7e5fa5c25c
A small step towards https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/6507 I believe this incomplete definition is one that can be agreed on. It would be nice to define more, but considering that the issue also proposes changes to the design, I believe we should hold off on those. As for the wording, we're dealing with some very general and vague terms, that have to be treated with exactly the right amount of vagueness to be effective. I start out with a fairly abstract definition of package. 1. to establish a baseline so we know what we're talking about 2. so that we can go in and clarify that we have an extra, Nix-specific definition. "Software" is notoriously ill-defined, so it makes a great qualifier for package, which we don't really want to pin down either, because that would just get us lost in discussion. We can come back to this after we've done 6057 and a few years in a desert cave. Then comes the "package attribute set" definition. I can already hear Valentin say "That's not even Nix's responsibility!" and on some days I might even agree. However, in our current reality, we have `nix-env`, `nix-build` and `nix profile`, which query the `outputName` attribute - among others - which just don't exist in the derivation. For those who can't believe what they're reading: $ nix-build --expr 'with import ./. {}; bind // {outputName = "lib";}' --no-out-link this path will be fetched (1.16 MiB download, 3.72 MiB unpacked): /nix/store/rfk6klfx3z972gavxlw6iypnj6j806ma-bind-9.18.21-lib copying path '/nix/store/rfk6klfx3z972gavxlw6iypnj6j806ma-bind-9.18.21-lib' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'... /nix/store/rfk6klfx3z972gavxlw6iypnj6j806ma-bind-9.18.21-lib and let me tell you that bind is not a library. So anyway, that's also proof of why calling this a "derivation attrset" would be wrong, despite the type attribute. |
||
|---|---|---|
| .github | ||
| config | ||
| contrib | ||
| doc | ||
| m4 | ||
| maintainers | ||
| misc | ||
| mk | ||
| perl | ||
| scripts | ||
| src | ||
| tests | ||
| .clang-format | ||
| .dir-locals.el | ||
| .editorconfig | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .version | ||
| boehmgc-coroutine-sp-fallback.diff | ||
| boehmgc-traceable_allocator-public.diff | ||
| configure.ac | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| COPYING | ||
| default.nix | ||
| docker.nix | ||
| flake.lock | ||
| flake.nix | ||
| local.mk | ||
| Makefile | ||
| Makefile.config.in | ||
| package.nix | ||
| precompiled-headers.h | ||
| README.md | ||
| shell.nix | ||
Nix
Nix is a powerful package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. Please refer to the Nix manual for more details.
Installation and first steps
Visit nix.dev for installation instructions and beginner tutorials.
Full reference documentation can be found in the Nix manual.
Building And Developing
See our Hacking guide in our manual for instruction on how to set up a development environment and build Nix from source.
Contributing
Check the contributing guide if you want to get involved with developing Nix.
Additional Resources
License
Nix is released under the LGPL v2.1.