mirror of
https://github.com/privatevoid-net/nix-super.git
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1589 lines
56 KiB
XML
1589 lines
56 KiB
XML
<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
|
||
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
|
||
xml:id="sec-relnotes">
|
||
|
||
<title>Nix Release Notes</title>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-1.0"><title>Release 1.0 (TBA)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This release has the following improvements:</para>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Nix can now optionally use the Boehm garbage collector.
|
||
This significantly reduces the Nix evaluator’s memory footprint,
|
||
especially when evaluating large NixOS system configurations. It
|
||
can be enabled using the <option>--enable-gc</option> configure
|
||
option.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>The option <option>--timeout</option> (corresponding to the
|
||
configuration setting <literal>build-timeout</literal>) allows you
|
||
to set an absolute timeout on builds — if a build runs for more than
|
||
the given number of seconds, it is terminated. This is useful for
|
||
recovering automatically from builds that are stuck in an infinite
|
||
loop but keep producing output, and for which
|
||
<literal>--max-silent-time</literal> is ineffective.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-0.16"><title>Release 0.16 (August 17, 2010)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This release has the following improvements:</para>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>The Nix expression evaluator is now much faster in most
|
||
cases: typically, <link
|
||
xlink:href="http://www.mail-archive.com/nix-dev@cs.uu.nl/msg04113.html">3
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||
to 8 times compared to the old implementation</link>. It also
|
||
uses less memory. It no longer depends on the ATerm
|
||
library.</para>
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||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
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||
<para>
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||
Support for configurable parallelism inside builders. Build
|
||
scripts have always had the ability to perform multiple build
|
||
actions in parallel (for instance, by running <command>make -j
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||
2</command>), but this was not desirable because the number of
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||
actions to be performed in parallel was not configurable. Nix
|
||
now has an option <option>--cores
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||
<replaceable>N</replaceable></option> as well as a configuration
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||
setting <varname>build-cores =
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||
<replaceable>N</replaceable></varname> that causes the
|
||
environment variable <envar>NIX_BUILD_CORES</envar> to be set to
|
||
<replaceable>N</replaceable> when the builder is invoked. The
|
||
builder can use this at its discretion to perform a parallel
|
||
build, e.g., by calling <command>make -j
|
||
<replaceable>N</replaceable></command>. In Nixpkgs, this can be
|
||
enabled on a per-package basis by setting the derivation
|
||
attribute <varname>enableParallelBuilding</varname> to
|
||
<literal>true</literal>.
|
||
</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para><command>nix-store -q</command> now supports XML output
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||
through the <option>--xml</option> flag.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Several bug fixes.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-0.15"><title>Release 0.15 (March 17, 2010)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This is a bug-fix release. Among other things, it fixes
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||
building on Mac OS X (Snow Leopard), and improves the contents of
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||
<filename>/etc/passwd</filename> and <filename>/etc/group</filename>
|
||
in <literal>chroot</literal> builds.</para>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-0.14"><title>Release 0.14 (February 4, 2010)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This release has the following improvements:</para>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>The garbage collector now starts deleting garbage much
|
||
faster than before. It no longer determines liveness of all paths
|
||
in the store, but does so on demand.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Added a new operation, <command>nix-store --query
|
||
--roots</command>, that shows the garbage collector roots that
|
||
directly or indirectly point to the given store paths.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Removed support for converting Berkeley DB-based Nix
|
||
databases to the new schema.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Removed the <option>--use-atime</option> and
|
||
<option>--max-atime</option> garbage collector options. They were
|
||
not very useful in practice.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>On Windows, Nix now requires Cygwin 1.7.x.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>A few bug fixes.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-0.13"><title>Release 0.13 (November 5,
|
||
2009)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This is primarily a bug fix release. It has some new
|
||
features:</para>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Syntactic sugar for writing nested attribute sets. Instead of
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
{
|
||
foo = {
|
||
bar = 123;
|
||
xyzzy = true;
|
||
};
|
||
a = { b = { c = "d"; }; };
|
||
}
|
||
</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
you can write
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
{
|
||
foo.bar = 123;
|
||
foo.xyzzy = true;
|
||
a.b.c = "d";
|
||
}
|
||
</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
This is useful, for instance, in NixOS configuration files.</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Support for Nix channels generated by Hydra, the Nix-based
|
||
continuous build system. (Hydra generates NAR archives on the
|
||
fly, so the size and hash of these archives isn’t known in
|
||
advance.)</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Support <literal>i686-linux</literal> builds directly on
|
||
<literal>x86_64-linux</literal> Nix installations. This is
|
||
implemented using the <function>personality()</function> syscall,
|
||
which causes <command>uname</command> to return
|
||
<literal>i686</literal> in child processes.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Various improvements to the <literal>chroot</literal>
|
||
support. Building in a <literal>chroot</literal> works quite well
|
||
now.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Nix no longer blocks if it tries to build a path and another
|
||
process is already building the same path. Instead it tries to
|
||
build another buildable path first. This improves
|
||
parallelism.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Support for large (> 4 GiB) files in NAR archives.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Various (performance) improvements to the remote build
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||
mechanism.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>New primops: <varname>builtins.addErrorContext</varname> (to
|
||
add a string to stack traces — useful for debugging),
|
||
<varname>builtins.isBool</varname>,
|
||
<varname>builtins.isString</varname>,
|
||
<varname>builtins.isInt</varname>,
|
||
<varname>builtins.intersectAttrs</varname>.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>OpenSolaris support (Sander van der Burg).</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Stack traces are no longer displayed unless the
|
||
<option>--show-trace</option> option is used.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>The scoping rules for <literal>inherit
|
||
(<replaceable>e</replaceable>) ...</literal> in recursive
|
||
attribute sets have changed. The expression
|
||
<replaceable>e</replaceable> can now refer to the attributes
|
||
defined in the containing set.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-0.12"><title>Release 0.12 (November 20,
|
||
2008)</title>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Nix no longer uses Berkeley DB to store Nix store metadata.
