Nix Installation Guide: Difference between revisions

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This guide describes various methods for installing Nix.

This guide describes various '''more advanced''' methods for installing [[Nix]] on an ''existing'' operating system. For installation of [[NixOS]], see [[NixOS Installation Guide]].

Please take a look at https://nixos.org/download.html first for basic installation instructions and read the relevant section in the Nix manual if you want to know more about how the install process works: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/#ch-installing-binary.

== Single-user install ==

To install Nix from any Linux distribution, use the following two commands. (Note: This assumes you have the permission to use <code>sudo</code>, and you are logged in as the user you want to install Nix for.)

=== Stable Nix ===

To install stable Nix from any Linux distribution, use the following two commands. (Note: This assumes you have the permission to use <code>sudo</code>, and you are logged in as the user you want to install Nix for.)

$ sudo install -d -m755 -o $(id -u) -g $(id -g) /nix

$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

</syntaxHighlight>

Then don't forget to reboot or run the command provided at the end of the installation script to make nix available in your system:

$ source $HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh

</syntaxHighlight>

You may want to put this file directly in your ~/.bashrc or similar, so Nix would be available in any newly created shell.

When using another shell like [https://fishshell.com Fish], you should ignore the previous procedure and use the [https://github.com/jorgebucaran/fisher Fisher] plugin [https://github.com/lilyball/nix-env.fish Nix-env].

After that being done, you can use all Nix commands as a normal user without any special permissions (for example by using <code>sudo</code>).

==== Troubleshooting ====

===== User namespaces =====

If the installation fails with the following error:

<pre>

installing 'nix-2.2.2'

error: cloning builder process: Invalid argument

error: unable to start build process

</pre>

it is possible that user namepaces are disabled by your distribution. Since Nix 2.2, the sandbox is

enabled by default on Linux which requires user namespaces.

If possible enable them; the procedure depends on the distribution. In last resort, you can disable the sandbox: create the file <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> and include the line <code>sandbox = false</code>.

=== Unstable Nix ===

To install unstable Nix, you can use the [https://github.com/numtide/nix-unstable-installer unofficial installer by @numtide]. Instructions are available in the README of the repository.

== Nix store on an unusual filesystem ==

=== Case insensitive filesystem on Linux ===

Most Linux filesystems are case sensitive. If your nix store is on a case ~~sensitive~~ filesystem like CIFS on Linux, derivation outputs cannot contain two files differing only in case in the same directory. Nix can work around this by adding <code>use-case-hack = true</code> to your nix configuration (<code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> for a multi-user-install or <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> otherwise). Unfortunately, this will change the hash of some derivations and thus make the binary cache useless.

Most Linux filesystems are case sensitive. If your nix store is on a case insensitive filesystem like CIFS on Linux, derivation outputs cannot contain two files differing only in case in the same directory. Nix can work around this by adding <code>use-case-hack = true</code> to your nix configuration (<code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> for a multi-user-install or <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> otherwise). Unfortunately, this will change the hash of some derivations and thus make the binary cache useless.

=== NFS ===

~~Without special care, concurrent use of Nix if the nix store is on a NFS filesystem may corrupt Nix's sqlite database.~~

~~To prevent this, add <code>use-sqlite-wal = false</code> to your nix configuration and recompile nix with this patch:~~

~~<syntaxHighlight lang="diff">~~

~~--- a/src/libstore/sqlite.cc~~

~~+++ b/src/libstore/sqlite.cc~~

~~@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ namespace nix {~~

~~SQLite::SQLite(const Path & path)~~

{

~~if (sqlite3_open_v2(path.c_str(), &db,~~

~~- SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE | SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE, 0) != SQLITE_OK)~~

~~+ SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE | SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE, "unix-dotfile") != SQLITE_OK)~~

~~throw Error(format("cannot open SQLite database '%s'") % path);~~

~~}</syntaxHighlight>~~

~~(source: [https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/2357 this issue])~~

Nix ~~is hard to build by hand~~, ~~but you can still use vanilla nix without~~ concurrent use, ~~so you can install nix with a NFS store as follows:~~

With a Nix store residing on an NFS filesystem, concurrent use of Nix may corrupt Nix's sqlite database. To prevent this, set <code>use-sqlite-wal = false</code>. Since [https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/5475 nix/pull/5475 nix/pull/5475] and it's backports to the stable branches, a patch that was previously described in this wiki is no longer needed for using Nix on WSL (Windows' Subsystem for Linux) and NFS filesystems.

