Note: like 'nix run', and unlike 'nix-shell', this takes an argv
vector rather than a shell command. So
nix dev-shell -c 'echo $PATH'
doesn't work. Instead you need to do
nix dev-shell -c bash -c 'echo $PATH'
This copies a flake and all its inputs recursively to a store (e.g. a
binary cache). This is intended to enable long-term reproducibility
for flakes. However this will also require #3253.
Example:
$ nix flake archive --json --to file:///tmp/my-cache nixops
{"path":"/nix/store/272igzkgl1gdzmabsjvb2kb2zqbphb3p-source","inputs":{"nixops-aws":{"path":"/nix/store/ybcykw13gr7iq1pzg18iyibbcv8k9q1v-source","inputs":{}},"nixops-hetzner":{"path":"/nix/store/6yn0205x3nz55w8ms3335p2841javz2d-source","inputs":{}},"nixpkgs":{"path":"/nix/store/li3lkr2ajrzphqqz3jj2avndnyd3i5lc-source","inputs":{}}}}
$ ll /tmp/my-cache
total 16
-rw-r--r-- 1 eelco users 403 Jan 30 01:01 272igzkgl1gdzmabsjvb2kb2zqbphb3p.narinfo
-rw-r--r-- 1 eelco users 403 Jan 30 01:01 6yn0205x3nz55w8ms3335p2841javz2d.narinfo
-rw-r--r-- 1 eelco users 408 Jan 30 01:01 li3lkr2ajrzphqqz3jj2avndnyd3i5lc.narinfo
drwxr-xr-x 2 eelco users 6 Jan 30 01:01 nar
-rw-r--r-- 1 eelco users 21 Jan 30 01:01 nix-cache-info
-rw-r--r-- 1 eelco users 404 Jan 30 01:01 ybcykw13gr7iq1pzg18iyibbcv8k9q1v.narinfo
Fixes#3336.
Typical usage:
$ nix flake update ~/Misc/eelco-configurations/hagbard --update-input nixpkgs
to update the 'nixpkgs' input of a flake while leaving every other
input unchanged.
The argument is an input path, so you can do e.g. '--update-input
dwarffs/nixpkgs' to update an input of an input.
Fixes#2928.
Added a flag --no-update-lock-file to barf if the lock file needs any
changes. This is useful for CI systems if you're building a
checkout. Fixes#2947.
Renamed --no-save-lock-file to --no-write-lock-file. It is now a fatal
error if the lock file needs changes but --no-write-lock-file is not
given.
E.g.
$ nix flake update ~/Misc/eelco-configurations/hagbard \
--override-input 'dwarffs/nixpkgs' ../my-nixpkgs
overrides the 'nixpkgs' input of the 'dwarffs' input of the top-level
flake.
Fixes#2837.
Most functions now take a StorePath argument rather than a Path (which
is just an alias for std::string). The StorePath constructor ensures
that the path is syntactically correct (i.e. it looks like
<store-dir>/<base32-hash>-<name>). Similarly, functions like
buildPaths() now take a StorePathWithOutputs, rather than abusing Path
by adding a '!<outputs>' suffix.
Note that the StorePath type is implemented in Rust. This involves
some hackery to allow Rust values to be used directly in C++, via a
helper type whose destructor calls the Rust type's drop()
function. The main issue is the dynamic nature of C++ move semantics:
after we have moved a Rust value, we should not call the drop function
on the original value. So when we move a value, we set the original
value to bitwise zero, and the destructor only calls drop() if the
value is not bitwise zero. This should be sufficient for most types.
Also lots of minor cleanups to the C++ API to make it more modern
(e.g. using std::optional and std::string_view in some places).
This replaces the '(...)' installable syntax, which is not very
discoverable. The downside is that you can't have multiple expressions
or mix expressions and other installables.
This doesn't work anymore since `packages` was removed from the
`nixpkgs`-fork with flake support[1], now it's only possible to refer to
pkgs via `legacyPackages`.
[1] 49c9b71e4c
The intent of the code was that if the window size cannot be determined,
it would be treated as having the maximum possible size. Because of a
missing assignment, it was actually treated as having a width of 0.
The reason the width could not be determined was because it was obtained
from stdout, not stderr, even though the printing was done to stderr.
