forked from lix-project/lix
324 lines
12 KiB
XML
324 lines
12 KiB
XML
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
|
||
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
|
||
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
|
||
version="5.0"
|
||
xml:id="ch-relnotes-0.10">
|
||
|
||
<title>Release 0.10 (2006-10-06)</title>
|
||
|
||
<note><para>This version of Nix uses Berkeley DB 4.4 instead of 4.3.
|
||
The database is upgraded automatically, but you should be careful not
|
||
to use old versions of Nix that still use Berkeley DB 4.3. In
|
||
particular, if you use a Nix installed through Nix, you should run
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store --clear-substitutes</screen>
|
||
|
||
first.</para></note>
|
||
|
||
<warning><para>Also, the database schema has changed slighted to fix a
|
||
performance issue (see below). When you run any Nix 0.10 command for
|
||
the first time, the database will be upgraded automatically. This is
|
||
irreversible.</para></warning>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!-- Usability / features -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> usability improvements:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>An option <option>--compare-versions</option>
|
||
(or <option>-c</option>) has been added to <command>nix-env
|
||
--query</command> to allow you to compare installed versions of
|
||
packages to available versions, or vice versa. An easy way to
|
||
see if you are up to date with what’s in your subscribed
|
||
channels is <literal>nix-env -qc \*</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env --query</literal> now takes as
|
||
arguments a list of package names about which to show
|
||
information, just like <option>--install</option>, etc.: for
|
||
example, <literal>nix-env -q gcc</literal>. Note that to show
|
||
all derivations, you need to specify
|
||
<literal>\*</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -i
|
||
<emphasis>pkgname</emphasis></literal> will now install
|
||
the highest available version of
|
||
<emphasis>pkgname</emphasis>, rather than installing all
|
||
available versions (which would probably give collisions)
|
||
(<literal>NIX-31</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env (-i|-u) --dry-run</literal> now
|
||
shows exactly which missing paths will be built or
|
||
substituted.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -qa --description</literal>
|
||
shows human-readable descriptions of packages, provided that
|
||
they have a <literal>meta.description</literal> attribute (which
|
||
most packages in Nixpkgs don’t have yet).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New language features:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Reference scanning (which happens after each
|
||
build) is much faster and takes a constant amount of
|
||
memory.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>String interpolation. Expressions like
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
"--with-freetype2-library=" + freetype + "/lib"</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
can now be written as
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
"--with-freetype2-library=${freetype}/lib"</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
You can write arbitrary expressions within
|
||
<literal>${<emphasis>...</emphasis>}</literal>, not just
|
||
identifiers.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Multi-line string literals.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>String concatenations can now involve
|
||
derivations, as in the example <code>"--with-freetype2-library="
|
||
+ freetype + "/lib"</code>. This was not previously possible
|
||
because we need to register that a derivation that uses such a
|
||
string is dependent on <literal>freetype</literal>. The
|
||
evaluator now properly propagates this information.
|
||
Consequently, the subpath operator (<literal>~</literal>) has
|
||
been deprecated.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Default values of function arguments can now
|
||
refer to other function arguments; that is, all arguments are in
|
||
scope in the default values
|
||
(<literal>NIX-45</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<!--
|
||
<listitem><para>TODO: domain checks (r5895).</para></listitem>
|
||
-->
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Lots of new built-in primitives, such as
|
||
functions for list manipulation and integer arithmetic. See the
|
||
manual for a complete list. All primops are now available in
|
||
the set <varname>builtins</varname>, allowing one to test for
|
||
the availability of primop in a backwards-compatible
|
||
way.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Real let-expressions: <literal>let x = ...;
|
||
... z = ...; in ...</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New commands <command>nix-pack-closure</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-unpack-closure</command> than can be used to easily
|
||
transfer a store path with all its dependencies to another machine.
|
||
Very convenient whenever you have some package on your machine and
|
||
you want to copy it somewhere else.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>XML support:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -q --xml</literal> prints the
|
||
installed or available packages in an XML representation for
|
||
easy processing by other tools.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-instantiate --eval-only
|
||
--xml</literal> prints an XML representation of the resulting
|
||
term. (The new flag <option>--strict</option> forces ‘deep’
|
||
evaluation of the result, i.e., list elements and attributes are
|
||
evaluated recursively.)</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>In Nix expressions, the primop
|
||
<function>builtins.toXML</function> converts a term to an XML
|
||
representation. This is primarily useful for passing structured
|
||
information to builders.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>You can now unambiguously specify which derivation to
|
||
build or install in <command>nix-env</command>,
|
||
<command>nix-instantiate</command> and <command>nix-build</command>
|
||
using the <option>--attr</option> / <option>-A</option> flags, which
|
||
takes an attribute name as argument. (Unlike symbolic package names
|
||
such as <literal>subversion-1.4.0</literal>, attribute names in an
|
||
attribute set are unique.) For instance, a quick way to perform a
|
||
test build of a package in Nixpkgs is <literal>nix-build
|
||
pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix -A
|
||
<emphasis>foo</emphasis></literal>. <literal>nix-env -q
|
||
--attr</literal> shows the attribute names corresponding to each
|
||
derivation.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>If the top-level Nix expression used by
|
||
<command>nix-env</command>, <command>nix-instantiate</command> or
|
||
<command>nix-build</command> evaluates to a function whose arguments
|
||
all have default values, the function will be called automatically.