* Install nix with the vanilla binary installer

* Create a file <code>~~nfs~~-~~nix.nix~~</code>:

~~<syntaxHighlight lang="nix">~~

~~with import <nixpkgs> {};~~

~~nix~~.~~overrideAttrs (old~~: {

~~patches = (old.patch or []) ++ [~~ ./~~nfs.patch ];~~

~~# if you are in a hurry~~

~~doInstallCheck = false;~~

})

</~~syntaxHighlight>~~

* Run <code>nix~~-env -if .~~/~~nfs-~~nix.nix</~~code>~~

* From then on~~, you can use nix concurrently without risk of corrupting the sqlite database~~.

== Installing without root permissions ==

By using ~~the <code>~~--~~store</code> parameter in~~ nix ~~2.0~~ or [https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot PRoot],

By using [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] or [https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot PRoot], you can use Nix on systems where you have no permission to create the `/nix` directory.

you can use Nix on systems where you have no permission to create the `/nix` directory.

nix-user-chroot is the preferred option. However, it might not run on older Linux kernels, or kernels without user namespace support.

~~<code>~~nix ~~run</code>~~ is the preferred ~~and faster~~ option.

However, it might not run on older Linux kernels, or kernels without user namespace support.

With the following command, you can test whether your system supports user namespaces

for unprivileged users:

Line 82:

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[https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] is the preferred method to install use nix on systems without <code>/nix</code>. It also requires user namespaces to be enabled on the system.

<code>nix-user-chroot</code> will create an environment in which you can bind mount an directory to <code>/nix</code>.

<code>nix-user-chroot</code> will create an environment in which you can bind mount a directory to <code>/nix</code>.

The mountpoint will be only visible within this environment.

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$ mkdir -m 0755 ~/.nix

$ nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash -c 'curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh'

$ nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash -c 'curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh'

</syntaxHighlight>

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==== Obtaining PRoot ====

Precompiled PRoot binaries ~~of an old version~~ can be downloaded from [https://~~github~~.com/proot~~-me~~/proot~~-static-build~~/~~releases~~ here]. Make sure you set the executable bit of binaries you download.

Precompiled PRoot binaries for every commit can be downloaded from [https://gitlab.com/proot/proot/pipelines here] under the job artifacts. Make sure you set the executable bit of binaries you download.

Alternatively, if you have another machine with nix installed, you can build static binaries as follows:

* create a file <code>~~foo~~.nix</code>:

* create a file <code>proot.nix</code>:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

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The executable is to be found in <code>result/bin/proot</code>.

If nix builds within proot fail on the <code>~~renameat2~~</code> ~~system call with something like "rename: unsupported operation", then you can~~ try termux's [https://github.com/termux/proot fork] of PRoot.

If nix builds within proot fail with something like "no such file or directory" while the files referenced do exist, you can set <code>PROOT_NO_SECCOMP=1</code> in your environment or try termux's [https://github.com/termux/proot fork] of PRoot.

==== Installing nix ====

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* In this new shell, Nix can be installed:

$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

</syntaxHighlight>

Note that you can only use Nix and the installed programs within the shell started by PRoot.

==== Troubleshooting ====

PRoot uses ptrace to capture and modify system calls. It happens that new system calls are created which proot does not shim yet. If you run into issues, check if:

* you have the latest proot

* the system calls being used are supported by proot (TODO: how to list and diff with sysnums.list?)