|
||
The principal advantages of the new storage scheme are: it works
|
||
properly over decent implementations of NFS (allowing Nix stores
|
||
to be shared between multiple machines); no recovery is needed
|
||
when a Nix process crashes; no write access is needed for
|
||
read-only operations; no more running out of Berkeley DB locks on
|
||
certain operations.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>You still need to compile Nix with Berkeley DB support if
|
||
you want Nix to automatically convert your old Nix store to the
|
||
new schema. If you don’t need this, you can build Nix with the
|
||
<filename>configure</filename> option
|
||
<option>--disable-old-db-compat</option>.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>After the automatic conversion to the new schema, you can
|
||
delete the old Berkeley DB files:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ cd /nix/var/nix/db
|
||
$ rm __db* log.* derivers references referrers reserved validpaths DB_CONFIG</screen>
|
||
|
||
The new metadata is stored in the directories
|
||
<filename>/nix/var/nix/db/info</filename> and
|
||
<filename>/nix/var/nix/db/referrer</filename>. Though the
|
||
metadata is stored in human-readable plain-text files, they are
|
||
not intended to be human-editable, as Nix is rather strict about
|
||
the format.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>The new storage schema may or may not require less disk
|
||
space than the Berkeley DB environment, mostly depending on the
|
||
cluster size of your file system. With 1 KiB clusters (which
|
||
seems to be the <literal>ext3</literal> default nowadays) it
|
||
usually takes up much less space.</para>
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>There is a new substituter that copies paths
|
||
directly from other (remote) Nix stores mounted somewhere in the
|
||
filesystem. For instance, you can speed up an installation by
|
||
mounting some remote Nix store that already has the packages in
|
||
question via NFS or <literal>sshfs</literal>. The environment
|
||
variable <envar>NIX_OTHER_STORES</envar> specifies the locations of
|
||
the remote Nix directories,
|
||
e.g. <literal>/mnt/remote-fs/nix</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New <command>nix-store</command> operations
|
||
<option>--dump-db</option> and <option>--load-db</option> to dump
|
||
and reload the Nix database.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The garbage collector has a number of new options to
|
||
allow only some of the garbage to be deleted. The option
|
||
<option>--max-freed <replaceable>N</replaceable></option> tells the
|
||
collector to stop after at least <replaceable>N</replaceable> bytes
|
||
have been deleted. The option <option>--max-links
|
||
<replaceable>N</replaceable></option> tells it to stop after the
|
||
link count on <filename>/nix/store</filename> has dropped below
|
||
<replaceable>N</replaceable>. This is useful for very large Nix
|
||
stores on filesystems with a 32000 subdirectories limit (like
|
||
<literal>ext3</literal>). The option <option>--use-atime</option>
|
||
causes store paths to be deleted in order of ascending last access
|
||
time. This allows non-recently used stuff to be deleted. The
|
||
option <option>--max-atime <replaceable>time</replaceable></option>
|
||
specifies an upper limit to the last accessed time of paths that may
|
||
be deleted. For instance,
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store --gc -v --max-atime $(date +%s -d "2 months ago")</screen>
|
||
|
||
deletes everything that hasn’t been accessed in two months.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> now uses optimistic
|
||
profile locking when performing an operation like installing or
|
||
upgrading, instead of setting an exclusive lock on the profile.
|
||
This allows multiple <command>nix-env -i / -u / -e</command>
|
||
operations on the same profile in parallel. If a
|
||
<command>nix-env</command> operation sees at the end that the profile
|
||
was changed in the meantime by another process, it will just
|
||
restart. This is generally cheap because the build results are
|
||
still in the Nix store.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The option <option>--dry-run</option> is now
|
||
supported by <command>nix-store -r</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-build</command>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The information previously shown by
|
||
<option>--dry-run</option> (i.e., which derivations will be built
|
||
and which paths will be substituted) is now always shown by
|
||
<command>nix-env</command>, <command>nix-store -r</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-build</command>. The total download size of
|
||
substitutable paths is now also shown. For instance, a build will
|
||
show something like
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
the following derivations will be built:
|
||
/nix/store/129sbxnk5n466zg6r1qmq1xjv9zymyy7-activate-configuration.sh.drv
|
||
/nix/store/7mzy971rdm8l566ch8hgxaf89x7lr7ik-upstart-jobs.drv
|
||
...
|
||
the following paths will be downloaded/copied (30.02 MiB):
|
||
/nix/store/4m8pvgy2dcjgppf5b4cj5l6wyshjhalj-samba-3.2.4
|
||
/nix/store/7h1kwcj29ip8vk26rhmx6bfjraxp0g4l-libunwind-0.98.6
|
||
...</screen>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Language features:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>@-patterns as in Haskell. For instance, in a
|
||
function definition
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>f = args @ {x, y, z}: <replaceable>...</replaceable>;</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
<varname>args</varname> refers to the argument as a whole, which
|
||
is further pattern-matched against the attribute set pattern
|
||
<literal>{x, y, z}</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>“<literal>...</literal>” (ellipsis) patterns.
|
||
An attribute set pattern can now say <literal>...</literal> at
|
||
the end of the attribute name list to specify that the function
|
||
takes <emphasis>at least</emphasis> the listed attributes, while
|
||
ignoring additional attributes. For instance,
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>{stdenv, fetchurl, fuse, ...}: <replaceable>...</replaceable></programlisting>
|
||
|
||
defines a function that accepts any attribute set that includes
|
||
at least the three listed attributes.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New primops:
|
||
<varname>builtins.parseDrvName</varname> (split a package name
|
||
string like <literal>"nix-0.12pre12876"</literal> into its name
|
||
and version components, e.g. <literal>"nix"</literal> and
|
||
<literal>"0.12pre12876"</literal>),
|
||
<varname>builtins.compareVersions</varname> (compare two version
|
||
strings using the same algorithm that <command>nix-env</command>
|
||
uses), <varname>builtins.length</varname> (efficiently compute
|
||
the length of a list), <varname>builtins.mul</varname> (integer
|
||
multiplication), <varname>builtins.div</varname> (integer
|
||
division).
