Hi, Lluís Batlle i Rossell <[email protected]> writes:
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 03:32:04PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote: >> Hi Lluís! >> >> Lluís Batlle i Rossell <[email protected]> writes: >> >> > I have the idea that NixOS expressions usually don't need a compiler, but >> > NixOS >> > relies on the nixpkgs expressions that need a compiler. >> >> Which are “the nixpkgs expressions that need a compiler” you’re >> referring to? >> In theory, if everything you need is available pre-compiled, you don’t >> need a compiler. Am I overlooking cases where this isn’t true? > > Do you think that hydra builds every nixpkgs package you may need? It builds a > lot, but not all (1st point). That’s not a big issue IMO, because you can always get the missing packages built by Hydra. > Additionally, it is a heavy operation for a computer to evaluate the current > nixpkgs (2nd point). That’s indeed a problem. I think a solution would be to have a Nix compiler instead of/in addition to the current interpreter, but of course we’re far from there. > Having those nixpkgs pointing mostly to fetchurl derivations instead of usual > stdenv mkDerivations, it makes additionally a fence against building natively > or > cross-building those packages (3rd point). You mean that NixOS/Nixpkgs could be “compiled” to some sort of a big Nix expression that just does ‘fetchurl’ calls to fetch the pre-compiled binaries? It’s a form of compilation, but it’s also a hack. ;-) > Then you could have x86_64 hydra cross-building for mipsel, and > evaluate a nixos in that mipsel (instead of evaluating a cross-nixos - > whose expression still does not exist - in x86_64), this nixos taking > the packages from hydra (so being able to type nixos-rebuild in your > embedded). I see, good point. Being able to build a cross-NixOS would be nice too, though it would still be inconvenient because you wouldn’t be able to nixos-rebuild natively. Thanks, Ludo’. _______________________________________________ nix-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.cs.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