Since ptrace only allows one tracer to attach to a process at a time, you cant strace your process while in proot. One suggestion is to strace your application outside of proot to find what system calls are used. Alternatives may be tracing with bpftrace or trace-cmd/ftrace. (This is not elaborated on here because the author doesn't know how to do it.)

A table of system calls supported by proot-rs, which is not the same as proot, can be found at https://github.com/proot-me/proot-rs/wiki/Translation-of-system-calls .

As of PRoot 5.3.1 and 2022-Oct-24, PRoot doesn't support faccess2, which is invoked in glibc by bash through coreutils test. This makes the `[ -w /nix ]` expression fail incorrectly in the nix installer script. This can be worked around with this patch: https://github.com/proot-me/proot/pull/338 or <code>nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-unstable -p '(proot.overrideAttrs (o: { patches = [ (builtins.fetchurl "https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/proot-me/proot/pull/338.patch" ) ]; }))'</code>

=== nix 2.0's native method ===

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You can make all nix commands use the alternate store by specifying it in `~/.config/nix/nix.conf` as <code>store = /home/USERNAME/my-nix</code>.

== Installing on Debian Using APT ==

If you are using Debian (or a Debian-based distro) you can install Nix with the APT package manager. Some users may prefer using APT when modifying their system. The package named <code>nix-setup-systemd</code> will set up a multi-user Nix installation and run <code>nix-daemon</code> via <code>systemd</code>. To install:

$ sudo apt install nix-setup-systemd

</syntaxHighlight>

After installing, you should read <code>/usr/share/doc/nix-bin/README.Debian</code>. In particular, you will need to add your user to the <code>nix-users</code> group in order to use the daemon:

$ sudo /sbin/adduser $USER nix-users

</syntaxHighlight>

Note that in Debian [https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/nix-setup-systemd Bookworm] <code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> will contain <code>sandbox = false</code>, but in Debian [https://packages.debian.org/trixie/nix-setup-systemd Trixie], sandbox mode is enabled by default. (See the Changelog for details.)

=== Configure user and/or desktop ===

To start installed nix applications from the command line, add the <code>~/.nix-profile/bin</code> to <code>PATH</code>.

To give the Desktop access the nix application data add the <code>~/.nix-profile/share</code> to <code>XDG_DATA_DIRS</code>.

For example include the following snippet in <code>~/.profile</code> of the user:

### set PATH so it includes user's nix bin if it exists

if [ -d "$HOME/.nix-profile/bin" ] ; then

PATH="$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:$PATH"

fi

### set XDG_DATA_DIR so it includes user's nix share if it exists

if [ -d "$HOME/.nix-profile/share" ] ; then

XDG_DATA_DIRS="$HOME/.nix-profile/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS"

fi

</syntaxHighlight>

Used source: https://imranmustafa.net/nix-on-debian/

=== Troubleshooting ===

During the <code>nix-build</code> command following the https://nix.dev/tutorials/nixos/nixos-configuration-on-vm#creating-a-qemu-based-virtual-machine-from-a-nixos-configuration

an error could occur like:

<code>...linux-6.12.39-modules-shrunk/lib' is not in the Nix store</code> whilst the directory is present in the <code>/nix/store/</code> directory.

A possible solution is to upgrade nix and nix-daemon applications because the distributed nix version is older, quite older with Debian [https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/nix-setup-systemd Bookworm], than the current nix version:

1) Define the config at <code>~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix</code>:

with (import <nixpkgs> {});

{

packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {

userPackages = buildEnv {

extraOutputsToInstall = [ "doc" "info" "man" ];

name = "user-packages";

paths = [

nix

];

};

}

</syntaxHighlight>

To upgrade nix:

nix-env --install --attr nixpkgs.userPackages --remove-all

</syntaxHighlight>

Logout and login the user to see the effects.