This commit addresses both issues.
Add missing docstring on InstallableCommand. Also, some of these were wrapped
when they're right next to a line longer than the unwrapped line, so we can just
unwrap them to save vertical space.
This allows to have a repl-centric workflow to working on nixpkgs.
Usage:
:edit <package> - heuristic that find the package file path
:edit <path> - just open the editor on the file path
Once invoked, `nix repl` will open $EDITOR on that file path. Once the
editor exits, `nix repl` will automatically reload itself.
This adds a command 'nix make-content-addressable' that rewrites the
specified store paths into content-addressable paths. The advantage of
such paths is that 1) they can be imported without signatures; 2) they
can enable deduplication in cases where derivation changes do not
cause output changes (apart from store path hashes).
For example,
$ nix make-content-addressable -r nixpkgs.cowsay
rewrote '/nix/store/g1g31ah55xdia1jdqabv1imf6mcw0nb1-glibc-2.25-49' to '/nix/store/48jfj7bg78a8n4f2nhg269rgw1936vj4-glibc-2.25-49'
...
rewrote '/nix/store/qbi6rzpk0bxjw8lw6azn2mc7ynnn455q-cowsay-3.03+dfsg1-16' to '/nix/store/iq6g2x4q62xp7y7493bibx0qn5w7xz67-cowsay-3.03+dfsg1-16'
We can then copy the resulting closure to another store without
signatures:
$ nix copy --trusted-public-keys '' ---to ~/my-nix /nix/store/iq6g2x4q62xp7y7493bibx0qn5w7xz67-cowsay-3.03+dfsg1-16
In order to support self-references in content-addressable paths,
these paths are hashed "modulo" self-references, meaning that
self-references are zeroed out during hashing. Somewhat annoyingly,
this means that the NAR hash stored in the Nix database is no longer
necessarily equal to the output of "nix hash-path"; for
content-addressable paths, you need to pass the --modulo flag:
$ nix path-info --json /nix/store/iq6g2x4q62xp7y7493bibx0qn5w7xz67-cowsay-3.03+dfsg1-16 | jq -r .[].narHash
sha256:0ri611gdilz2c9rsibqhsipbfs9vwcqvs811a52i2bnkhv7w9mgw
$ nix hash-path --type sha256 --base32 /nix/store/iq6g2x4q62xp7y7493bibx0qn5w7xz67-cowsay-3.03+dfsg1-16
1ggznh07khq0hz6id09pqws3a8q9pn03ya3c03nwck1kwq8rclzs
$ nix hash-path --type sha256 --base32 /nix/store/iq6g2x4q62xp7y7493bibx0qn5w7xz67-cowsay-3.03+dfsg1-16 --modulo iq6g2x4q62xp7y7493bibx0qn5w7xz67
0ri611gdilz2c9rsibqhsipbfs9vwcqvs811a52i2bnkhv7w9mgw
Experimental features are now opt-in. There is currently one
experimental feature: "nix-command" (which enables the "nix"
command. This will allow us to merge experimental features more
quickly, without committing to supporting them indefinitely.
Typical usage:
$ nix build --experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' nixpkgs#hello
(cherry picked from commit 8e478c2341,
without the "flakes" feature)
Experimental features are now opt-in. There are currently two
experimental features: "nix-command" (which enables the "nix"
command), and "flakes" (which enables support for flakes). This will
allow us to merge experimental features more quickly, without
committing to supporting them indefinitely.
Typical usage:
$ nix build --experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' nixpkgs#hello
A command like
$ nix run nixpkgs#hello
will now build the attribute 'packages.${system}.hello' rather than
'packages.hello'. Note that this does mean that the flake needs to
export an attribute for every system type it supports, and you can't
build on unsupported systems. So 'packages' typically looks like this:
packages = nixpkgs.lib.genAttrs ["x86_64-linux" "i686-linux"] (system: {
hello = ...;
});
The 'checks', 'defaultPackage', 'devShell', 'apps' and 'defaultApp'
outputs similarly are now attrsets that map system types to
derivations/apps. 'nix flake check' checks that the derivations for
all platforms evaluate correctly, but only builds the derivations in
'checks.${system}'.
