Nix-installers for legacy (imperative) distributions

Getting Nix onto legacy distributions can be difficult and the official installer is not always a viable option, especially when considering reproducibility and automation.

This approach is different from others in that we:

Package using distribution-native packaging formats (deb/rpm). And use these packages to manage systemd and environment integrations.
Create a /nix/store imperatively as a postinstall hook. This uses a prepopulated Nix store embedded inside the distribution-native packaging format.
Properly cleans up after uninstallation. We use package manager hooks to cleanly remove any traces of Nix post removal.

To achieve a reproducible setup for these distributions that doesn't rely on pulling files from the internet at install-time.

These installer packages are intended to be used in a one-shot fashion to bootstrap the Nix installation, and then let Nix deal with managing itself from that point on.

Usage

Prebuilt installers

We provide prebuilt installers at https://nix-community.github.io/nix-installers/

Flakes

# Remote flake
$ nix build github:nix-community/nix-installers#deb
$ nix build github:nix-community/nix-installers#pacman
$ nix build github:nix-community/nix-installers#rpm

# In a cloned repository
$ nix build .#deb
$ nix build .#pacman
$ nix build .#rpm

Classic Nix

# In a cloned repository
$ nix-build ./. -A deb
$ nix-build ./. -A pacman
$ nix-build ./. -A rpm

Contributing