2) To use the upgraded <code>nix-daemon</code> application from the previous step in the <code>nix-daemon.service</code>, add a drop-in config file <code>override.conf</code> in <code>/etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.service.d/</code>:

[Service]

ExecStart=

ExecStart=@/home/myuser/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon nix-daemon --daemon

</syntaxHighlight>

Restart the <code>nix-daemon.service</code>

Used source: https://blog.koch.ro/posts/2024-01-16-using-nix-package-manager-in-debian.html

== Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) ==

As of Windows 10, Microsoft supports running Linux and Linux programs on the Windows OS. Installation instructions can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10. If you follow those instructions for using WSL2 (post-Windows 10 2004 build 19041), you can install Nix normally as described in [[Nix_Installation_Guide#Single-user_install|Single-user install]]. You can check what version of WSL you are using by running <code>wsl --list --verbose</code> from the Windows command line.

=== WSL1 (pre-Windows 10 2004 build 19041) ===

Running Nix is much simpler on WSL2, so we recommend that if at all possible. If WSL2 is not available, then Nix can be installed and run from WSL1 with a few workarounds.

If you perform no workarounds, you will see that <code>busybox</code> doesn't work in Nix due to WSL1 not handling 32-bit binaries. This can be remedied by following the solution laid out in [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/24954#issuecomment-399614154 nixpkgs issue#24954]:

* Install and configure QEMU and binfmt-support

$ sudo apt install qemu-user-static

$ sudo update-binfmts --install i386 /usr/bin/qemu-i386-static --magic '\x7fELF\x01\x01\x01\x03\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x03\x00\x03\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00' --mask '\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfc\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xf8\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff'

</syntaxHighlight>

* Start the <code>binfmt-support</code> service every WSL1 login:

$ sudo service binfmt-support start

</syntaxHighlight>

* Continue installing Nix as described in [[Nix_Installation_Guide#Single-user_install|Single-user install]]

== ARMv7l ==

Because there is no officially produced ARMv7l installer, this page describes how to build your own: [[Nix_on_ARM]].

[[Category:nix]]

