nix-gh/doc/manual/installation/installing-binary.xml
Manav Rathi eec5409a69 installation: allow profile modification to be skipped (#1072)
The current behaviour modifies the first writeable file from amongst
.bash_profile, .bash_login and .profile.  So .bash_profile (if it is
writable) would be modified even if a user has already sourced nix.sh
in, say, .profile.

This commit introduces a new environment variable,
NIX_INSTALLER_NO_MODIFY_PROFILE.  If this is set during installation,
then the modifications are unconditionally skipped.

This is useful for users who have a manually curated set of dotfiles
that they are porting to a new machine. In such scenarios, nix.sh is
already sourced at a place where the user prefers.  Without this
change, the nix installer would insist on modifying .bash_profile if
it exists.

This commit also add documentations for both the current behaviour and
the new override.
2016-11-03 18:02:29 +01:00

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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="ch-installing-binary">
<title>Installing a Binary Distribution</title>
<para>If you are using Linux or Mac OS X, the easiest way to install
Nix is to run the following command:
<screen>
$ bash &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install)
</screen>
This will perform a single-user installation of Nix, meaning that
<filename>/nix</filename> is owned by the invoking user. You should
run this under your usual user account, <emphasis>not</emphasis> as
root. The script will invoke <command>sudo</command> to create
<filename>/nix</filename> if it doesnt already exist. If you dont
have <command>sudo</command>, you should manually create
<command>/nix</command> first as root, e.g.:
<screen>
$ mkdir /nix
$ chown alice /nix
</screen>
The install script will modify the first writable file from amongst
<filename>.bash_profile</filename>, <filename>.bash_login</filename>
and <filename>.profile</filename> to source
<filename>~/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh</filename>. You can set
the <command>NIX_INSTALLER_NO_MODIFY_PROFILE</command> environment
variable before executing the install script to disable this
behaviour.
</para>
<!--
<para>You can also manually download and install a binary package.
Binary packages of the latest stable release are available for Fedora,
Debian, Ubuntu, Mac OS X and various other systems from the <link
xlink:href="http://nixos.org/nix/download.html">Nix homepage</link>.
You can also get builds of the latest development release from our
<link
xlink:href="http://hydra.nixos.org/job/nix/master/release/latest-finished#tabs-constituents">continuous
build system</link>.</para>
<para>For Fedora, RPM packages are available. These can be installed
or upgraded using <command>rpm -U</command>. For example,
<screen>
$ rpm -U nix-1.8-1.i386.rpm</screen>
</para>
<para>For Debian and Ubuntu, you can download a Deb package and
install it like this:
<screen>
$ dpkg -i nix_1.8-1_amd64.deb</screen>
</para>
-->
<para>You can also download a binary tarball that contains Nix and all
its dependencies. (This is what the install script at
<uri>https://nixos.org/nix/install</uri> does automatically.) You
should unpack it somewhere (e.g. in <filename>/tmp</filename>), and
then run the script named <command>install</command> inside the binary
tarball:
<screen>
alice$ cd /tmp
alice$ tar xfj nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2
alice$ cd nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin
alice$ ./install
</screen>
</para>
<para>Nix can be uninstalled using <command>rpm -e nix</command> or
<command>dpkg -r nix</command> on RPM- and Dpkg-based systems,
respectively. After this you should manually remove the Nix store and
other auxiliary data, if desired:
<screen>
$ rm -rf /nix</screen>
</para>
<para>You can uninstall Nix simply by running:
<screen>
$ rm -rf /nix
</screen>
</para>
</chapter>