[Nix-dev] Re: Does nix support pre-fetches?

[Peter Simons]

Hi,

I looked at the nix-{unpack,pack}-closure utilities, but unfortunately
those programs don't do what I need. The problem is that I have to
pre-fetch packages that ought to be installed on machines that have a
variety of architectures. In the network-less zone, there are all kinds
of machines: linux-x86, linux-x86_64, powerpc_macosx, and so on. Now,
with the closure utilities, I could create a nix installation for each
of those architectures and copy that to the respective machines, but
this would mean that I need a machine of each of those architectures
outside of network-less zone. That's not possible, I'm afraid. That is
why Gentoo Linux is appealing: emerge (pre-)fetches sources codes. Those
compile on every architecture.

nix-env offers a switch "--prebuild-only". Does the opposite exist too?

Best regards,
Peter