There’s been work to get the Nix functional package manager available on Fedora Linux for those wanting to leverage its available packages or features like supporting side-by-side packages of different versions, atomic upgrades/rollbacks, non-root user for installing software, and other features. One of the hurdles though is that the Nix package manager relies by default on the /nix directory, which goes against Fedora’s default directory requirements. Now though the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has granted permission for using the /nix directory hierarchy.
The past few months there has been a review request pending for the Nix functional package manager on Fedora. But Nix uses the /nix directory by default for its package store, local state, etc. Overriding this default can lead to pre-built binaries for Nix not working.
Thus the matter of Fedora Nix packages needing to use the /nix directory was tossed into the purview of the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee to evaluate. The exception request has been under discussion the past month. Some were initially against this since nine years ago when there was work on Snaps for Fedora, usage of the /snap directory was previously blocked by Fedora.
But now at today’s FESCo meeting (meeting minutes) the exception request for Nix has been granted:
TOPIC:#3473 Exception request for /nix (@humaton:fedora.im, 17:13:47)
AGREED: /nix top-level directory may be used exclusively for Nix runtime and package store. It shall not be part of the filesystem package, but packages are allowed to create it. (+6, 1, -0) (@humaton:fedora.im, 17:27:01)
So that path is now cleared for nice Nix package management support on Fedora once the review request is hopefully all wrapped up and approved.
