[Nix-dev] failed to install xserver

[Marc Weber]

Excerpts from Eelco Dolstra's message of Thu Feb 10 16:57:19 +0100 2011:
> Hi,
> > I changed my configuration.nix to this so I can install Xserver.
> > http://imagebin.org/137191
> > But when I do nixos-rebuild switch I see this message : http://imagebin.org/137197

> The file downloads fine here.  Did you try "echo 1 >
> /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory"?

You could try a hacky workaround:
export NIX_MANIFEST_DIR=/does-not-exist

Then retry. This will make nix no longer find the manifests thus rebuild
everything from scratch. It'll take ages . But maybe you can get install
some more and continue downloading later?

Did Eelcos proposal work for you?

More things you could try (which may not be worth the effort):
- go into chroot (what the install script does). If my version of the
  install script is still present you can use those to run a chroot
  shell - then try build some of the packages using plain old nix
  commands.
- create swap file and use it:
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/swap bs=1M count=2000
  mkswap /mnt/swap
  swapon /mnt/swap

Last but not least you can mount the disk using your (suse?) linux
distribution and install everything without virtual machine in a chroot
env. I do no longer know about setting up grub - maybe you should do
this within the virtual machine.

The minimal install archive (only containing glibc, nix tools, curl and
little shell scripts) can be found here:
http://hydra.nixos.org/job/nixos/trunk/minimal_install_archive/

If the scripts (nixos-run-in-chroot.sh and nixso-prepare-install.sh)
are not in PATH you can find them in nixos repo
modules/installer/tools/installer2

Basically they are a refactoring of the main installer separating the
chroot task from the installation task so that you can reuse it.

Installation would look like this:

  run-in-chroot $DEBUG "/nix/store/nixos-bootstrap $DEBUG --install --no-grub"

You have to copy scripts into the correct location if you don't use the
prepare-install script in the "minimal tar archive" way.

This all may sound confusing - but it only shows how powerful easy it is
to use the nix store system and the nix tools to bootstrap a linux :)

Marc Weber