|
||
Also, the new command-line switch <option>--arg
|
||
<emphasis>name</emphasis>
|
||
<emphasis>value</emphasis></option> can be used to specify
|
||
function arguments on the command line.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-install-package --url
|
||
<emphasis>URL</emphasis></literal> allows a package to be
|
||
installed directly from the given URL.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now works behind an HTTP proxy server; just set
|
||
the standard environment variables <literal>http_proxy</literal>,
|
||
<literal>https_proxy</literal>, <literal>ftp_proxy</literal> or
|
||
<literal>all_proxy</literal> appropriately. Functions such as
|
||
<function>fetchurl</function> in Nixpkgs also respect these
|
||
variables.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-build -o
|
||
<emphasis>symlink</emphasis></literal> allows the symlink to
|
||
the build result to be named something other than
|
||
<literal>result</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!-- Stability / performance / etc. -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Platform support:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Support for 64-bit platforms, provided a <link
|
||
xlink:href="http://bugzilla.sen.cwi.nl:8080/show_bug.cgi?id=606">suitably
|
||
patched ATerm library</link> is used. Also, files larger than 2
|
||
GiB are now supported.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Added support for Cygwin (Windows,
|
||
<literal>i686-cygwin</literal>), Mac OS X on Intel
|
||
(<literal>i686-darwin</literal>) and Linux on PowerPC
|
||
(<literal>powerpc-linux</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Users of SMP and multicore machines will
|
||
appreciate that the number of builds to be performed in parallel
|
||
can now be specified in the configuration file in the
|
||
<literal>build-max-jobs</literal> setting.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Garbage collector improvements:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Open files (such as running programs) are now
|
||
used as roots of the garbage collector. This prevents programs
|
||
that have been uninstalled from being garbage collected while
|
||
they are still running. The script that detects these
|
||
additional runtime roots
|
||
(<filename>find-runtime-roots.pl</filename>) is inherently
|
||
system-specific, but it should work on Linux and on all
|
||
platforms that have the <command>lsof</command>
|
||
utility.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-store --gc</literal>
|
||
(a.k.a. <command>nix-collect-garbage</command>) prints out the
|
||
number of bytes freed on standard output. <literal>nix-store
|
||
--gc --print-dead</literal> shows how many bytes would be freed
|
||
by an actual garbage collection.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-collect-garbage -d</literal>
|
||
removes all old generations of <emphasis>all</emphasis> profiles
|
||
before calling the actual garbage collector (<literal>nix-store
|
||
--gc</literal>). This is an easy way to get rid of all old
|
||
packages in the Nix store.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-store</command> now has an
|
||
operation <option>--delete</option> to delete specific paths
|
||
from the Nix store. It won’t delete reachable (non-garbage)
|
||
paths unless <option>--ignore-liveness</option> is
|
||
specified.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Berkeley DB 4.4’s process registry feature is used
|
||
to recover from crashed Nix processes.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<!-- <listitem><para>TODO: shared stores.</para></listitem> -->
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>A performance issue has been fixed with the
|
||
<literal>referer</literal> table, which stores the inverse of the
|
||
<literal>references</literal> table (i.e., it tells you what store
|
||
paths refer to a given path). Maintaining this table could take a
|
||
quadratic amount of time, as well as a quadratic amount of Berkeley
|
||
DB log file space (in particular when running the garbage collector)
|
||
(<literal>NIX-23</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now catches the <literal>TERM</literal> and
|
||
<literal>HUP</literal> signals in addition to the
|
||
<literal>INT</literal> signal. So you can now do a <literal>killall
|
||
nix-store</literal> without triggering a database
|
||
recovery.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>bsdiff</command> updated to version
|
||
4.3.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Substantial performance improvements in expression
|
||
evaluation and <literal>nix-env -qa</literal>, all thanks to <link
|
||
xlink:href="http://valgrind.org/">Valgrind</link>. Memory use has
|
||
been reduced by a factor 8 or so. Big speedup by memoisation of
|
||
path hashing.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Lots of bug fixes, notably:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Make sure that the garbage collector can run
|
||
successfully when the disk is full
|
||
(<literal>NIX-18</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> now locks the profile
|
||
to prevent races between concurrent <command>nix-env</command>
|
||
operations on the same profile
|
||
(<literal>NIX-7</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Removed misleading messages from
|
||
<literal>nix-env -i</literal> (e.g., <literal>installing
|
||
`foo'</literal> followed by <literal>uninstalling
|
||
`foo'</literal>) (<literal>NIX-17</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix source distributions are a lot smaller now since
|
||
we no longer include a full copy of the Berkeley DB source
|
||
distribution (but only the bits we need).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Header files are now installed so that external
|
||
programs can use the Nix libraries.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|