<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 actually 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>