[Nix-dev] Nix 0.7 released

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

I'm pleased to announce the availability of a new stable release of the
Nix Deployment System.  Release 0.7 can be found at

    http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/nix-0.7/

Here is a list of the major changes relative to release 0.6:

* Binary patching.  When upgrading components using pre-built binaries
   (through nix-pull / nix-channel), Nix can automatically download and
   apply binary patches to already installed components instead of full
   downloads.  Patching is "smart": if there is a *sequence* of patches
   to an installed component, Nix will use it.  Patches are currently
   generated automatically between Nixpkgs (pre-)releases.

* Simplifications to the substitute mechanism.

* Nix-pull now stores downloaded manifests in /nix/var/nix/manifests.

* Metadata on files in the Nix store is canonicalised after builds:
   the last-modified timestamp is set to 0 (00:00:00 1/1/1970), the
   mode is set to 0444 or 0555 (readable and possibly executable by
   all; setuid/setgid bits are dropped), and the group is set to the
   default.  This ensures that the result of a build and an
   installation through a substitute is the same; and that timestamp
   dependencies are revealed.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | http://www.cs.uu.nl/~eelco