|
||
<!-- <varname>builtins.genericClosure</varname> -->
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-prefetch-url</command> now supports
|
||
<literal>mirror://</literal> URLs, provided that the environment
|
||
variable <envar>NIXPKGS_ALL</envar> points at a Nixpkgs
|
||
tree.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Removed the commands
|
||
<command>nix-pack-closure</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-unpack-closure</command>. You can do almost the same
|
||
thing but much more efficiently by doing <literal>nix-store --export
|
||
$(nix-store -qR <replaceable>paths</replaceable>) > closure</literal> and
|
||
<literal>nix-store --import <
|
||
closure</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Lots of bug fixes, including a big performance bug in
|
||
the handling of <literal>with</literal>-expressions.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section xml:id="ssec-relnotes-0.11"><title>Release 0.11 (December 31,
|
||
2007)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>Nix 0.11 has many improvements over the previous stable release.
|
||
The most important improvement is secure multi-user support. It also
|
||
features many usability enhancements and language extensions, many of
|
||
them prompted by NixOS, the purely functional Linux distribution based
|
||
on Nix. Here is an (incomplete) list:</para>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Secure multi-user support. A single Nix store can
|
||
now be shared between multiple (possible untrusted) users. This is
|
||
an important feature for NixOS, where it allows non-root users to
|
||
install software. The old setuid method for sharing a store between
|
||
multiple users has been removed. Details for setting up a
|
||
multi-user store can be found in the manual.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The new command <command>nix-copy-closure</command>
|
||
gives you an easy and efficient way to exchange software between
|
||
machines. It copies the missing parts of the closure of a set of
|
||
store path to or from a remote machine via
|
||
<command>ssh</command>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>A new kind of string literal: strings between double
|
||
single-quotes (<literal>''</literal>) have indentation
|
||
“intelligently” removed. This allows large strings (such as shell
|
||
scripts or configuration file fragments in NixOS) to cleanly follow
|
||
the indentation of the surrounding expression. It also requires
|
||
much less escaping, since <literal>''</literal> is less common in
|
||
most languages than <literal>"</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> <option>--set</option>
|
||
modifies the current generation of a profile so that it contains
|
||
exactly the specified derivation, and nothing else. For example,
|
||
<literal>nix-env -p /nix/var/nix/profiles/browser --set
|
||
firefox</literal> lets the profile named
|
||
<filename>browser</filename> contain just Firefox.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> now maintains
|
||
meta-information about installed packages in profiles. The
|
||
meta-information is the contents of the <varname>meta</varname>
|
||
attribute of derivations, such as <varname>description</varname> or
|
||
<varname>homepage</varname>. The command <literal>nix-env -q --xml
|
||
--meta</literal> shows all meta-information.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> now uses the
|
||
<varname>meta.priority</varname> attribute of derivations to resolve
|
||
filename collisions between packages. Lower priority values denote
|
||
a higher priority. For instance, the GCC wrapper package and the
|
||
Binutils package in Nixpkgs both have a file
|
||
<filename>bin/ld</filename>, so previously if you tried to install
|
||
both you would get a collision. Now, on the other hand, the GCC
|
||
wrapper declares a higher priority than Binutils, so the former’s
|
||
<filename>bin/ld</filename> is symlinked in the user
|
||
environment.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env -i / -u</command>: instead of
|
||
breaking package ties by version, break them by priority and version
|
||
number. That is, if there are multiple packages with the same name,
|
||
then pick the package with the highest priority, and only use the
|
||
version if there are multiple packages with the same
|
||
priority.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>This makes it possible to mark specific versions/variant in
|
||
Nixpkgs more or less desirable than others. A typical example would
|
||
be a beta version of some package (e.g.,
|
||
<literal>gcc-4.2.0rc1</literal>) which should not be installed even
|
||
though it is the highest version, except when it is explicitly
|
||
selected (e.g., <literal>nix-env -i
|
||
gcc-4.2.0rc1</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env --set-flag</command> allows meta
|
||
attributes of installed packages to be modified. There are several
|
||
attributes that can be usefully modified, because they affect the
|
||
behaviour of <command>nix-env</command> or the user environment
|
||
build script:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><varname>meta.priority</varname> can be changed
|
||
to resolve filename clashes (see above).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><varname>meta.keep</varname> can be set to
|
||
<literal>true</literal> to prevent the package from being
|
||
upgraded or replaced. Useful if you want to hang on to an older
|
||
version of a package.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><varname>meta.active</varname> can be set to
|
||
<literal>false</literal> to “disable” the package. That is, no
|
||
symlinks will be generated to the files of the package, but it
|
||
remains part of the profile (so it won’t be garbage-collected).
