Nix-shell requires user to manually specify runtime dependency

[thespacepanda]

When using zsh as the default shell, nix-shell seems to have issues with the prompt and handling normal arrow key functionality. I believe the cause of this is that nix-shell doesn't automatically pull in pkgs.bashInteractive (which has readline builtin), but uses pkgs.bash instead. I fixed this on my machine by making sure bashInteractive was installed in my environment.systemPackages. It would be nice if nix-shell pulled this in automatically.

[edolstra]

nix-shell has no knowledge of bash vs. bashInteractive (and it wouldn't have a way to build either). It just calls bash in your $PATH, which is assumed to be readline-enabled. You can override this by setting the NIX_BUILD_SHELL environment variable.

[thespacepanda]

Hm. Okay. So this is more an issue with nixos not ensuring bashInteractive is installed when bash isn't the default shell?

[edolstra]

Yeah, I think so.

[thespacepanda]

I have opened a new ticket on the nixpkgs repo here and I am closing this one.