nixos-install 8 NixOS nixos-install install NixOS nixos-install This command installs NixOS in the file system mounted on /mnt, based on the NixOS configuration specified in /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix. It performs the following steps: It copies Nix and its dependencies to /mnt/nix/store. It runs Nix in /mnt to build the NixOS configuration specified in /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix. It installs the GRUB boot loader on the device specified in the option boot.loader.grub.device, and generates a GRUB configuration file that boots into the NixOS configuration just installed. This command is idempotent: if it is interrupted or fails due to a temporary problem (e.g. a network issue), you can safely re-run it. A typical NixOS installation is done by creating and mounting a file system on /mnt, generating a NixOS configuration in /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix, and running nixos-install. For instance, if we want to install NixOS on an ext4 file system created in /dev/sda1: $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 $ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt $ nixos-generate-config --root /mnt $ # edit /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix $ nixos-install