|
||
Set it back to <literal>true</literal> to re-enable the
|
||
package.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env -q</command> now has a flag
|
||
<option>--prebuilt-only</option> (<option>-b</option>) that causes
|
||
<command>nix-env</command> to show only those derivations whose
|
||
output is already in the Nix store or that can be substituted (i.e.,
|
||
downloaded from somewhere). In other words, it shows the packages
|
||
that can be installed “quickly”, i.e., don’t need to be built from
|
||
source. The <option>-b</option> flag is also available in
|
||
<command>nix-env -i</command> and <command>nix-env -u</command> to
|
||
filter out derivations for which no pre-built binary is
|
||
available.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The new option <option>--argstr</option> (in
|
||
<command>nix-env</command>, <command>nix-instantiate</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-build</command>) is like <option>--arg</option>, except
|
||
that the value is a string. For example, <literal>--argstr system
|
||
i686-linux</literal> is equivalent to <literal>--arg system
|
||
\"i686-linux\"</literal> (note that <option>--argstr</option>
|
||
prevents annoying quoting around shell arguments).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-store</command> has a new operation
|
||
<option>--read-log</option> (<option>-l</option>)
|
||
<parameter>paths</parameter> that shows the build log of the given
|
||
paths.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--
|
||
<listitem><para>TODO: semantic cleanups of string concatenation
|
||
etc. (mostly in r6740).</para></listitem>
|
||
-->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now uses Berkeley DB 4.5. The database is
|
||
upgraded automatically, but you should be careful not to use old
|
||
versions of Nix that still use Berkeley DB 4.4.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!-- foo
|
||
<listitem><para>TODO: option <option>- -reregister</option> in
|
||
<command>nix-store - -register-validity</command>.</para></listitem>
|
||
-->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The option <option>--max-silent-time</option>
|
||
(corresponding to the configuration setting
|
||
<literal>build-max-silent-time</literal>) allows you to set a
|
||
timeout on builds — if a build produces no output on
|
||
<literal>stdout</literal> or <literal>stderr</literal> for the given
|
||
number of seconds, it is terminated. This is useful for recovering
|
||
automatically from builds that are stuck in an infinite
|
||
loop.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-channel</command>: each subscribed
|
||
channel is its own attribute in the top-level expression generated
|
||
for the channel. This allows disambiguation (e.g. <literal>nix-env
|
||
-i -A nixpkgs_unstable.firefox</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The substitutes table has been removed from the
|
||
database. This makes operations such as <command>nix-pull</command>
|
||
and <command>nix-channel --update</command> much, much
|
||
faster.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-pull</command> now supports
|
||
bzip2-compressed manifests. This speeds up
|
||
channels.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-prefetch-url</command> now has a
|
||
limited form of caching. This is used by
|
||
<command>nix-channel</command> to prevent unnecessary downloads when
|
||
the channel hasn’t changed.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-prefetch-url</command> now by default
|
||
computes the SHA-256 hash of the file instead of the MD5 hash. In
|
||
calls to <function>fetchurl</function> you should pass the
|
||
<literal>sha256</literal> attribute instead of
|
||
<literal>md5</literal>. You can pass either a hexadecimal or a
|
||
base-32 encoding of the hash.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix can now perform builds in an automatically
|
||
generated “chroot”. This prevents a builder from accessing stuff
|
||
outside of the Nix store, and thus helps ensure purity. This is an
|
||
experimental feature.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The new command <command>nix-store
|
||
--optimise</command> reduces Nix store disk space usage by finding
|
||
identical files in the store and hard-linking them to each other.
|
||
It typically reduces the size of the store by something like
|
||
25-35%.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><filename>~/.nix-defexpr</filename> can now be a
|
||
directory, in which case the Nix expressions in that directory are
|
||
combined into an attribute set, with the file names used as the
|
||
names of the attributes. The command <command>nix-env
|
||
--import</command> (which set the
|
||
<filename>~/.nix-defexpr</filename> symlink) is
|
||
removed.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Derivations can specify the new special attribute
|
||
<varname>allowedReferences</varname> to enforce that the references
|
||
in the output of a derivation are a subset of a declared set of
|
||
paths. For example, if <varname>allowedReferences</varname> is an
|
||
empty list, then the output must not have any references. This is
|
||
used in NixOS to check that generated files such as initial ramdisks
|
||
for booting Linux don’t have any dependencies.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The new attribute
|
||
<varname>exportReferencesGraph</varname> allows builders access to
|
||
the references graph of their inputs. This is used in NixOS for
|
||
tasks such as generating ISO-9660 images that contain a Nix store
|
||
populated with the closure of certain paths.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Fixed-output derivations (like
|
||
<function>fetchurl</function>) can define the attribute
|
||
<varname>impureEnvVars</varname> to allow external environment
|
||
variables to be passed to builders. This is used in Nixpkgs to
|
||
support proxy configuration, among other things.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Several new built-in functions:
|
||
<function>builtins.attrNames</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.filterSource</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.isAttrs</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.isFunction</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.listToAttrs</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.stringLength</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.sub</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.substring</function>,
|
||
<function>throw</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.trace</function>,
|
||
<function>builtins.readFile</function>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.10.1 (October 11, 2006)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This release fixes two somewhat obscure bugs that occur when
|
||
evaluating Nix expressions that are stored inside the Nix store
|
||
(<literal>NIX-67</literal>). These do not affect most users.</para>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.10 (October 6, 2006)</title>
|
||
|
||
<note><para>This version of Nix uses Berkeley DB 4.4 instead of 4.3.
