Following approval of the /nix top-level directory with Fedora Linux, the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has additionally signed off on allowing the Nix package tool to appear in the Fedora 44 repository.
The change proposal to add the Nix functional package manager developer tool to Fedora has been cleared today by FESCo. With Fedora 44, developers wanting to package for Nix can now have an easier time doing so from Fedora.
The change proposal for the Nix package tool feature explains:
“Nix is a cross-platform package manager for Unix-like systems with its own package ecosystem. It is also the package manager for the NixOS Linux operating system. The nix package tool provides access to the nixpkgs ecosystem with over 100,000 packages. Packages and environments can be specified in nix’s declarative functional programming language using so-called derivations. Nix flakes provide a newer way to specify these project development environments.
Nix has two main modes of installation/setup: multi-user mode (with nix-daemon) and single-user mode (below these are abbreviated as “multiuser” and “singleuser” respectively). The Fedora package tries to support both of them, though multiuser mode setup where available is more seamless. It does this by providing nix-daemon and nix-system subpackages which both require nix-filesystem. The /nix toplevel directory is defined with tmpfiles.d and can be a Btrfs subvolume if setup.
Note: for any avoidance of doubt, nix-managed packages will not become part of the Fedora distribution, and no QA or support will be provided for them. This is similar to how e.g. pip can be used to install Python packages from external locations.
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Some developers and upstream projects now prefer or use nix for development and reproducible build environments. Just as we have apt and zypper packaged in Fedora, this change adds a nix package allowing access to its ecosystem from Fedora.With the implementation of this Change, Fedora users will be able to install nix easily on their system and leverage it in development projects that may require nix. They will also be able to easily try out some of the many packages in nixpkgs for testing or experimenting, etc.”
Per the FESCo ticket, the feature is approved for Fedora 44.
