nix

nix is a purely functional package manager that enable programs to run in isolation without relying on implicit global state.

Manage packages

$ nix-env -q                       # list installed packages
$ nix-env -qaP | grep nodejs       # search for a package
$ nix-env -i nodejs-5.7.1          # install a package by name
$ nix-env -iA nixpkgs.nodejs-5_x   # install package by attribute
$ nix-env -uA nixpkgs.nodejs-5_x   # update package by attribute
$ nix-env -u                       # update all packages
$ nix-env -e nodejs-5.7.1          # uninstall package by name
$ nix-channel --update             # update binary channel
$ nix-collect-garbage              # clean up nix store

Installation

$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

And then source a shell script so commands work:

. .nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh

Files

/nix/store/             # global package store, names are saved by hash
~/.nix-profile/         # nix settings directory
~/.nixpkgs/config.nix   # user specific nix config

System config for a specific user

This creates a user specific config. Place this file in ~/.nixpkgs/config.nix. It then exposes the all collection (collections are like packages), so when you run nix-env -i all this collection will be installed.

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs_: with pkgs_; {
    all = with pkgs; buildEnv {
      name = "all";
      paths = [
        ash
        busybox
        htop
      ];
    };
  };
}

Separate user account for nix

As root:

$ adduser nix
$ mkdir -m 0755 /nix && chown nix /nix

From now on, all the operations we do on the shell are done from this nix user:

# su - nix
$ tar -xf nix-1.7-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2
$ cd nix-1.7-x86_64-linux
$ ./install

Profiles

profiles manual

Expressions

Describe packages and how to build them.

nix expressions manual

Environments

tbi

Inheriting values

Sometimes you want to inherit a value from the underlying OS; to do this the "inherits" value can be used.

with import <nixpkgs> {};

stdenv.mkDerivation main {
  inherit bash;
}

nix

nix