#1059667 nix-bin: Fail to install pkgs from nixpkgs-unstable

Package:
nix-bin
Source:
nix-bin
Description:
Purely functional package manager (binaries)
Submitter:
Michael Gebetsroither
Date:
2024-01-11 15:15:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1059667#5
Date:
2023-12-29 21:13:37 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

It seems some pkgs from channel nixpkgs-unstable can not be installed
anymore with this older version of nix-daemon.

eg.
    % nix-env -iA nixpkgs.carla
    installing 'carla-2.5.7'
    error: this derivation has bad 'meta.outputsToInstall'

works with current version of nix-daemon (2.19.2)

For problems like that, wouldn't it be a nice idea to get the current
nix-daemon from nix itself?
Protect it with a manually created out of store gc link and use that in
the nix-daemon systemd-unit?

For that to work, it would be nice if you could not directly depend on
nix-bin from nix-setup-systemd, but only recommend, to later get rid of
it without equivs.

greets,
gebi
#1059667#10
Date:
2024-01-11 15:11:42 UTC
From:
To:
I've installed nix in my user environment and an override to the nix-daemon systemd config.

/etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.service.d/override.conf

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=@/home/thk/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon nix-daemon --daemon

This is not elegant at all, but works. Eventually I want to move to NixOS anyways, so elegance on a Debian system is not my first priority.