Nix expressions.
To subscribe to a channel (needs to be done only once):
nix-channel --add \
http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
This just adds the given URL to ~/.nix-channels (which can also be
edited manually).
To update from all channels:
nix-channel --update
This fetches the latest expressions and pulls cache manifests. The
default Nix expression (~/.nix-defexpr) is made to point to the
conjunction of the expressions downloaded from all channels.
So to update all installed derivations in the current user
environment:
nix-channel --update
nix-env --upgrade '*'
If you are really courageous, you can put this in a cronjob or
something.
You can subscribe to multiple channels. It is not entirely clear
what happens when there are name clashes between derivations from
different channels. From nix-env/main.cc it appears that the one
with the lowest (highest?) hash will be used, which is pretty
meaningless.
environment variable. This is useful for passing authentication
information (it won't show up in `ps'). Hacky - nix-push should
abstract over the use of Curl.
default -> default-94-link
default-82-link -> /nix/store/cc4480...
default-83-link -> /nix/store/caeec8...
...
default-94-link -> /nix/store/2896ca...
experimental -> experimental-2-link
experimental-1-link -> /nix/store/cc4480...
experimental-2-link -> /nix/store/a3148f...
* `--profile' / `-p' -> `--switch-profile' / `-S'
* `--link' / `-l' -> `--profile' / `-p'
* The default profile is stored in $prefix/var/nix/profiles.
$prefix/var/nix/links is gone. Profiles can be stored anywhere.
* The current profile is now referenced from ~/.nix-profile, not
~/.nix-userenv.
* The roots to the garbage collector now have extension `.gcroot', not
`.id'.
the symlink ~/.nix-userenv to the given argument (which defaults to
.../links/current). /etc/profile.d/nix-profile creates this symlink
if it doesn't exist yet. Example use:
$ nix-env -l my_profile -i foo.nix subversion quake
$ nix-env -p my_profile
I don't like the term "profile". Let's deprecate it :-)
The script nix-install-package takes a `Nix package file' (which
contains one or more derivations, along with URLs of Nix caches),
unpacks it, pulls the caches, and installs the derivations in the
user's environment.
For best results, associate the command `xterm -e
/nix/bin/nix-install-package' with the MIME type
`application/x-nix-package' and visit
http://losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl/~eelco/test/.
* Fixed a segfault caused by the buffering of stderr.
* Fix now allows the specification of the full output path. This
should be used with great care, since it by-passes the normal hash
generation.
* Incremented the version number to 0.4 (prerelease).
NAME'. E.g., on the losser Subversion server, I do `nix-switch --name
svn $(fix ...)' to atomically upgrade the server (the SVN server
uses the Apache and Subversion installations in /nix/var/nix/links/svn).
