2cd7c1f198
This is primarily to ensure that -I nixpkgs=https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable/nixexprs.tar.xz and -I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels/archive/nixos-unstable.tar.gz and -I nixpkgs=https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable/nixexprs.tar.xz behave consistently. It also allows installing packages via "nix-env -iA nixos.<pkg>" rather than "nixos.pkgs.<pkg>". It would be even better to allow "nixpkgs.<pkg>", but that requires a change to nix-channel. Fixes #7659.
64 lines
2.2 KiB
XML
64 lines
2.2 KiB
XML
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
|
|
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
|
|
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
|
|
version="5.0"
|
|
xml:id="sec-ad-hoc-packages">
|
|
|
|
<title>Ad-Hoc Package Management</title>
|
|
|
|
<para>With the command <command>nix-env</command>, you can install and
|
|
uninstall packages from the command line. For instance, to install
|
|
Mozilla Thunderbird:
|
|
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env -iA nixos.thunderbird</screen>
|
|
|
|
If you invoke this as root, the package is installed in the Nix
|
|
profile <filename>/nix/var/nix/profiles/default</filename> and visible
|
|
to all users of the system; otherwise, the package ends up in
|
|
<filename>/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/<replaceable>username</replaceable>/profile</filename>
|
|
and is not visible to other users. The <option>-A</option> flag
|
|
specifies the package by its attribute name; without it, the package
|
|
is installed by matching against its package name
|
|
(e.g. <literal>thunderbird</literal>). The latter is slower because
|
|
it requires matching against all available Nix packages, and is
|
|
ambiguous if there are multiple matching packages.</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Packages come from the NixOS channel. You typically upgrade a
|
|
package by updating to the latest version of the NixOS channel:
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-channel --update nixos
|
|
</screen>
|
|
and then running <literal>nix-env -i</literal> again. Other packages
|
|
in the profile are <emphasis>not</emphasis> affected; this is the
|
|
crucial difference with the declarative style of package management,
|
|
where running <command>nixos-rebuild switch</command> causes all
|
|
packages to be updated to their current versions in the NixOS channel.
|
|
You can however upgrade all packages for which there is a newer
|
|
version by doing:
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env -u '*'
|
|
</screen>
|
|
</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>A package can be uninstalled using the <option>-e</option>
|
|
flag:
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env -e thunderbird
|
|
</screen>
|
|
</para>
|
|
|
|
<para>Finally, you can roll back an undesirable
|
|
<command>nix-env</command> action:
|
|
<screen>
|
|
$ nix-env --rollback
|
|
</screen>
|
|
</para>
|
|
|
|
<para><command>nix-env</command> has many more flags. For details,
|
|
see the
|
|
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>nix-env</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
|
|
manpage or the Nix manual.</para>
|
|
|
|
</section>
|