|
||
The database is upgraded automatically, but you should be careful not
|
||
to use old versions of Nix that still use Berkeley DB 4.3. In
|
||
particular, if you use a Nix installed through Nix, you should run
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store --clear-substitutes</screen>
|
||
|
||
first.</para></note>
|
||
|
||
<warning><para>Also, the database schema has changed slighted to fix a
|
||
performance issue (see below). When you run any Nix 0.10 command for
|
||
the first time, the database will be upgraded automatically. This is
|
||
irreversible.</para></warning>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!-- Usability / features -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> usability improvements:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>An option <option>--compare-versions</option>
|
||
(or <option>-c</option>) has been added to <command>nix-env
|
||
--query</command> to allow you to compare installed versions of
|
||
packages to available versions, or vice versa. An easy way to
|
||
see if you are up to date with what’s in your subscribed
|
||
channels is <literal>nix-env -qc \*</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env --query</literal> now takes as
|
||
arguments a list of package names about which to show
|
||
information, just like <option>--install</option>, etc.: for
|
||
example, <literal>nix-env -q gcc</literal>. Note that to show
|
||
all derivations, you need to specify
|
||
<literal>\*</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -i
|
||
<replaceable>pkgname</replaceable></literal> will now install
|
||
the highest available version of
|
||
<replaceable>pkgname</replaceable>, rather than installing all
|
||
available versions (which would probably give collisions)
|
||
(<literal>NIX-31</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env (-i|-u) --dry-run</literal> now
|
||
shows exactly which missing paths will be built or
|
||
substituted.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -qa --description</literal>
|
||
shows human-readable descriptions of packages, provided that
|
||
they have a <literal>meta.description</literal> attribute (which
|
||
most packages in Nixpkgs don’t have yet).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New language features:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Reference scanning (which happens after each
|
||
build) is much faster and takes a constant amount of
|
||
memory.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>String interpolation. Expressions like
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
"--with-freetype2-library=" + freetype + "/lib"</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
can now be written as
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
"--with-freetype2-library=${freetype}/lib"</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
You can write arbitrary expressions within
|
||
<literal>${<replaceable>...</replaceable>}</literal>, not just
|
||
identifiers.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Multi-line string literals.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>String concatenations can now involve
|
||
derivations, as in the example <code>"--with-freetype2-library="
|
||
+ freetype + "/lib"</code>. This was not previously possible
|
||
because we need to register that a derivation that uses such a
|
||
string is dependent on <literal>freetype</literal>. The
|
||
evaluator now properly propagates this information.
|
||
Consequently, the subpath operator (<literal>~</literal>) has
|
||
been deprecated.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Default values of function arguments can now
|
||
refer to other function arguments; that is, all arguments are in
|
||
scope in the default values
|
||
(<literal>NIX-45</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<!--
|
||
<listitem><para>TODO: domain checks (r5895).</para></listitem>
|
||
-->
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Lots of new built-in primitives, such as
|
||
functions for list manipulation and integer arithmetic. See the
|
||
manual for a complete list. All primops are now available in
|
||
the set <varname>builtins</varname>, allowing one to test for
|
||
the availability of primop in a backwards-compatible
|
||
way.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Real let-expressions: <literal>let x = ...;
|
||
... z = ...; in ...</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New commands <command>nix-pack-closure</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-unpack-closure</command> than can be used to easily
|
||
transfer a store path with all its dependencies to another machine.
|
||
Very convenient whenever you have some package on your machine and
|
||
you want to copy it somewhere else.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>XML support:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -q --xml</literal> prints the
|
||
installed or available packages in an XML representation for
|
||
easy processing by other tools.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-instantiate --eval-only
|
||
--xml</literal> prints an XML representation of the resulting
|
||
term. (The new flag <option>--strict</option> forces ‘deep’
|
||
evaluation of the result, i.e., list elements and attributes are
|
||
evaluated recursively.)</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>In Nix expressions, the primop
|
||
<function>builtins.toXML</function> converts a term to an XML
|
||
representation. This is primarily useful for passing structured
|
||
information to builders.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>You can now unambigously specify which derivation to
|
||
build or install in <command>nix-env</command>,
|
||
<command>nix-instantiate</command> and <command>nix-build</command>
|
||
using the <option>--attr</option> / <option>-A</option> flags, which
|
||
takes an attribute name as argument. (Unlike symbolic package names
|
||
such as <literal>subversion-1.4.0</literal>, attribute names in an
|
||
attribute set are unique.) For instance, a quick way to perform a
|
||
test build of a package in Nixpkgs is <literal>nix-build
|
||
pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix -A
|
||
<replaceable>foo</replaceable></literal>. <literal>nix-env -q
|
||
--attr</literal> shows the attribute names corresponding to each
|
||
derivation.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>If the top-level Nix expression used by
|
||
<command>nix-env</command>, <command>nix-instantiate</command> or
|
||
<command>nix-build</command> evaluates to a function whose arguments
|
||
all have default values, the function will be called automatically.
|
||
Also, the new command-line switch <option>--arg
|
||
<replaceable>name</replaceable>
|
||
<replaceable>value</replaceable></option> can be used to specify
|
||
function arguments on the command line.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-install-package --url
|
||
<replaceable>URL</replaceable></literal> allows a package to be
|
||
installed directly from the given URL.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now works behind an HTTP proxy server; just set
|
||
the standard environment variables <envar>http_proxy</envar>,
|
||
<envar>https_proxy</envar>, <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> or
|
||
<envar>all_proxy</envar> appropriately. Functions such as
|
||
<function>fetchurl</function> in Nixpkgs also respect these
|
||
variables.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-build -o
|
||
<replaceable>symlink</replaceable></literal> allows the symlink to
|
||
the build result to be named something other than
|
||
<literal>result</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!-- Stability / performance / etc. -->
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Platform support:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Support for 64-bit platforms, provided a <link
|
||
xlink:href="http://bugzilla.sen.cwi.nl:8080/show_bug.cgi?id=606">suitably
|
||
patched ATerm library</link> is used. Also, files larger than 2
|
||
GiB are now supported.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Added support for Cygwin (Windows,
|
||
<literal>i686-cygwin</literal>), Mac OS X on Intel
|
||
