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. Download a source tarball or RPM from . Build source distributions using the regular sequence: $ tar xvfj nix-version.tar.bz2 $ ./configure $ make $ make install (as root) This will install Nix in /nix. 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 /nix/etc/profile.d/nix.sh to your ~/.bashrc (or some other login file). Subscribe to the Nix Packages channel. $ nix-channel --add \ http://nix.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/channels-v3/nixpkgs-unstable Download the latest Nix expressions available in the channel. $ nix-channel --update Note that this in itself doesn't download any components, it just downloads the Nix expressions that build them and stores them somewhere (under ~/.nix-defexpr, in case you're curious). Also, it registers the fact that pre-built binaries are available remotely. See what installable components are currently available in the channel: $ nix-env -qa ’*’ (mind the quotes!) docbook-xml-4.2 firefox-1.0pre-PR-0.10.1 hello-2.1.1 libxslt-1.1.0 ... Install some components from the channel: $ nix-env -i hello firefox ... This should download the pre-built components; it should not build them locally (if it does, something went wrong). Test that they work: $ which hello /home/eelco/.nix-profile/bin/hello $ hello Hello, world! $ firefox (read Slashdot or something) Uninstall a package: $ nix-env -e hello To keep up-to-date with the channel, do: $ nix-channel --update $ nix-env -u '*' The latter command will upgrade each installed component for which there is a “newer” version (as determined by comparing the version numbers). If you're unhappy with the result of a nix-env action (e.g., an upgraded component turned out not to work properly), you can go back: $ nix-env --rollback You should periodically run the Nix garbage collector to get rid of unused packages, since uninstalls or upgrades don't actually delete them: $ nix-collect-garbage -d