[Nix-dev] How can we make import-from-derivation more useful?

[Ericson, John]

Shea's changes sound good, and I once wrote up a plan for making
`--dry-run` play nicer with this https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/666 .
That said, I rather just start using import-from-derivation in nixpkgs
immediately, and let the fallout be more motivation to improve nix. IMO,
anybody using the eval-everything portions of nix-env is a masochist
anyways :).

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 8:12 AM, Shea Levy <shea at shealevy.com> wrote:

> https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/31 may be relevant.
>
> On 2015-12-28 11:10, Daniel Peebles wrote:
> > A few days ago, I proposed importing from a derivation [1] to save us
> > from having to manually manage autogenerated firefox/thunderbird
> > fixed-output derivaiton hash files and junk up the nixpkgs repository
> > with them. In response, Vladimír Čunát pointed out that nix-env would
> > currently force a download at evaluation time as a result of that
> > change, and that's undesirable.
> >
> > I see it as inevitable that we'll have to start importing from
> > derivations to make external package ecosystems more manageable.
> > Currently, haskellPackages is already eating up a large chunk of the
> > overall repository size, and as we start adopting similar automated
> > processes to manage other ecosystems, I see no way to keep the repo
> > size manageable. It also feels like a bit of an abuse of a VCS to be
> > putting autogenerated files in it, as we do today. Especially when
> > nix
> > is generally so good at doing that sort of thing for us.
> >
> > It seems like the main obstacle standing in the way of this pattern
> > is nix-env, given its habit (also unsustainable) of forcing the
> > evaluation of a large chunk of the packages expression. People have
> > expressed a desire to deprecate that sort of functionality, but I
> > don't know what sort of timeline such a change could be made on, so
> > I'm looking for ways to make it more manageable in the meantime.
> >
> > Does anyone have ideas on how to improve this? Or am I wrong about
> > things getting out of control if we don't? Are there other options?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Dan
> >
> >
> >
> > Links:
> > ------
> > [1]
> > https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/11319#issuecomment-167144900
> >
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