(<literal>i686-darwin</literal>) and Linux on PowerPC
|
||
(<literal>powerpc-linux</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Users of SMP and multicore machines will
|
||
appreciate that the number of builds to be performed in parallel
|
||
can now be specified in the configuration file in the
|
||
<literal>build-max-jobs</literal> setting.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Garbage collector improvements:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Open files (such as running programs) are now
|
||
used as roots of the garbage collector. This prevents programs
|
||
that have been uninstalled from being garbage collected while
|
||
they are still running. The script that detects these
|
||
additional runtime roots
|
||
(<filename>find-runtime-roots.pl</filename>) is inherently
|
||
system-specific, but it should work on Linux and on all
|
||
platforms that have the <command>lsof</command>
|
||
utility.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-store --gc</literal>
|
||
(a.k.a. <command>nix-collect-garbage</command>) prints out the
|
||
number of bytes freed on standard output. <literal>nix-store
|
||
--gc --print-dead</literal> shows how many bytes would be freed
|
||
by an actual garbage collection.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-collect-garbage -d</literal>
|
||
removes all old generations of <emphasis>all</emphasis> profiles
|
||
before calling the actual garbage collector (<literal>nix-store
|
||
--gc</literal>). This is an easy way to get rid of all old
|
||
packages in the Nix store.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-store</command> now has an
|
||
operation <option>--delete</option> to delete specific paths
|
||
from the Nix store. It won’t delete reachable (non-garbage)
|
||
paths unless <option>--ignore-liveness</option> is
|
||
specified.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Berkeley DB 4.4’s process registry feature is used
|
||
to recover from crashed Nix processes.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<!-- <listitem><para>TODO: shared stores.</para></listitem> -->
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>A performance issue has been fixed with the
|
||
<literal>referer</literal> table, which stores the inverse of the
|
||
<literal>references</literal> table (i.e., it tells you what store
|
||
paths refer to a given path). Maintaining this table could take a
|
||
quadratic amount of time, as well as a quadratic amount of Berkeley
|
||
DB log file space (in particular when running the garbage collector)
|
||
(<literal>NIX-23</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now catches the <literal>TERM</literal> and
|
||
<literal>HUP</literal> signals in addition to the
|
||
<literal>INT</literal> signal. So you can now do a <literal>killall
|
||
nix-store</literal> without triggering a database
|
||
recovery.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>bsdiff</command> updated to version
|
||
4.3.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Substantial performance improvements in expression
|
||
evaluation and <literal>nix-env -qa</literal>, all thanks to <link
|
||
xlink:href="http://valgrind.org/">Valgrind</link>. Memory use has
|
||
been reduced by a factor 8 or so. Big speedup by memoisation of
|
||
path hashing.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Lots of bug fixes, notably:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Make sure that the garbage collector can run
|
||
succesfully when the disk is full
|
||
(<literal>NIX-18</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> now locks the profile
|
||
to prevent races between concurrent <command>nix-env</command>
|
||
operations on the same profile
|
||
(<literal>NIX-7</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Removed misleading messages from
|
||
<literal>nix-env -i</literal> (e.g., <literal>installing
|
||
`foo'</literal> followed by <literal>uninstalling
|
||
`foo'</literal>) (<literal>NIX-17</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix source distributions are a lot smaller now since
|
||
we no longer include a full copy of the Berkeley DB source
|
||
distribution (but only the bits we need).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Header files are now installed so that external
|
||
programs can use the Nix libraries.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.9.2 (September 21, 2005)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This bug fix release fixes two problems on Mac OS X:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>If Nix was linked against statically linked versions
|
||
of the ATerm or Berkeley DB library, there would be dynamic link
|
||
errors at runtime.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-pull</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-push</command> intermittently failed due to race
|
||
conditions involving pipes and child processes with error messages
|
||
such as <literal>open2: open(GLOB(0x180b2e4), >&=9) failed: Bad
|
||
file descriptor at /nix/bin/nix-pull line 77</literal> (issue
|
||
<literal>NIX-14</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.9.1 (September 20, 2005)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This bug fix release addresses a problem with the ATerm library
|
||
when the <option>--with-aterm</option> flag in
|
||
<command>configure</command> was <emphasis>not</emphasis> used.</para>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.9 (September 16, 2005)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>NOTE: this version of Nix uses Berkeley DB 4.3 instead of 4.2.
|
||
The database is upgraded automatically, but you should be careful not
|
||
to use old versions of Nix that still use Berkeley DB 4.2. In
|
||
particular, if you use a Nix installed through Nix, you should run
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store --clear-substitutes</screen>
|
||
|
||
first.</para>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Unpacking of patch sequences is much faster now
|
||
since we no longer do redundant unpacking and repacking of
|
||
intermediate paths.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now uses Berkeley DB 4.3.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The <function>derivation</function> primitive is
|
||
lazier. Attributes of dependent derivations can mutually refer to
|
||
each other (as long as there are no data dependencies on the
|
||
<varname>outPath</varname> and <varname>drvPath</varname> attributes
|
||
computed by <function>derivation</function>).</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>For example, the expression <literal>derivation
|
||
attrs</literal> now evaluates to (essentially)
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
attrs // {
|
||
type = "derivation";
|
||
outPath = derivation! attrs;
|
||
drvPath = derivation! attrs;
|
||
}</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
where <function>derivation!</function> is a primop that does the
|
||
actual derivation instantiation (i.e., it does what
|
||
<function>derivation</function> used to do). The advantage is that
|
||
it allows commands such as <command>nix-env -qa</command> and
|
||
<command>nix-env -i</command> to be much faster since they no longer
|
||
need to instantiate all derivations, just the
|
||
<varname>name</varname> attribute.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>Also, it allows derivations to cyclically reference each
|
||
other, for example,
|
||
|
||
<programlisting>
|
||
webServer = derivation {
|
||
...
|
||
hostName = "svn.cs.uu.nl";
|
||
services = [svnService];
|
||
};
|
||
 
|
||
svnService = derivation {
|
||
...
|
||
hostName = webServer.hostName;
|
||
};</programlisting>
|
||
|
||
Previously, this would yield a black hole (infinite recursion).</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-build</command> now defaults to using
|
||
<filename>./default.nix</filename> if no Nix expression is
|
||
specified.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-instantiate</command>, when applied to
|
||
a Nix expression that evaluates to a function, will call the
|
||
function automatically if all its arguments have
|
||
defaults.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix now uses libtool to build dynamic libraries.