Fixes#2861. (That issue also talks about access to ~/.config/nixpkgs
and --arg, but I think it's reasonable to say that flakes shouldn't
support those.)
The alternative to attribute selection is to pass the system type as
an argument to the flake's 'outputs' function, e.g. 'outputs = { self,
nixpkgs, system }: ...'. However, that approach would be at odds with
hermetic evaluation and make it impossible to enumerate the packages
provided by a flake.
When running nix doctor on a healthy system, it just prints the store URI and
nothing else. This makes it unclear whether the system is in a good state and
what check(s) it actually ran, since some of the checks are optional depending
on the store type.
This commit updates nix doctor to print an colored log message for every check
that it does, and explicitly state whether that check was a PASS or FAIL to make
it clear to the user whether the system passed its checkup with the doctor.
Fixes#3084
Only variables that were marked as exported are exported in the dev
shell. Also, we no longer try to parse the function section of the env
file, fixing
$ nix dev-shell
error: shell environment '/nix/store/h7ama3kahb8lypf4nvjx34z06g9ncw4h-nixops-1.7pre20190926.4c7acbb-env' has unexpected line '/^[a-z]?"""/ {'
If 'input.<name>.uri' changes, then the entry in the lockfile for
input <name> should be considered stale.
Also print some messages when lock file entries are added/updated.
So you now get
$ nix build
error: path '.' is not a flake (because it does not reference a Git repository)
rather than
$ nix build
error: unsupported argument '.'
Instead of a list, inputs are now an attrset like
inputs = {
nixpkgs.uri = github:NixOS/nixpkgs;
};
If 'uri' is omitted, than the flake is a lookup in the flake registry, e.g.
inputs = {
nixpkgs = {};
};
but in that case, you can also just omit the input altogether and
specify it as an argument to the 'outputs' function, as in
outputs = { self, nixpkgs }: ...
This also gets rid of 'nonFlakeInputs', which are now just a special
kind of input that have a 'flake = false' attribute, e.g.
inputs = {
someRepo = {
uri = github:example/repo;
flake = false;
};
};
Passing `--post-build-hook /foo/bar` to a nix-* command will cause
`/foo/bar` to be executed after each build with the following
environment variables set:
DRV_PATH=/nix/store/drv-that-has-been-built.drv
OUT_PATHS=/nix/store/...build /nix/store/...build-bin /nix/store/...build-dev
This can be useful in particular to upload all the builded artifacts to
the cache (including the ones that don't appear in the runtime closure
of the final derivation or are built because of IFD).
This new feature prints the stderr/stdout output to the `nix-build`
and `nix build` client, and the output is printed in a Nix 2
compatible format:
[nix]$ ./inst/bin/nix-build ./test.nix
these derivations will be built:
/nix/store/ishzj9ni17xq4hgrjvlyjkfvm00b0ch9-my-example-derivation.drv
building '/nix/store/ishzj9ni17xq4hgrjvlyjkfvm00b0ch9-my-example-derivation.drv'...
hello!
bye!
running post-build-hook '/home/grahamc/projects/github.com/NixOS/nix/post-hook.sh'...
post-build-hook: + sleep 1
post-build-hook: + echo 'Signing paths' /nix/store/qr213vjmibrqwnyp5fw678y7whbkqyny-my-example-derivation
post-build-hook: Signing paths /nix/store/qr213vjmibrqwnyp5fw678y7whbkqyny-my-example-derivation
post-build-hook: + sleep 1
post-build-hook: + echo 'Uploading paths' /nix/store/qr213vjmibrqwnyp5fw678y7whbkqyny-my-example-derivation
post-build-hook: Uploading paths /nix/store/qr213vjmibrqwnyp5fw678y7whbkqyny-my-example-derivation
post-build-hook: + sleep 1
post-build-hook: + printf 'very important stuff'
/nix/store/qr213vjmibrqwnyp5fw678y7whbkqyny-my-example-derivation
[nix-shell:~/projects/github.com/NixOS/nix]$ ./inst/bin/nix build -L -f ./test.nix
my-example-derivation> hello!
my-example-derivation> bye!
