[Nix-dev] Re: Multiple packages from one source package

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Armijn Hemel <armijn at uulug.nl> writes:

> Hm. I don't know if I would like to see Nix and NixOS as a "source
> deployment system". The channels with precompiled packages are blazingly
> fast, of course. In Nix it's not about source vs. binary, it's about
> dependencies, derivations, and so on :-)

Sure.  My point is that the "optimization" of binary deployment is
actually two-fold: CPU time savings, as you suggested, *and* storage
savings.  Channels only address the first aspect.

> Yes, if you do have a lot of variants of programs/libs then you can
> count on needing some diskspace. However, the strict dependency system
> can also work in favour by not including any more than you actually
> need. In that case having a system like Nix could actually mean using
> *less* diskspace than other distros.

OTOH, as long as one source package yields exactly one store path
(hence, one "binary"), opportunities for storage savings are lost (see
the Avahi example).

Thanks,
Ludovic.