|
||
This reduces the size of executables.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>A new list concatenation operator
|
||
<literal>++</literal>. For example, <literal>[1 2 3] ++ [4 5
|
||
6]</literal> evaluates to <literal>[1 2 3 4 5
|
||
6]</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Some currently undocumented primops to support
|
||
low-level build management using Nix (i.e., using Nix as a Make
|
||
replacement). See the commit messages for <literal>r3578</literal>
|
||
and <literal>r3580</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Various bug fixes and performance
|
||
improvements.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.8.1 (April 13, 2005)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>This is a bug fix release.</para>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Patch downloading was broken.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The garbage collector would not delete paths that
|
||
had references from invalid (but substitutable)
|
||
paths.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.8 (April 11, 2005)</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>NOTE: the hashing scheme in Nix 0.8 changed (as detailed below).
|
||
As a result, <command>nix-pull</command> manifests and channels built
|
||
for Nix 0.7 and below will now work anymore. However, the Nix
|
||
expression language has not changed, so you can still build from
|
||
source. Also, existing user environments continue to work. Nix 0.8
|
||
will automatically upgrade the database schema of previous
|
||
installations when it is first run.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>If you get the error message
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
you have an old-style manifest `/nix/var/nix/manifests/[...]'; please
|
||
delete it</screen>
|
||
|
||
you should delete previously downloaded manifests:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ rm /nix/var/nix/manifests/*</screen>
|
||
|
||
If <command>nix-channel</command> gives the error message
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
manifest `http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/channels/[channel]/MANIFEST'
|
||
is too old (i.e., for Nix <= 0.7)</screen>
|
||
|
||
then you should unsubscribe from the offending channel
|
||
(<command>nix-channel --remove
|
||
<replaceable>URL</replaceable></command>; leave out
|
||
<literal>/MANIFEST</literal>), and subscribe to the same URL, with
|
||
<literal>channels</literal> replaced by <literal>channels-v3</literal>
|
||
(e.g., <link
|
||
xlink:href='http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/channels-v3/nixpkgs-unstable'
|
||
/>).</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>Nix 0.8 has the following improvements:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The cryptographic hashes used in store paths are now
|
||
160 bits long, but encoded in base-32 so that they are still only 32
|
||
characters long (e.g.,
|
||
<filename>/nix/store/csw87wag8bqlqk7ipllbwypb14xainap-atk-1.9.0</filename>).
|
||
(This is actually a 160 bit truncation of a SHA-256
|
||
hash.)</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Big cleanups and simplifications of the basic store
|
||
semantics. The notion of “closure store expressions” is gone (and
|
||
so is the notion of “successors”); the file system references of a
|
||
store path are now just stored in the database.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>For instance, given any store path, you can query its closure:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store -qR $(which firefox)
|
||
... lots of paths ...</screen>
|
||
|
||
Also, Nix now remembers for each store path the derivation that
|
||
built it (the “deriver”):
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store -qR $(which firefox)
|
||
/nix/store/4b0jx7vq80l9aqcnkszxhymsf1ffa5jd-firefox-1.0.1.drv</screen>
|
||
|
||
So to see the build-time dependencies, you can do
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store -qR $(nix-store -qd $(which firefox))</screen>
|
||
|
||
or, in a nicer format:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store -q --tree $(nix-store -qd $(which firefox))</screen>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>File system references are also stored in reverse. For
|
||
instance, you can query all paths that directly or indirectly use a
|
||
certain Glibc:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-store -q --referrers-closure \
|
||
/nix/store/8lz9yc6zgmc0vlqmn2ipcpkjlmbi51vv-glibc-2.3.4</screen>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The concept of fixed-output derivations has been
|
||
formalised. Previously, functions such as
|
||
<function>fetchurl</function> in Nixpkgs used a hack (namely,
|
||
explicitly specifying a store path hash) to prevent changes to, say,
|
||
the URL of the file from propagating upwards through the dependency
|
||
graph, causing rebuilds of everything. This can now be done cleanly
|
||
by specifying the <varname>outputHash</varname> and
|
||
<varname>outputHashAlgo</varname> attributes. Nix itself checks
|
||
that the content of the output has the specified hash. (This is
|
||
important for maintaining certain invariants necessary for future
|
||
work on secure shared stores.)</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>One-click installation :-) It is now possible to
|
||
install any top-level component in Nixpkgs directly, through the web
|
||
— see, e.g., <link
|
||
xlink:href='http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nixpkgs-0.8/' />.
|
||
All you have to do is associate
|
||
<filename>/nix/bin/nix-install-package</filename> with the MIME type
|
||
<literal>application/nix-package</literal> (or the extension
|
||
<filename>.nixpkg</filename>), and clicking on a package link will
|
||
cause it to be installed, with all appropriate dependencies. If you
|
||
just want to install some specific application, this is easier than
|
||
subscribing to a channel.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-store -r
|
||
<replaceable>PATHS</replaceable></command> now builds all the
|
||
derivations PATHS in parallel. Previously it did them sequentially
|
||
(though exploiting possible parallelism between subderivations).