my-example-derivation (post)> + sleep 1
my-example-derivation (post)> + echo 'Signing paths' /nix/store/c263gzj2kb2609mz8wrbmh53l14wzmfs-my-example-derivation
my-example-derivation (post)> Signing paths /nix/store/c263gzj2kb2609mz8wrbmh53l14wzmfs-my-example-derivation
my-example-derivation (post)> + sleep 1
my-example-derivation (post)> + echo 'Uploading paths' /nix/store/c263gzj2kb2609mz8wrbmh53l14wzmfs-my-example-derivation
my-example-derivation (post)> Uploading paths /nix/store/c263gzj2kb2609mz8wrbmh53l14wzmfs-my-example-derivation
my-example-derivation (post)> + sleep 1
my-example-derivation (post)> + printf 'very important stuff'
[1 built, 0.0 MiB DL]
Co-authored-by: Graham Christensen <graham@grahamc.com>
Co-authored-by: Eelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>
This ensures that stdenv / setup hooks take $IN_NIX_SHELL into
account. For example, stdenv only sets
NIX_SSL_CERT_FILE=/no-cert-file.crt if we're not in a shell.
Some kernels disable "unpriveleged user namespaces". This is
unfortunate, but we can still use mount namespaces. Anyway, since each
builder has its own nixbld user, we already have most of the benefits
of user namespaces.
This replaces 'nix-env --set'. For example:
$ nix build --profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/system \
~/Misc/eelco-configurations:nixosConfigurations.vyr.config.system.build.toplevel
updates the NixOS system profile from a flake.
This could have been a separate command (e.g. 'nix set-profile') but
1) '--profile' is pretty similar to '--out-link'; and 2) '--profile'
could be useful for other command (like 'nix dev-shell').
Our use of boost::coroutine2 depends on -lboost_context,
which in turn depends on `-lboost_thread`, which in turn depends
on `-lboost_system`.
I suspect that this builds on nix only because of low-level hacks
like NIX_LDFLAGS.
This commit passes the proper linker flags, thus fixing bootstrap
builds on non-nix distributions like Ubuntu 16.04.
With these changes, I can build Nix on Ubuntu 16.04 using:
./bootstrap.sh
./configure --prefix=$HOME/editline-prefix \
--disable-doc-gen \
CXX=g++-7 \
--with-boost=$HOME/boost-prefix \
EDITLINE_CFLAGS=-I$HOME/editline-prefix/include \
EDITLINE_LIBS=-leditline \
LDFLAGS=-L$HOME/editline-prefix/lib
make
where
* g++-7 comes from gcc-7 from
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-toolchain-r/+archive/ubuntu/test,
* editline 1.14 from https://github.com/troglobit/editline/releases/tag/1.14.0
was installed into `$HOME/editline-prefix`
(because Ubuntu 16.04's `editline` is too old to have the function nix uses),
* boost 1.66 from
https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_66_0/more/getting_started/unix-variants.html
was installed into $HOME/boost-prefix (because Ubuntu 16.04 only has 1.58)
'updateCV.notify_one()' does nothing if the update thread is not
waiting for updateCV (in particular this happens when it is sleeping
on quitCV). So also set a variable to ensure that the update isn't
lost.
This exploits the hermetic nature of flake evaluation to speed up
repeated evaluations of a flake output attribute.
For example (doing 'nix build' on an already present package):
$ time nix build nixpkgs:firefox
real 0m1.497s
user 0m1.160s
sys 0m0.139s
$ time nix build nixpkgs:firefox
real 0m0.052s
user 0m0.038s
sys 0m0.007s
The cache is ~/.cache/nix/eval-cache-v1.sqlite, which has entries like
INSERT INTO Attributes VALUES(
X'92a907d4efe933af2a46959b082cdff176aa5bfeb47a98fabd234809a67ab195',
'packages.firefox',
1,
'/nix/store/pbalzf8x19hckr8cwdv62rd6g0lqgc38-firefox-67.0.drv /nix/store/g6q0gx0v6xvdnizp8lrcw7c4gdkzana0-firefox-67.0 out');
where the hash 92a9... is a fingerprint over the flake store path and
the contents of the lockfile. Because flakes are evaluated in pure
mode, this uniquely identifies the evaluation result.
As long as the flake input is locked, it is now only fetched when it
is evaluated (e.g. "nixpkgs" is fetched when
"inputs.nixpkgs.<something>" is evaluated).
