Nix ecosystem

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Revision as of 10:20, 2 April 2024 by Gdforj (talk | contribs) (→‎Services: avoid double negation to improve clarity)

The Nix Ecosystem is a collection of technologies designed to reproducibly build and declaratively configure and manage packages and systems as well as their dependencies. It achieves this by translating the functional paradigm from the program to the system domain by utilizing a dynamic, functional and lazy DSL called the Nix Language for specifying reproducible builds.

Software

Core Components of the Nix Ecosystem
Component Manual Description Use License
Nix Nix Manual A package manager that parses Nix expressions specifying reproducible build, putting the result in a store address with a hash of the dependency tree, sidestepping dependency hell and supporting multiversion installs and rollbacks. Reproducible builds & package management in Linux & Darwin LGPL-2.1
NixOS NixOS Manual A Linux distribution with all components built by Nix, and thus supporting reproducible and declarative system-wide configuration management as well as atomic upgrades and rollbacks. Declaratively configure desktops, servers & clusters MIT
Nixpkgs Nixpkgs Manual The largest community maintained Nix package and NixOS module repository; standard releases of NixOS are hosted here. Share Nix packages & NixOS modules MIT
Hydra Hydra Manual A Nix based continuous build system. CI build farms GPL-3.0

In addition there are many other applications developed by the Nix community, utilizing and supporting these core technologies.

File:Nixos-stack2.png

Services

None of the services are required to use Nix. None of these services are affiliated with the NixOS Foundation.

Cachix
binary caches as a service. Free for public caches, subscription for private token-protected caches.
Hercules CI
simplify your CI setup with stateless build agents. Free for open source, per-user subscription for private repositories.
nixbuild.net
remote Nix builders as a service for x86_64 and AArch64. Pay-per-use.