nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/development/sources.xml

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<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
version="5.0"
xml:id="sec-getting-sources">
<title>Getting the Sources</title>
<para>By default, NixOSs <command>nixos-rebuild</command> command
uses the NixOS and Nixpkgs sources provided by the
<literal>nixos-unstable</literal> channel (kept in
<filename>/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos</filename>).
To modify NixOS, however, you should check out the latest sources from
Git. This is done using the following command:
<screen>
$ nixos-checkout <replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>
</screen>
or
<screen>
$ mkdir -p <replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>
$ cd <replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>
$ nix-env -i git
$ git clone git://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs.git
</screen>
This will check out the latest NixOS sources to
<filename><replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs/nixos</filename>
and the Nixpkgs sources to
<filename><replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs</filename>.
(The NixOS source tree lives in a subdirectory of the Nixpkgs
repository.)</para>
<para>Its often inconvenient to develop directly on the master
branch, since if somebody has just committed (say) a change to GCC,
then the binary cache may not have caught up yet and youll have to
rebuild everything from source. So you may want to create a local
branch based on your current NixOS version:
<screen>
$ <replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs/maintainers/scripts/update-channel-branches.sh
Fetching channels from https://nixos.org/channels:
* [new branch] cbe467e -> channels/remotes/nixos-unstable
Fetching channels from nixos-version:
* [new branch] 9ff4738 -> channels/current-system
Fetching channels from ~/.nix-defexpr:
* [new branch] 0d4acad -> channels/root/nixos
$ git checkout -b local channels/current-system
</screen>
Or, to base your local branch on the latest version available in the
NixOS channel:
<screen>
$ <replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs/maintainers/scripts/update-channel-branches.sh
$ git checkout -b local channels/remotes/nixos-unstable
</screen>
You can then use <command>git rebase</command> to sync your local
branch with the upstream branch, and use <command>git
cherry-pick</command> to copy commits from your local branch to the
upstream branch.</para>
<para>If you want to rebuild your system using your (modified)
sources, you need to tell <command>nixos-rebuild</command> about them
using the <option>-I</option> flag:
<screen>
$ nixos-rebuild switch -I nixpkgs=<replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs
</screen>
</para>
<para>If you want <command>nix-env</command> to use the expressions in
<replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>, use <command>nix-env -f
<replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs</command>, or change
the default by adding a symlink in
<filename>~/.nix-defexpr</filename>:
<screen>
$ ln -s <replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable>/nixpkgs ~/.nix-defexpr/nixpkgs
</screen>
You may want to delete the symlink
<filename>~/.nix-defexpr/channels_root</filename> to prevent roots
NixOS channel from clashing with your own tree.</para>
<!-- FIXME: not sure what this means.
<para>You should not pass the base directory
<filename><replaceable>/my/sources</replaceable></filename>
to <command>nix-env</command>, as it will break after interpreting expressions
in <filename>nixos/</filename> as packages.</para>
-->
</chapter>