This required adding an "id" attribute to the members of "inputs" in
lockfiles, e.g.
"inputs": {
"nixpkgs/release-19.03": {
"id": "nixpkgs",
"inputs": {},
"narHash": "sha256-eYtxncIMFVmOHaHBtTdPGcs/AnJqKqA6tHCm0UmPYQU=",
"nonFlakeInputs": {},
"uri": "github:edolstra/nixpkgs/e9d5882bb861dc48f8d46960e7c820efdbe8f9c1"
}
}
because the flake ID needs to be known beforehand to construct the
"inputs" attrset.
Fixes#2913.
This is like 'nix run', except that the command to execute is defined
in a flake output, e.g.
defaultApp = {
type = "app";
program = "${packages.blender_2_80}/bin/blender";
};
Thus you can do
$ nix app blender-bin
to start Blender from the 'blender-bin' flake.
In the future, we can extend this with sandboxing. (For example we
would want to be able to specify that Blender should not have network
access by default and should only have access to certain paths in the
user's home directory.)
This is primarily useful for version string generation, where we need
a monotonically increasing number. The revcount is the preferred thing
to use, but isn't available for GitHub flakes (since it requires
fetching the entire history). The last commit timestamp OTOH can be
extracted from GitHub tarballs.
This ensures that flakes don't get garbage-collected, which is
important to get nix-channel-like behaviour.
For example, running
$ nix build hydra:
will create a GC root
~/.cache/nix/flake-closures/hydra -> /nix/store/xarfiqcwa4w8r4qpz1a769xxs8c3phgn-flake-closure
where the contents/references of the linked file in the store are the
flake source trees used by the 'hydra' flake:
/nix/store/n6d5f5lkpfjbmkyby0nlg8y1wbkmbc7i-source
/nix/store/vbkg4zy1qd29fnhflsv9k2j9jnbqd5m2-source
/nix/store/z46xni7d47s5wk694359mq9ay353ar94-source
Note that this in itself is not enough to allow offline use; the
fetcher for the flakeref (e.g. fetchGit or downloadCached) must not
fail if it cannot fetch the latest version of the file, so long as it
knows a cached version.
Issue #2868.
This causes 'nix' to print build log output to stderr rather than
showing the last log line in the progress bar. Log lines are prefixed
by the name of the derivation (minus the version string), e.g.
binutils> make[1]: Leaving directory '/build/binutils-2.31.1'
binutils-wrapper> unpacking sources
binutils-wrapper> patching sources
...
binutils-wrapper> Using dynamic linker: '/nix/store/kr51dlsj9v5cr4n8700jliyz8v5b2q7q-bootstrap-stage0-glibc/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2'
bootstrap-stage2-gcc-wrapper> unpacking sources
...
linux-headers> unpacking sources
linux-headers> unpacking source archive /nix/store/8javli69jhj3bkql2c35gsj5vl91p382-linux-4.19.16.tar.xz
Sometimes, "expected" can be "0", but in fact means "unknown".
This is for example the case when downloading a file while the http
server doesn't send the `Content-Length` header, like when running `nix
build` pointing to a nixpkgs checkout streamed from GitHub:
⇒ nix build -f https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz hello
[1.8/0.0 MiB DL] downloading 'https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz'
In that case, don't show that weird progress bar, but only the (slowly
increasing) downloaded size ("done").
⇒ nix build -f https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz hello
[1.8 MiB DL] downloading 'https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz'
This commit also updates fmt calls with three numbers (when something is
currently 'running' too) - I'm not sure if this can be provoked, but
showing "0" as expected doesn't make any sense, as we're obviously doing
more than nothing.
Thus
$ nix dev-shell
will now build the 'provides.devShell' attribute from the flake in the
current directory. If it doesn't exist, it falls back to
'provides.defaultPackage'.
'nix dev-shell' is intended to replace nix-shell. It supports flakes,
e.g.
$ nix dev-shell nixpkgs:hello
starts a bash shell providing an environment for building 'hello'.
Like Lorri (and unlike nix-shell), it computes the build environment
by building a modified top-level derivation that writes the
environment after running $stdenv/setup to $out and exits. This
provides some caching, so it's faster than nix-shell in some cases
(especially for packages with lots of dependencies, where the setup
script takes a long time).
