Talk:Nix

Alternative installation methods removed

User:grawlinson did a "major refactor" with [1] and part of the information hasn't been added back to the article. Specifically archlinux-nix^AUR, which uses upstream binaries, is no longer mentioned.

The manual installation was removed in a previous edit with [2]; however, pages like Rust still mention installation through curl (albeit with a notice to actually check what has been retrieved before executing it).

This already caused complaints on IRC because nix was reported as non-working, and other methods are now undocumented. -- Alad (talk) 12:20, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Acknowledged. I'll revert my changes. Grawlinson (talk) 23:43, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

If the native way works, it should be the only one given on top. As with other packages, I would expect that in typical usage there is no reason not to use the native package. I assume I don't need to care about the alternative ways unless I have some specific, exceptional use case or I'm troubleshooting. Those alternative ways create a bunch of clutter, especially with the banners. Can't we put them under some other page, like Nix/Alternate_installation? Ujones (talk) 23:33, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I think moving the external scripts to their own section/page is a good idea, though I think making it a little easier to tell what extra steps need to be done when using the native package would be a good idea too, such as expanding the Configuration section with info about flakes and mentioning nix-daemon.socket. Liassica (talk) 00:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Some steps are missing from the "Configuration" section

I've installed the "nix" package and configured a channel, as described.

The absolute first thing the official tutorial has you do to confirm Nix works is to run "nix-shell -p hello", which explodes:

➜ nix-shell -p hello
error: file 'nixpkgs' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

       at «string»:1:25:

            1| {...}@args: with import <nixpkgs> args; (pkgs.runCommandCC or pkgs.runCommand) "shell" { buildInputs = [ (hello) ]; } ""
             |                         ^
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

I assume the official install script does some additional configuration that the Arch package doesn't, which should probably be described under the Configuration section.

I still haven't figured out *what* I'm missing (after hours of fumbling in extreme frustration) so I can't suggest an edit.

—This unsigned comment is by Hubro (talk) 15:24, 31 December 2022. Please sign your posts with ~~~~!

That is pretty easy to solve and must be on of those three things: - there is no channel named nixpkgs - nix-channel --update need to be run - NIX_PATH is missing an entry for nixpkgs or a default entry. It should look like ``nixpkgs=/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/$USER/channels/nixpkgs:/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/$USER/channels``

Sandro (talk) 22:19, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I had the same issue, and found a possible solution while not changing too much the `nix` arch package. Opened an Arch issue, but not sure if that's the proper way though. --Gileri (talk) 21:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

nix-users

I'm missing something here about the group membership that is described: "Add required users to the nix-users group in order to access the daemon socket." In practice that doesn't seem to matter, the socket is only owned by root:

   srw-rw-rw- 1 root root 0 Jul 19 11:50 /nix/var/nix/daemon-socket/socket=

Can the article clarify as to whether the user should be able to run nix? -blee (talk) 18:58, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

nix-daemon for single user

Do you need to enable nix-daemon if you have a single user setup? Seems like it's for handling problem that come from multiple users, so if you're the only user it seems unnecessary. But I can't tell if the other instructions, like the nix-users group, wouldn't make sense without it. Ujones (talk) 23:38, 27 July 2024 (UTC)