[[Category:Cookbook]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-This guide describes various methods for installing Nix.
+This guide describes various '''more advanced''' methods for installing [[Nix]] on an ''existing'' operating system. For installation of [[NixOS]], see [[NixOS Installation Guide]].
+Please take a look at https://nixos.org/download.html first for basic installation instructions and read the relevant section in the Nix manual if you want to know more about how the install process works: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/#ch-installing-binary.
 == Single-user install ==
-To install Nix from any Linux distribution, use the following two commands. (Note: This assumes you have the permission to use <code>sudo</code>, and you are logged in as the user you want to install Nix for.)
+=== Stable Nix ===
+To install stable Nix from any Linux distribution, use the following two commands. (Note: This assumes you have the permission to use <code>sudo</code>, and you are logged in as the user you want to install Nix for.)
 <syntaxHighlight lang="console">
 $ sudo install -d -m755 -o $(id -u) -g $(id -g) /nix
-$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
+$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
 </syntaxHighlight>
+Then don't forget to reboot or run the command provided at the end of the installation script to make nix available in your system:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+$ source $HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh
+</syntaxHighlight>
+You may want to put this file directly in your ~/.bashrc or similar, so Nix would be available in any newly created shell.
+When using another shell like [https://fishshell.com Fish], you should ignore the previous procedure and use the [https://github.com/jorgebucaran/fisher Fisher] plugin [https://github.com/lilyball/nix-env.fish Nix-env].
 After that being done, you can use all Nix commands as a normal user without any special permissions (for example by using <code>sudo</code>).
+==== Troubleshooting ====
+===== User namespaces =====
+If the installation fails with the following error:
+<pre>
+installing 'nix-2.2.2'
+error: cloning builder process: Invalid argument
+error: unable to start build process
+</pre>
+it is possible that user namepaces are disabled by your distribution. Since Nix 2.2, the sandbox is
+enabled by default on Linux which requires user namespaces.
+If possible enable them; the procedure depends on the distribution. In last resort, you can disable the sandbox: create the file <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> and include the line <code>sandbox = false</code>.
+=== Unstable Nix ===
+To install unstable Nix, you can use the [https://github.com/numtide/nix-unstable-installer unofficial installer by @numtide]. Instructions are available in the README of the repository.
 == Nix store on an unusual filesystem ==
 === Case insensitive filesystem on Linux ===
-Most Linux filesystems are case sensitive. If your nix store is on a case sensitive filesystem like CIFS on Linux, derivation outputs cannot contain two files differing only in case in the same directory. Nix can work around this by adding <code>use-case-hack = true</code> to your nix configuration (<code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> for a multi-user-install or <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> otherwise). Unfortunately, this will change the hash of some derivations and thus make the binary cache useless.
+Most Linux filesystems are case sensitive. If your nix store is on a case insensitive filesystem like CIFS on Linux, derivation outputs cannot contain two files differing only in case in the same directory. Nix can work around this by adding <code>use-case-hack = true</code> to your nix configuration (<code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> for a multi-user-install or <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> otherwise). Unfortunately, this will change the hash of some derivations and thus make the binary cache useless.
 === NFS ===
-Without special care, concurrent use of Nix if the nix store is on a NFS filesystem may corrupt Nix's sqlite database.
-To prevent this, add <code>use-sqlite-wal = false</code> to your nix configuration and recompile nix with this patch:
-<syntaxHighlight lang="diff">
---- a/src/libstore/sqlite.cc
-+++ b/src/libstore/sqlite.cc
-@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ namespace nix {
- SQLite::SQLite(const Path & path)
- {
-     if (sqlite3_open_v2(path.c_str(), &db,
--            SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE | SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE, 0) != SQLITE_OK)
-+            SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE | SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE, "unix-dotfile") != SQLITE_OK)
-         throw Error(format("cannot open SQLite database '%s'") % path);
- }</syntaxHighlight>
-(source: [https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/2357 this issue])
-Nix is hard to build by hand, but you can still use vanilla nix without concurrent use, so you can install nix with a NFS store as follows:
+With a Nix store residing on an NFS filesystem, concurrent use of Nix may corrupt Nix's sqlite database. To prevent this, set <code>use-sqlite-wal = false</code>. Since [https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/5475 nix/pull/5475 nix/pull/5475] and it's backports to the stable branches, a patch that was previously described in this wiki is no longer needed for using Nix on WSL (Windows' Subsystem for Linux) and NFS filesystems.