|
||
This is nice for build farms.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>nix-channel</command> has new operations
|
||
<option>--list</option> and
|
||
<option>--remove</option>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New ways of installing components into user
|
||
environments:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Copy from another user environment:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-env -i --from-profile .../other-profile firefox</screen>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Install a store derivation directly (bypassing the
|
||
Nix expression language entirely):
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-env -i /nix/store/z58v41v21xd3...-aterm-2.3.1.drv</screen>
|
||
|
||
(This is used to implement <command>nix-install-package</command>,
|
||
which is therefore immune to evolution in the Nix expression
|
||
language.)</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Install an already built store path directly:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-env -i /nix/store/hsyj5pbn0d9i...-aterm-2.3.1</screen>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Install the result of a Nix expression specified
|
||
as a command-line argument:
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-env -f .../i686-linux.nix -i -E 'x: x.firefoxWrapper'</screen>
|
||
|
||
The difference with the normal installation mode is that
|
||
<option>-E</option> does not use the <varname>name</varname>
|
||
attributes of derivations. Therefore, this can be used to
|
||
disambiguate multiple derivations with the same
|
||
name.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist></para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>A hash of the contents of a store path is now stored
|
||
in the database after a succesful build. This allows you to check
|
||
whether store paths have been tampered with: <command>nix-store
|
||
--verify --check-contents</command>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
|
||
<para>Implemented a concurrent garbage collector. It is now
|
||
always safe to run the garbage collector, even if other Nix
|
||
operations are happening simultaneously.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>However, there can still be GC races if you use
|
||
<command>nix-instantiate</command> and <command>nix-store
|
||
--realise</command> directly to build things. To prevent races,
|
||
use the <option>--add-root</option> flag of those commands.</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The garbage collector now finally deletes paths in
|
||
the right order (i.e., topologically sorted under the “references”
|
||
relation), thus making it safe to interrupt the collector without
|
||
risking a store that violates the closure
|
||
invariant.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Likewise, the substitute mechanism now downloads
|
||
files in the right order, thus preserving the closure invariant at
|
||
all times.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>The result of <command>nix-build</command> is now
|
||
registered as a root of the garbage collector. If the
|
||
<filename>./result</filename> link is deleted, the GC root
|
||
disappears automatically.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
|
||
<para>The behaviour of the garbage collector can be changed
|
||
globally by setting options in
|
||
<filename>/nix/etc/nix/nix.conf</filename>.
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>gc-keep-derivations</literal> specifies
|
||
whether deriver links should be followed when searching for live
|
||
paths.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>gc-keep-outputs</literal> specifies
|
||
whether outputs of derivations should be followed when searching
|
||
for live paths.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><literal>env-keep-derivations</literal>
|
||
specifies whether user environments should store the paths of
|
||
derivations when they are added (thus keeping the derivations
|
||
alive).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New <command>nix-env</command> query flags
|
||
<option>--drv-path</option> and
|
||
<option>--out-path</option>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><command>fetchurl</command> allows SHA-1 and SHA-256
|
||
in addition to MD5. Just specify the attribute
|
||
<varname>sha1</varname> or <varname>sha256</varname> instead of
|
||
<varname>md5</varname>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Manual updates.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.7 (January 12, 2005)</title>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Binary patching. When upgrading components using
|
||
pre-built binaries (through nix-pull / nix-channel), Nix can
|
||
automatically download and apply binary patches to already installed
|
||
components instead of full downloads. Patching is “smart”: if there
|
||
is a <emphasis>sequence</emphasis> of patches to an installed
|
||
component, Nix will use it. Patches are currently generated
|
||
automatically between Nixpkgs (pre-)releases.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Simplifications to the substitute
|
||
mechanism.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nix-pull now stores downloaded manifests in
|
||
<filename>/nix/var/nix/manifests</filename>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Metadata on files in the Nix store is canonicalised
|
||
after builds: the last-modified timestamp is set to 0 (00:00:00
|
||
1/1/1970), the mode is set to 0444 or 0555 (readable and possibly
|
||
executable by all; setuid/setgid bits are dropped), and the group is
|
||
set to the default. This ensures that the result of a build and an
|
||
installation through a substitute is the same; and that timestamp
|
||
dependencies are revealed.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.6 (November 14, 2004)</title>
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
<para>Rewrite of the normalisation engine.
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Multiple builds can now be performed in parallel
|
||
(option <option>-j</option>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Distributed builds. Nix can now call a shell
|
||
script to forward builds to Nix installations on remote
|
||
machines, which may or may not be of the same platform
|
||
type.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Option <option>--fallback</option> allows
|
||
recovery from broken substitutes.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Option <option>--keep-going</option> causes
|
||
building of other (unaffected) derivations to continue if one
|
||
failed.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Improvements to the garbage collector (i.e., it
|
||
should actually work now).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Setuid Nix installations allow a Nix store to be
|
||
shared among multiple users.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Substitute registration is much faster
|
||
now.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>A utility <command>nix-build</command> to build a
|
||
Nix expression and create a symlink to the result int the current
|
||
directory; useful for testing Nix derivations.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Manual updates.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
|
||
<para><command>nix-env</command> changes:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Derivations for other platforms are filtered out
|
||
(which can be overriden using
|
||
<option>--system-filter</option>).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><option>--install</option> by default now
|
||
uninstall previous derivations with the same
|
||
name.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para><option>--upgrade</option> allows upgrading to a
|
||
specific version.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New operation
|
||
<option>--delete-generations</option> to remove profile
|
||
generations (necessary for effective garbage
|
||
collection).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Nicer output (sorted,
|
||
columnised).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>More sensible verbosity levels all around (builder
|
||
output is now shown always, unless <option>-Q</option> is
|
||
given).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem>
|
||
|
||
<para>Nix expression language changes:
|
||
|
||
<itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>New language construct: <literal>with
|
||
<replaceable>E1</replaceable>;
|
||
<replaceable>E2</replaceable></literal> brings all attributes
|
||
defined in the attribute set <replaceable>E1</replaceable> in
|
||
scope in <replaceable>E2</replaceable>.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Added a <function>map</function>
|
||
function.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Various new operators (e.g., string
|
||
concatenation).</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</para>
|
||
|
||
</listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Expression evaluation is much
|
||
faster.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>An Emacs mode for editing Nix expressions (with
|
||
syntax highlighting and indentation) has been
|
||
added.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
<listitem><para>Many bug fixes.</para></listitem>
|
||
|
||
</itemizedlist>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<!--==================================================================-->
|
||
|
||
<section><title>Release 0.5 and earlier</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>Please refer to the Subversion commit log messages.</para>
|
||
|
||
</section>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
</article>
|