There also is a command 'nix print-dev-env' that prints out shell code
for setting up the build environment in an existing shell, e.g.
$ . <(nix print-dev-env nixpkgs:hello)
https://github.com/tweag/nix/issues/21
Example:
$ nix flake info dwarffs
ID: dwarffs
URI: github:edolstra/dwarffs/a83d182fe3fe528ed6366a5cec3458bcb1a5f6e1
Description: A filesystem that fetches DWARF debug info from the Internet on demand
Revision: a83d182fe3fe528ed6366a5cec3458bcb1a5f6e1
Path: /nix/store/grgd14kxxk8q4n503j87mpz48gcqpqw7-source
This ensures that the lock file is updated *before* evaluating it, and
that it gets updated for any nix command, not just 'nix build'.
Also, while computing the lock file, allow arbitrary registry lookups,
not just at top-level.
Also, improve some error messages slightly.
Also allow "." as an installable to refer to the flake in the current
directory. E.g.
$ nix build .
will build 'provides.defaultPackage' in the flake in the current
directory.
The general syntax for an installable is now
<flakeref>:<attrpath>. The attrpath is relative to the flake's
'provides.packages' or 'provides' if the former doesn't yield a
result. E.g.
$ nix build nixpkgs:hello
is equivalent to
$ nix build nixpkgs:packages.hello
Also, '<flakeref>:' can be omitted, in which case it defaults to
'nixpkgs', e.g.
$ nix build hello
This allows using an arbitrary "provides" attribute from the specified
flake. For example:
nix build --flake nixpkgs packages.hello
(Maybe provides.packages should be used for consistency...)
We want to encourage a brave new world of hermetic evaluation for
source-level reproducibility, so flakes should not poke around in the
filesystem outside of their explicit dependencies.
Note that the default installation source remains impure in that it
can refer to mutable flakes, so "nix build nixpkgs.hello" still works
(and fetches the latest nixpkgs, unless it has been pinned by the
user).
A problem with pure evaluation is that builtins.currentSystem is
unavailable. For the moment, I've hard-coded "x86_64-linux" in the
nixpkgs flake. Eventually, "system" should be a flake function
argument.
This reverts commit a0ef21262f. This
doesn't work in 'nix run' and nix-shell because setns() fails in
multithreaded programs, and Boehm GC mark threads are uncancellable.
Fixes#2646.
SRI hashes (https://www.w3.org/TR/SRI/) combine the hash algorithm and
a base-64 hash. This allows more concise and standard hash
specifications. For example, instead of
import <nix/fetchurl.nl> {
url = https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-2.1.3/nix-2.1.3.tar.xz;
sha256 = "5d22dad058d5c800d65a115f919da22938c50dd6ba98c5e3a183172d149840a4";
};
you can write
import <nix/fetchurl.nl> {
url = https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-2.1.3/nix-2.1.3.tar.xz;
hash = "sha256-XSLa0FjVyADWWhFfkZ2iKTjFDda6mMXjoYMXLRSYQKQ=";
};
In fixed-output derivations, the outputHashAlgo is no longer mandatory
if outputHash specifies the hash (either as an SRI or in the old
"<type>:<hash>" format).
'nix hash-{file,path}' now print hashes in SRI format by default. I
also reverted them to use SHA-256 by default because that's what we're
using most of the time in Nixpkgs.
Suggested by @zimbatm.
The goal is to support libeditline AND libreadline and let the user
decide at compile time which one to use.
Add a compile time option to use libreadline instead of
libeditline. If compiled against libreadline completion functionality
is lost because of a incompatibility between libeditlines and
libreadlines completion function. Completion with libreadline is
possible and can be added later.
To use libreadline instead of libeditline the environment
variables 'EDITLINE_LIBS' and 'EDITLINE_CFLAGS' have to been set
during the ./configure step.
Example:
EDITLINE_LIBS="/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libhistory.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libreadline.so"
EDITLINE_CFLAGS="-DREADLINE"
The reason for this change is that for example on Debian already three
different editline libraries exist but none of those is compatible the
flavor used by nix. My hope is that with this change it would be
easier to port nix to systems that have already libreadline available.
