forked from lix-project/lix
febd8bed1b
chapter on writing Nix expressions.
118 lines
No EOL
3.4 KiB
XML
118 lines
No EOL
3.4 KiB
XML
<chapter><title>Quick Start</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>This chapter is for impatient people who don't like reading
|
|
documentation. For more in-depth information you are kindly referred
|
|
to the following chapters.</para>
|
|
|
|
<orderedlist>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>Download a source tarball or RPM from <ulink
|
|
url='http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/ST/Trace/Nix'/>. Build source
|
|
distributions using the regular sequence:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ tar xvfj nix-<replaceable>version</replaceable>.tar.bz2
|
|
$ ./configure
|
|
$ make
|
|
$ make install <lineannotation>(as root)</lineannotation></screen>
|
|
|
|
This will install Nix in <filename>/nix</filename>. You shouldn't
|
|
change the prefix if at all possible since that will make it
|
|
impossible to use our pre-built components. Alternatively, you could
|
|
grab an RPM if you're on an RPM-based system. You should also add
|
|
<filename>/nix/etc/profile.d/nix.sh</filename> to your
|
|
<filename>~/.bashrc</filename> (or some other login
|
|
file).</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>Subscribe to the Nix Packages channel.
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-channel --add http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/channels/nixpkgs-unstable</screen>
|
|
|
|
</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>Download the latest Nix expressions available in the channel.
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-channel --update</screen>
|
|
|
|
Note that this in itself doesn't download any components, it just
|
|
downloads the Nix expressions that build them and stores them
|
|
somewhere (under <filename>~/.nix-defexpr</filename>, in case you're
|
|
curious). Also, it registers the fact that pre-built binaries are
|
|
available remotely.</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>See what installable components are currently
|
|
available in the channel:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env -qa
|
|
docbook-xml-4.2
|
|
firefox-1.0pre-PR-0.10.1
|
|
hello-2.1.1
|
|
libxslt-1.1.0
|
|
<replaceable>...</replaceable></screen>
|
|
|
|
</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>Install some components from the channel:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env -i hello firefox <replaceable>...</replaceable> </screen>
|
|
|
|
This should download the pre-built components; it should not build
|
|
them locally (if it does, something went wrong).</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>Test that they work:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ which hello
|
|
/home/eelco/.nix-profile/bin/hello
|
|
$ hello
|
|
Hello, world!
|
|
$ firefox
|
|
<lineannotation>(read Slashdot or something)</lineannotation></screen>
|
|
|
|
</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>Uninstall a package:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env -e hello</screen>
|
|
|
|
</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>To keep up-to-date with the channel, do:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-channel --update
|
|
$ nix-env -u '*'</screen>
|
|
|
|
The latter command will upgrade each installed component for which
|
|
there is a <quote>newer</quote> version (as determined by comparing
|
|
the version numbers).</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>If you're unhappy with the result of a
|
|
<command>nix-env</command> action (e.g., an upgraded component turned
|
|
out not to work properly), you can go back:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env --rollback</screen>
|
|
|
|
</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
<listitem><para>You should periodically run the Nix garbage collector
|
|
to get rid of unused packages, since uninstalls or upgrades don't
|
|
actual delete them:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env --delete-generations old
|
|
$ nix-collect-garbage</screen>
|
|
|
|
The first command deletes old <quote>generations</quote> of your
|
|
profile (making rollbacks impossible, but also making the components
|
|
in those old generations available for garbage collection), while the
|
|
second command actually deletes them.</para></listitem>
|
|
|
|
</orderedlist>
|
|
|
|
</chapter> |