forked from lix-project/lix
802150f987
Pandoc doesn't know <replaceable> so let's force it to be rendered as italics.
263 lines
8.6 KiB
XML
263 lines
8.6 KiB
XML
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
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xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
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version="5.0"
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xml:id="ssec-relnotes-1.7">
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<title>Release 1.7 (2014-04-11)</title>
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<para>In addition to the usual bug fixes, this release has the
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following new features:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Antiquotation is now allowed inside of quoted attribute
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names (e.g. <literal>set."${foo}"</literal>). In the case where
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the attribute name is just a single antiquotation, the quotes can
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be dropped (e.g. the above example can be written
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<literal>set.${foo}</literal>). If an attribute name inside of a
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set declaration evaluates to <literal>null</literal> (e.g.
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<literal>{ ${null} = false; }</literal>), then that attribute is
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not added to the set.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Experimental support for cryptographically signed binary
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caches. See <link
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xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nix/commit/0fdf4da0e979f992db75cc17376e455ddc5a96d8">the
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commit for details</link>.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>An experimental new substituter,
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<command>download-via-ssh</command>, that fetches binaries from
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remote machines via SSH. Specifying the flags <literal>--option
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use-ssh-substituter true --option ssh-substituter-hosts
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<emphasis>user@hostname</emphasis></literal> will cause Nix
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to download binaries from the specified machine, if it has
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them.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para><command>nix-store -r</command> and
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<command>nix-build</command> have a new flag,
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<option>--check</option>, that builds a previously built
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derivation again, and prints an error message if the output is not
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exactly the same. This helps to verify whether a derivation is
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truly deterministic. For example:
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<screen>
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$ nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A patchelf
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<emphasis>…</emphasis>
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$ nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A patchelf --check
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<emphasis>…</emphasis>
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error: derivation `/nix/store/1ipvxs…-patchelf-0.6' may not be deterministic:
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hash mismatch in output `/nix/store/4pc1dm…-patchelf-0.6.drv'
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</screen>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>The <command>nix-instantiate</command> flags
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<option>--eval-only</option> and <option>--parse-only</option>
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have been renamed to <option>--eval</option> and
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<option>--parse</option>, respectively.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para><command>nix-instantiate</command>,
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<command>nix-build</command> and <command>nix-shell</command> now
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have a flag <option>--expr</option> (or <option>-E</option>) that
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allows you to specify the expression to be evaluated as a command
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line argument. For instance, <literal>nix-instantiate --eval -E
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'1 + 2'</literal> will print <literal>3</literal>.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para><command>nix-shell</command> improvements:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>It has a new flag, <option>--packages</option> (or
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<option>-p</option>), that sets up a build environment
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containing the specified packages from Nixpkgs. For example,
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the command
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<screen>
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$ nix-shell -p sqlite xorg.libX11 hello
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</screen>
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will start a shell in which the given packages are
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present.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>It now uses <filename>shell.nix</filename> as the
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default expression, falling back to
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<filename>default.nix</filename> if the former doesn’t
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exist. This makes it convenient to have a
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<filename>shell.nix</filename> in your project to set up a
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nice development environment.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>It evaluates the derivation attribute
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<varname>shellHook</varname>, if set. Since
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<literal>stdenv</literal> does not normally execute this hook,
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it allows you to do <command>nix-shell</command>-specific
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setup.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>It preserves the user’s timezone setting.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>In chroots, Nix now sets up a <filename>/dev</filename>
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containing only a minimal set of devices (such as
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<filename>/dev/null</filename>). Note that it only does this if
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you <emphasis>don’t</emphasis> have <filename>/dev</filename>
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listed in your <option>build-chroot-dirs</option> setting;
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otherwise, it will bind-mount the <literal>/dev</literal> from
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outside the chroot.</para>
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<para>Similarly, if you don’t have <filename>/dev/pts</filename> listed
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in <option>build-chroot-dirs</option>, Nix will mount a private
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<literal>devpts</literal> filesystem on the chroot’s
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<filename>/dev/pts</filename>.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>New built-in function: <function>builtins.toJSON</function>,
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which returns a JSON representation of a value.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para><command>nix-env -q</command> has a new flag
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<option>--json</option> to print a JSON representation of the
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installed or available packages.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para><command>nix-env</command> now supports meta attributes with
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more complex values, such as attribute sets.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>The <option>-A</option> flag now allows attribute names with
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dots in them, e.g.
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<screen>
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$ nix-instantiate --eval '<nixos>' -A 'config.systemd.units."nscd.service".text'
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</screen>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>The <option>--max-freed</option> option to
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<command>nix-store --gc</command> now accepts a unit
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specifier. For example, <literal>nix-store --gc --max-freed
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1G</literal> will free up to 1 gigabyte of disk space.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para><command>nix-collect-garbage</command> has a new flag
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<option>--delete-older-than</option>
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<emphasis>N</emphasis><literal>d</literal>, which deletes
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all user environment generations older than
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<emphasis>N</emphasis> days. Likewise, <command>nix-env
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--delete-generations</command> accepts a
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<emphasis>N</emphasis><literal>d</literal> age limit.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Nix now heuristically detects whether a build failure was
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due to a disk-full condition. In that case, the build is not
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flagged as “permanently failed”. This is mostly useful for Hydra,
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which needs to distinguish between permanent and transient build
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failures.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>There is a new symbol <literal>__curPos</literal> that
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expands to an attribute set containing its file name and line and
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column numbers, e.g. <literal>{ file = "foo.nix"; line = 10;
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column = 5; }</literal>. There also is a new builtin function,
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<varname>unsafeGetAttrPos</varname>, that returns the position of
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an attribute. This is used by Nixpkgs to provide location
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information in error messages, e.g.
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<screen>
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$ nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A libreoffice --argstr system x86_64-darwin
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error: the package ‘libreoffice-4.0.5.2’ in ‘.../applications/office/libreoffice/default.nix:263’
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is not supported on ‘x86_64-darwin’
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</screen>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>The garbage collector is now more concurrent with other Nix
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processes because it releases certain locks earlier.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>The binary tarball installer has been improved. You can now
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install Nix by running:
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<screen>
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$ bash <(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install)
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</screen>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>More evaluation errors include position information. For
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instance, selecting a missing attribute will print something like
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<screen>
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error: attribute `nixUnstabl' missing, at /etc/nixos/configurations/misc/eelco/mandark.nix:216:15
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</screen>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>The command <command>nix-setuid-helper</command> is
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gone.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Nix no longer uses Automake, but instead has a
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non-recursive, GNU Make-based build system.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>All installed libraries now have the prefix
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<literal>libnix</literal>. In particular, this gets rid of
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<literal>libutil</literal>, which could clash with libraries with
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the same name from other packages.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Nix now requires a compiler that supports C++11.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>This release has contributions from Danny Wilson, Domen Kožar,
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Eelco Dolstra, Ian-Woo Kim, Ludovic Courtès, Maxim Ivanov, Petr
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Rockai, Ricardo M. Correia and Shea Levy.</para>
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</section>
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