[Nix-dev] Bootstrapping NixOS

[Marc Weber]

Excerpts from Shea Levy's message of Sun May 13 17:53:52 +0200 2012:
> I've never used the bootstrapping archive, but unless it does something 
> particularly strange it should work on x86-64 Linux.

For those who don't know what the bootstrapping archive is/was:
Its a 50 to 100MB big file which contains

- a short guide how to use it

- a script setting up chroot

- a minimal nix store containing all tools required to setup the system.
  Thus the nix system, perl, glibc, curl openssl and not much more.

- a modified version of nixos-install (separating the chroot from the
  installing procedure)

Now it looks like this is *my* way to install nixos fast
(requiring minimal tools) - and it looks like people are both:
  - smart enough
  - willing to spend the time
to find their own ways, as in this case
(https://nixos.org/wiki/Install_NixOS_on_Rackspace_Cloud_Servers
repeating url)

Why does requiring my version matter to me?
No additional more uncommon tools such as unsquashfs are required.
Its easy to prepare and upload because its small.

Commonly used chroot things stuff such as

- for fn in dev proc sys; do mount --bind /$fn host/fn; done

- bind mounting the host store (if it exists) so that binaries can be
  reused

are all put into a single script "run-in-chroot" which you can use this
way:

run-in-chroot "/bin/sh"
or
run-in-chroot "nixos-rebuild $OPTS"

etc.

I personally find its very easy to understand what's going on.

I addition to that it knows how to checkout nixos/nixpkgs from git/svn
(depends on your preference) etc.

So yes - everything can be done manually .. but I feel it takes more
time.

Of course fetching an iso is no issue on any server.


Anyway: task solved - so let's close this thread for now.

Marc Weber