Packaging/Binaries: Difference between revisions

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Downloading a binary on NixOS and trying to run it will almost never work. This is due to hard-coded paths in the executable. Unfortunately almost all unfree and proprietary comes in binary form - the main reason to include binaries is because no source code is available.

This tutorial will guide you through packaging a binary executable.

This tutorial is about how to patch the executable with <code>patchelf</code> which is sufficient for most cases. If no source is available for a program patchelf is the preferred way in nixpkgs to add support for the package.

However sometimes this is not enough, more hardcoded paths may be scattered all over the place. For this you may need to set up an FHSUserEnv, a Linux Standard Base style directory structure with a final <code>chroot</code> call to fixate all paths. For a tutorial on how to use this technique, check out [https://reflexivereflection.com/posts/2015-02-28-deb-installation-nixos.html Anders Papittos blog post on installing debian packages in nixos].

== Using AutoPatchelfHook ==

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== Manual Method ==

This sections describes the manual method of packaging a binary. It serves as a reference on the packaging issue with binaries and how these issues can be solved in nix derivations.

This tutorial is about how to patch the executable with <code>patchelf</code> which is sufficient for most cases. If no source is available for a program patchelf is the preferred way in nixpkgs to add support for the package.

However sometimes this is not enough, more hardcoded paths may be scattered all over the place. For this you may need to set up an FHSUserEnv, a Linux Standard Base style directory structure with a final <code>chroot</code> call to fixate all paths. For a tutorial on how to use this technique, check out [https://reflexivereflection.com/posts/2015-02-28-deb-installation-nixos.html Anders Papittos blog post on installing debian packages in nixos].

=== Starting Point ===

We want to package a tool called "MasterPDFEditor", the package for debian can be found at [http://get.code-industry.net/public/master-pdf-editor-4.3.10_qt5.amd64.deb] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20170914112947/http://get.code-industry.net/public/master-pdf-editor-4.3.10_qt5.amd64.deb archive.org mirror]).

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 Downloading a binary on NixOS and trying to run it will almost never work. This is due to hard-coded paths in the executable. Unfortunately almost all unfree and proprietary comes in binary form - the main reason to include binaries is because no source code is available.
 This tutorial will guide you through packaging a binary executable.
-This tutorial is about how to patch the executable with <code>patchelf</code> which is sufficient for most cases. If no source is available for a program patchelf is the preferred way in nixpkgs to add support for the package.
-However sometimes this is not enough, more hardcoded paths may be scattered all over the place. For this you may need to set up an FHSUserEnv, a Linux Standard Base style directory structure with a final <code>chroot</code> call to fixate all paths. For a tutorial on how to use this technique, check out [https://reflexivereflection.com/posts/2015-02-28-deb-installation-nixos.html Anders Papittos blog post on installing debian packages in nixos].
 == Using AutoPatchelfHook ==
@@ Line 63: / Line 59: @@
 == Manual Method ==
 This sections describes the manual method of packaging a binary. It serves as a reference on the packaging issue with binaries and how these issues can be solved in nix derivations.
+This tutorial is about how to patch the executable with <code>patchelf</code> which is sufficient for most cases. If no source is available for a program patchelf is the preferred way in nixpkgs to add support for the package.
+However sometimes this is not enough, more hardcoded paths may be scattered all over the place. For this you may need to set up an FHSUserEnv, a Linux Standard Base style directory structure with a final <code>chroot</code> call to fixate all paths. For a tutorial on how to use this technique, check out [https://reflexivereflection.com/posts/2015-02-28-deb-installation-nixos.html Anders Papittos blog post on installing debian packages in nixos].
 === Starting Point ===
 We want to package a tool called "MasterPDFEditor", the package for debian can be found at [http://get.code-industry.net/public/master-pdf-editor-4.3.10_qt5.amd64.deb] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20170914112947/http://get.code-industry.net/public/master-pdf-editor-4.3.10_qt5.amd64.deb archive.org mirror]).