[Nix-dev] Announcing free-nix: the free Linux distribution based on the Nix package manager

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

On 26/06/12 18:58, Bryce L Nordgren wrote:

> Seen from this perspective, the "nixpkgs/nixos" repositories are rather
> monolithic: You'd have to manually assemble a complete Nix expression in a
> directory on your system, composed of "some" free-nix expressions and "some"
> NixOS expressions. Then you'd have to manually merge in changes as time goes on.

No, it's perfectly possible to have Nix packages or NixOS modules outside and
built on top of those trees.  For instance, you can write a Nix expression in an
external tree that does

  with import <nixpkgs> { };

  stdenv.mkDerivation {
    name = "my-package-0.1";
    buildInputs = [ bla ];
    ...
  }

And NixOS is inherently modular thanks to Nicolas Pierron's work.  A NixOS
configuration can import modules from anywhere.

I use both of these aspects all the time to define stuff outside of the
Nixpkgs/NixOS trees.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | LogicBlox, Inc. | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/