118 lines
3.4 KiB
XML
118 lines
3.4 KiB
XML
<chapter><title>Quick Start</title>
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<para>This chapter is for impatient people who don't like reading
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documentation. For more in-depth information you are kindly referred
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to the following chapters.</para>
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<orderedlist>
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<listitem><para>Download a source tarball or RPM from <ulink
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url='http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/ST/Trace/Nix'/>. Build source
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distributions using the regular sequence:
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<screen>
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$ tar xvfj nix-<replaceable>version</replaceable>.tar.bz2
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$ ./configure
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$ make
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$ make install <lineannotation>(as root)</lineannotation></screen>
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This will install Nix in <filename>/nix</filename>. You shouldn't
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change the prefix if at all possible since that will make it
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impossible to use our pre-built components. Alternatively, you could
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grab an RPM if you're on an RPM-based system. You should also add
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<filename>/nix/etc/profile.d/nix.sh</filename> to your
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<filename>~/.bashrc</filename> (or some other login
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file).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Subscribe to the Nix Packages channel.
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<screen>
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$ nix-channel --add http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/channels/nixpkgs-unstable</screen>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Download the latest Nix expressions available in the channel.
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<screen>
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$ nix-channel --update</screen>
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Note that this in itself doesn't download any components, it just
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downloads the Nix expressions that build them and stores them
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somewhere (under <filename>~/.nix-defexpr</filename>, in case you're
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curious). Also, it registers the fact that pre-built binaries are
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available remotely.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>See what installable components are currently
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available in the channel:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -qa
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docbook-xml-4.2
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firefox-1.0pre-PR-0.10.1
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hello-2.1.1
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libxslt-1.1.0
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<replaceable>...</replaceable></screen>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Install some components from the channel:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -i hello firefox <replaceable>...</replaceable> </screen>
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This should download the pre-built components; it should not build
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them locally (if it does, something went wrong).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Test that they work:
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<screen>
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$ which hello
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/home/eelco/.nix-profile/bin/hello
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$ hello
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Hello, world!
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$ firefox
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<lineannotation>(read Slashdot or something)</lineannotation></screen>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Uninstall a package:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -e hello</screen>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>To keep up-to-date with the channel, do:
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<screen>
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$ nix-channel --update
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$ nix-env -u '*'</screen>
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The latter command will upgrade each installed component for which
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there is a <quote>newer</quote> version (as determined by comparing
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the version numbers).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>If you're unhappy with the result of a
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<command>nix-env</command> action (e.g., an upgraded component turned
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out not to work properly), you can go back:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env --rollback</screen>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>You should periodically run the Nix garbage collector
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to get rid of unused packages, since uninstalls or upgrades don't
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actually delete them:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env --delete-generations old
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$ nix-collect-garbage</screen>
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The first command deletes old <quote>generations</quote> of your
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profile (making rollbacks impossible, but also making the components
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in those old generations available for garbage collection), while the
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second command actually deletes them.</para></listitem>
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</orderedlist>
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</chapter>
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