248 lines
10 KiB
XML
248 lines
10 KiB
XML
<chapter>
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<title>Overview</title>
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<para>
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This chapter provides a guided tour of Nix.
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</para>
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<sect1>
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<title>Basic package management</title>
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<para>
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Let's start from the perspective of an end user. Common operations at
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this level are to install and remove packages, ask what packages are
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installed or available for installation, and so on. These are operations
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on the <emphasis>user environment</emphasis>: the set of packages that a
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user <quote>sees</quote>. In a command line Unix environment, this means
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the set of programs that are available through the
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<literal>PATH</literal> environment variable. (In other environments it
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might mean the set of programs available on the desktop, through the
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start menu, and so on.)
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</para>
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<para>
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The terms <quote>installation</quote> and <quote>uninstallation</quote>
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are used in this context to denote the act of adding or removing packages
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from the user environment. In Nix, these operations are dissociated from
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the physical copying or deleting of files. Installation requires that
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the files constituting the package are present, but they may be present
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beforehand. Likewise, uninstallation does not actually delete any files;
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this is done automatically by running a garbage collector.
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</para>
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<para>
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User environments are manipulated through the <command>nix-env</command>
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command. The query operation can be used to see what packages are
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currently installed.
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -q
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MozillaFirebird-0.7
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sylpheed-0.9.7
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pan-0.14.2</screen>
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<para>
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(<option>-q</option> is actually short for <option>--query
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--installed</option>.) The package names are symbolic: they don't have
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any particular significance to Nix (as they shouldn't, since they are not
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unique—there can be many derivations with the same name). Note that
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these packages have many dependencies (e.g., Mozilla uses the
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<literal>gtk+</literal> package) but these have not been installed in the
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user environment, though they are present on the system. Generally,
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there is no need to install such packages; only packages containing
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programs should be installed.
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</para>
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<para>
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To install packages, a <emphasis>Nix expression</emphasis> is required
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that tells Nix how to build that package. There is a <ulink
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url='https://svn.cs.uu.nl:12443/dist/trace/trace-nixpkgs-trunk.tar.bz2'>set
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of standard of Nix expressions</ulink> for many common packages.
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Assuming that you have downloaded and unpacked these, you can view the
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set of available packages:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -qf pkgs/system/i686-suse-linux.nix
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gettext-0.12.1
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sylpheed-0.9.7
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aterm-2.0
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gtk+-1.2.10
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apache-httpd-2.0.48
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pan-0.14.2
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...</screen>
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<para>
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The Nix expression in the file <filename>i686-suse-linux.nix</filename>
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yields the set of packages for a SuSE Linux system running on x86
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hardware. For other platforms, copy and modify this file for your
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platform as appropriate. [TODO: improve this]
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</para>
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<para>
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It is also possible to see the <emphasis>status</emphasis> of available
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packages, i.e., whether they are installed into the user environment
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and/or present in the system:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -qf pkgs/system/i686-suse-linux.nix
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-P gettext-0.12.1
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IP sylpheed-0.9.7
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-- aterm-2.0
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-P gtk+-1.2.10</screen>
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<para>
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This reveals that the <literal>sylpheed</literal> package is already
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installed, or more precisely, that exactly the same instantiation of
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<literal>sylpheed</literal> is installed. This guarantees that the
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available package is exactly the same as the installed package with
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regard to sources, dependencies, build flags, and so on. Similarly, we
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see that the <literal>gettext</literal> and <literal>gtk+</literal>
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packages are present but not installed in the user environment, while the
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<literal>aterm</literal> package is not installed or present at all (so,
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if we were to install it, it would have to be built or downloaded first).
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</para>
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<para>
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The install operation is used install available packages from a Nix
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environment. To install the <literal>pan</literal> package (a
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newsreader), you would do:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -i pkgs/system/i686-suse-linux.nix pan-0.14.2</screen>
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<para>
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Since installation may take a long time, depending on whether any
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packages need to be built or downloaded, it's a good idea to make
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<command>nix-env</command> run verbosely by using the <option>-v</option>
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(<option>--verbose</option>) option. This option may be repeated to
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increase the level of verbosity. A good value is 3
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(<option>-vvv</option>).
