Til-D/cardano-plutus

And finalised thanks to @nrkramer Nolan Kramer!

Step by step

1 ensure you have Rosetta 2 installed so that you can run programs built for x86_64-darwin

sudo softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license

2 download the nix package manager and install it

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

3 restart terminal

4 open the nix config file

sudo nano /etc/nix/nix.conf

5 be sure these lines are all inside the file

build-users-group = nixbld

substituters        = https://hydra.iohk.io https://iohk.cachix.org https://cache.nixos.org/
trusted-public-keys = hydra.iohk.io:f/Ea+s+dFdN+3Y/G+FDgSq+a5NEWhJGzdjvKNGv0/EQ= iohk.cachix.org-1:DpRUyj7h7V830dp/i6Nti+NEO2/nhblbov/8MW7Rqoo= cache.nixos.org-1:6NCHdD59X431o0gWypbMrAURkbJ16ZPMQFGspcDShjY=

system = x86_64-darwin
extra-platforms = x86_64-darwin aarch64-darwin

sandbox = false
extra-sandbox-paths = /System/Library/Frameworks /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks /usr/lib /private/tmp /private/var/tmp /usr/bin/env
experimental-features = nix-command
extra-experimental-features = flakes

6 restart mac

to make some space on your harddrive without deleting nix - if you do not use nix for a while:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/mndp6a/garbage_collection/

https://nixos.org/guides/nix-pills/garbage-collector.html

or to uninstall nix, maybe you want to reinstall after macOS update?

Use https://github.com/renzwo/cardano-plutus-apps-install-m1/blob/main/uninstall-nix-osx.sh

Do a "chmod 777 uninstall-nix-osx.sh" before using it with "sudo".