-* Install nix with the vanilla binary installer
-* Create a file <code>nfs-nix.nix</code>:
-<syntaxHighlight lang="nix">
-with import <nixpkgs> {};
-nix.overrideAttrs (old: {
-patches = (old.patch or []) ++ [ ./nfs.patch ];
-# if you are in a hurry
-doInstallCheck = false;
-})
-</syntaxHighlight>
-* Run <code>nix-env -if ./nfs-nix.nix</code>
-* From then on, you can use nix concurrently without risk of corrupting the sqlite database.
 == Installing without root permissions ==
-By using the <code>--store</code> parameter in nix 2.0  or [https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot PRoot],
+By using [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] or [https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot PRoot], you can use Nix on systems where you have no permission to create the `/nix` directory.
-you can use Nix on systems where you have no permission to create the `/nix` directory.
+nix-user-chroot is the preferred option. However, it might not run on older Linux kernels, or kernels without user namespace support.
-<code>nix run</code> is the preferred and faster option.
-However, it might not run on older Linux kernels, or kernels without user namespace support.
 With the following command, you can test whether your system supports user namespaces
 for unprivileged users:
@@ Line 82: / Line 84: @@
 [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] is the preferred method to install use nix on systems without <code>/nix</code>. It also requires user namespaces to be enabled on the system.
-<code>nix-user-chroot</code> will create an environment in which you can bind mount an directory to <code>/nix</code>.
+<code>nix-user-chroot</code> will create an environment in which you can bind mount a directory to <code>/nix</code>.
 The mountpoint will be only visible within this environment.
@@ Line 92: / Line 94: @@
 <syntaxHighlight lang="console">
 $ mkdir -m 0755 ~/.nix
-$ nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash -c 'curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh'
+$ nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash -c 'curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh'
 </syntaxHighlight>
@@ Line 104: / Line 106: @@
 ==== Obtaining PRoot ====
-Precompiled PRoot binaries of an old version can be downloaded from [https://github.com/proot-me/proot-static-build/releases here].  Make sure you set the executable bit of binaries you download.
+Precompiled PRoot binaries for every commit can be downloaded from [https://gitlab.com/proot/proot/pipelines here] under the job artifacts.  Make sure you set the executable bit of binaries you download.
 Alternatively, if you have another machine with nix installed, you can build static binaries as follows:
-* create a file <code>foo.nix</code>:
+* create a file <code>proot.nix</code>:
 <syntaxHighlight lang="nix">
 with import <nixpkgs> {};
@@ Line 118: / Line 120: @@
 The executable is to be found in <code>result/bin/proot</code>.
-If nix builds within proot fail on the <code>renameat2</code> system call with something like "rename: unsupported operation", then you can try termux's [https://github.com/termux/proot fork] of PRoot.
+If nix builds within proot fail with something like "no such file or directory" while the files referenced do exist, you can set <code>PROOT_NO_SECCOMP=1</code> in your environment or try termux's [https://github.com/termux/proot fork] of PRoot.
 ==== Installing nix ====
@@ Line 139: / Line 141: @@
 * In this new shell, Nix can be installed:
 <syntaxHighlight lang="console">
-$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
+$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
 </syntaxHighlight>
 Note that you can only use Nix and the installed programs within the shell started by PRoot.
+==== Troubleshooting ====
+PRoot uses ptrace to capture and modify system calls. It happens that new system calls are created which proot does not shim yet. If you run into issues, check if:
+* you have the latest proot
+* the system calls being used are supported by proot (TODO: how to list and diff with sysnums.list?)
+Since ptrace only allows one tracer to attach to a process at a time, you cant strace your process while in proot. One suggestion is to strace your application outside of proot to find what system calls are used. Alternatives may be tracing with bpftrace or trace-cmd/ftrace. (This is not elaborated on here because the author doesn't know how to do it.)
+A table of system calls supported by proot-rs, which is not the same as proot, can be found at https://github.com/proot-me/proot-rs/wiki/Translation-of-system-calls .
+As of PRoot 5.3.1 and 2022-Oct-24, PRoot doesn't support faccess2, which is invoked in glibc by bash through coreutils test. This makes the `[ -w /nix ]` expression fail incorrectly in the nix installer script. This can be worked around with this patch: https://github.com/proot-me/proot/pull/338 or <code>nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-unstable -p '(proot.overrideAttrs (o: { patches = [ (builtins.fetchurl "https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/proot-me/proot/pull/338.patch" ) ]; }))'</code>
 === nix 2.0's native method ===
@@ Line 156: / Line 172: @@
 You can make all nix commands use the alternate store by specifying it in `~/.config/nix/nix.conf` as <code>store = /home/USERNAME/my-nix</code>.
+== Installing on Debian Using APT ==
+If you are using Debian (or a Debian-based distro) you can install Nix with the APT package manager. Some users may prefer using APT when modifying their system. The package named <code>nix-setup-systemd</code> will set up a multi-user Nix installation and run <code>nix-daemon</code> via <code>systemd</code>. To install:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+$ sudo apt install nix-setup-systemd