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</para>
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<para>
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In fact, if you run this command verbosely you will observe that Nix
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starts to build many packages, including large and fundamental ones such
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as <literal>glibc</literal> and <literal>gcc</literal>. I.e., you are
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performing a source installation. This is generally undesirable, since
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installation from sources may require large amounts of disk and CPU
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resources. Therefore a <quote>binary</quote> installation is generally
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preferable.
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</para>
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<para>
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Rather than provide different mechanisms to create and perform
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the installation of binary packages, Nix supports binary deployment
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<emphasis>transparently</emphasis> through a generic mechanism of
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<emphasis>substitute expressions</emphasis>. If an request is made to
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build some Nix expression, Nix will first try to build any substitutes
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for that expression. These substitutes presumably perform an identical
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build operation with respect to the result, but require less resources.
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For instance, a substitute that downloads a pre-built package from the
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network requires less CPU and disk resources, and possibly less time.
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</para>
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<para>
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Nix's use of cryptographic hashes makes this entirely safe. It is not
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possible, for instance, to accidentally substitute a build of some
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package for a Solaris or Windows system for a build on a SuSE/x86 system.
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</para>
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<para>
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While the substitute mechanism is a generic mechanism, Nix provides two
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standard tools called <command>nix-push</command> and
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<command>nix-push</command> that maintain and use a shared cache of
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prebuilt derivations on some network site (reachable through HTTP). If
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you attempt to install some package that someone else has previously
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built and <quote>pushed</quote> into the cache, and you have done a
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<quote>pull</quote> to register substitutes that download these prebuilt
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packages, then the installation will automatically use these.
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</para>
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<para>
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For example, to pull from our <ulink
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url='http://losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl/~eelco/nix-dist/'>cache</ulink> of
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prebuilt packages (at the time of writing, for SuSE Linux/x86), use the
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following command:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ nix-pull http://losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl/~eelco/nix-dist/
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obtaining list of Nix archives at http://losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl/~eelco/nix-dist...
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...</screen>
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<para>
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If <command>nix-pull</command> is run without any arguments, it will pull
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from the URLs specified in the file
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<filename><replaceable>prefix</replaceable>/etc/nix/prebuilts.conf</filename>.
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</para>
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<para>
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Assuming that the <literal>pan</literal> installation produced no errors,
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it can be used immediately, that is, it now appears in a directory in the
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<literal>PATH</literal> environment variable. Specifically,
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<literal>PATH</literal> includes the entry
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<filename><replaceable>prefix</replaceable>/var/nix/links/current/bin</filename>,
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where
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<filename><replaceable>prefix</replaceable>/var/nix/links/current</filename>
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is just a symlink to the current user environment:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ ls -l /nix/var/nix/links/
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...
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... 15 -> /nix/store/1871...12b0-user-environment
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... 16 -> /nix/store/59ba...df6b-user-environment
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... current -> /nix/var/nix/links/16</screen>
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<para>
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That is, <filename>current</filename> in this example is a link to
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<filename>16</filename>, which is the current user environment. Before
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the installation, it pointed to <filename>15</filename>. Note that this
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means that you can atomically roll-back to the previous user environment
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by pointing the symlink <filename>current</filename> at
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<filename>15</filename> again. This also shows that operations such as
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installation are atomic in the Nix system: any arbitrarily complex
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set of installation, uninstallation, or upgrade actions eventually boil
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down to the single operation of pointing a symlink somewhere else (which
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can be implemented atomically in Unix).
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</para>
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<para>
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What's in a user environment? It's just a set of symlinks to the files
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that constitute the installed packages. For instance:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ ls -l /nix/var/nix/links/16/bin
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... MozillaFirebird -> /nix/store/35f8...4ae6-MozillaFirebird-0.7/bin/MozillaFirebird
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lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... svn -> /nix/store/3829...fb5d-subversion-0.32.1/bin/svn
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...</screen>
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<para>
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Note that, e.g., <filename>svn</filename> =
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<filename>/nix/var/nix/links/current/bin/svn</filename> =
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<filename>/nix/var/nix/links/16/bin/svn</filename> =
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<filename>/nix/store/59ba...df6b-user-environment/bin/svn</filename> =
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<filename>/nix/store/3829...fb5d-subversion-0.32.1/bin/svn</filename>.
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</para>
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<para>
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Naturally, packages can also be uninstalled:
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</para>
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -u pan-0.14.2</screen>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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<!--
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local variables:
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sgml-parent-document: ("book.xml" "chapter")
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end:
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-->
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