Update release notes

This commit is contained in:
Eelco Dolstra 2012-11-09 13:33:24 +01:00
parent e28b683324
commit c31ebc50aa

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<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Nix has a new binary substituter mechanism: the
<emphasis>binary cache</emphasis>. A binary cache contains
pre-built binaries of Nix packages. Whenever Nix wants to build a
missing Nix store path, it will check a set of binary caches to
see if any of them has a pre-built binary of that path. The
configuration setting <option>binary-caches</option> contains a
list of URLs of binary caches. For instance, doing
<screen>
$ nix-env -i thunderbird --option binary-caches http://nixos.org/binary-cache
</screen>
will install Thunderbird and its dependencies, using the available
pre-built binaries in <uri>http://nixos.org/binary-cache</uri>.
The main advantage over the old “manifest”-based method of getting
pre-built binaries is that you dont have to worry about your
manifest being in sync with the Nix expressions youre installing
from; i.e., you dont need to run <command>nix-pull</command> to
update your manifest. Its also more scalable because you dont
need to redownload a giant manifest file every time.
</para>
<para>A Nix channel can provide a binary cache URL that will be
used automatically if you subscribe to that channel. If you use
the Nixpkgs or NixOS channels
(<uri>http://nixos.org/channels</uri>) you automatically get the
cache <uri>http://nixos.org/binary-cache</uri>.</para>
<para>Binary caches are created using <command>nix-push</command>.
For details on the operation and format of binary caches, see the
<command>nix-push</command> manpage. More details are provided in
<link xlink:href="http://lists.science.uu.nl/pipermail/nix-dev/2012-September/009826.html">this
nix-dev posting</link>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Dashes are now valid as part of identifiers and attribute
names.</para>