+</syntaxHighlight>
+After installing, you should read <code>/usr/share/doc/nix-bin/README.Debian</code>. In particular, you will need to add your user to the <code>nix-users</code> group in order to use the daemon:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+$ sudo /sbin/adduser $USER nix-users
+</syntaxHighlight>
+Note that in Debian [https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/nix-setup-systemd Bookworm] <code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> will contain <code>sandbox = false</code>, but in Debian [https://packages.debian.org/trixie/nix-setup-systemd Trixie], sandbox mode is enabled by default. (See the Changelog for details.)
+=== Configure user and/or desktop ===
+To start installed nix applications from the command line, add the <code>~/.nix-profile/bin</code> to <code>PATH</code>.
+To give the Desktop access the nix application data add the <code>~/.nix-profile/share</code> to <code>XDG_DATA_DIRS</code>.
+For example include the following snippet in <code>~/.profile</code> of the user:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+### set PATH so it includes user's nix bin if it exists
+if [ -d "$HOME/.nix-profile/bin" ] ; then
+    PATH="$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:$PATH"
+fi
+### set XDG_DATA_DIR so it includes user's nix share if it exists
+if [ -d "$HOME/.nix-profile/share" ] ; then
+    XDG_DATA_DIRS="$HOME/.nix-profile/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS"
+fi
+</syntaxHighlight>
+Used source: https://imranmustafa.net/nix-on-debian/
+=== Troubleshooting ===
+During the <code>nix-build</code> command following the https://nix.dev/tutorials/nixos/nixos-configuration-on-vm#creating-a-qemu-based-virtual-machine-from-a-nixos-configuration
+an error could occur like:
+<code>...linux-6.12.39-modules-shrunk/lib' is not in the Nix store</code> whilst the directory is present in the <code>/nix/store/</code> directory.
+A possible solution is to upgrade nix and nix-daemon applications because the distributed nix version is older, quite older with Debian [https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/nix-setup-systemd Bookworm], than the current nix version:
+) Define the config at <code>~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix</code>:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+with (import <nixpkgs> {});
+{
+  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
+    userPackages = buildEnv {
+      extraOutputsToInstall = [ "doc" "info" "man" ];
+      name = "user-packages";
+      paths = [
+        nix
+      ];
+    };
+  };
+}
+</syntaxHighlight>
+To upgrade nix:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+nix-env --install --attr nixpkgs.userPackages --remove-all
+</syntaxHighlight>
+Logout and login the user to see the effects.
+) To use the upgraded <code>nix-daemon</code> application from the previous step in the <code>nix-daemon.service</code>, add a drop-in config file <code>override.conf</code> in <code>/etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.service.d/</code>:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+[Service]
+ExecStart=
+ExecStart=@/home/myuser/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon nix-daemon --daemon
+</syntaxHighlight>
+Restart the <code>nix-daemon.service</code>
+Used source: https://blog.koch.ro/posts/2024-01-16-using-nix-package-manager-in-debian.html
+== Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) ==
+As of Windows 10, Microsoft supports running Linux and Linux programs on the Windows OS. Installation instructions can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10. If you follow those instructions for using WSL2 (post-Windows 10 2004 build 19041), you can install Nix normally as described in [[Nix_Installation_Guide#Single-user_install|Single-user install]]. You can check what version of WSL you are using by running <code>wsl --list --verbose</code> from the Windows command line.
+=== WSL1 (pre-Windows 10 2004 build 19041) ===
+Running Nix is much simpler on WSL2, so we recommend that if at all possible. If WSL2 is not available, then Nix can be installed and run from WSL1 with a few workarounds.
+If you perform no workarounds, you will see that <code>busybox</code> doesn't work in Nix due to WSL1 not handling 32-bit binaries. This can be remedied by following the solution laid out in [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/24954#issuecomment-399614154 nixpkgs issue#24954]:
+* Install and configure QEMU and binfmt-support
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+$ sudo apt install qemu-user-static
+$ sudo update-binfmts --install i386 /usr/bin/qemu-i386-static --magic '\x7fELF\x01\x01\x01\x03\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x03\x00\x03\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00' --mask '\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfc\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xf8\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff'
+</syntaxHighlight>
+* Start the <code>binfmt-support</code> service every WSL1 login:
+<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
+$ sudo service binfmt-support start
+</syntaxHighlight>
+* Continue installing Nix as described in [[Nix_Installation_Guide#Single-user_install|Single-user install]]
 == ARMv7l ==
 Because there is no officially produced ARMv7l installer, this page describes how to build your own: [[Nix_on_ARM]].
+[[Category:nix]]
+[[Category:Cookbook]]