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Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

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Re: Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

#3

Post by jljljl »

Alifatisk wrote: post #2

I am currently using asdf, is there anything Nix does better than asdf?

Two benefits to Nix that I can think of:

1. It has a wider range of packages available vs asdf. Asdf can support runtimes that have an asdf plugin, whereas Nix has over 80,000 packages available in it's registry

2. Nix also handles the dependencies for the packages you want to install. If you runtime requires a compiler, specific libraries, etc, Nix will ensure those are installed.

Of course, Nix can be challenging to get started with. If you want to try Nix but find the language intimidating, you can try something like Devbox first.

Re: Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

#5

Post by breakds »

drunner wrote: post #4

Ok, as a nix noob. I find a given package, say `nixpkgs/3276b62e6639096014652132f4824ac2b4f2a2c4#nodejs` Then what? How do I throw that in a configuration.nix or flake.nix file?

For flake.nix, you add that to the inputs, for example, call it `nixpkgs-old`, and then reference the package of interest with:

`nixpkgs-old.legacyPacakges.linux-x86_64.node`, or something like below

  let pkgs = import nixpkgs-old {
    system = "linux-x86_64";
  } in pkgs.mkShell {
    packages = [ pkgs.node ];
  }

Re: Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

#6

Post by jljljl »

drunner wrote: post #4

Ok, as a nix noob. I find a given package, say `nixpkgs/3276b62e6639096014652132f4824ac2b4f2a2c4#nodejs` Then what? How do I throw that in a configuration.nix or flake.nix file?

A few ways to use it are:

1. Install in your global profile with the CLI:

  nix profile install nixpkgs/3276b62e6639096014652132f4824ac2b4f2a2c4#nodejs
2. In a flake.nix, you can set an input with the nixpkgs commit hash, like:

  inputs = {
    node-nixpkgs.url = "nixpkgs/3276b62e6639096014652132f4824ac2b4f2a2c4";
  };
...and then use nodejs from that `node-nixpkgs` input to get the exact version you wanted

Re: Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

#7

Post by jljljl »

breakds wrote: post #5
drunner wrote: post #4

Ok, as a nix noob. I find a given package, say `nixpkgs/3276b62e6639096014652132f4824ac2b4f2a2c4#nodejs` Then what? How do I throw that in a configuration.nix or flake.nix file?

For flake.nix, you add that to the inputs, for example, call it `nixpkgs-old`, and then reference the package of interest with: `nixpkgs-old.legacyPacakges.linux-x86_64.node`, or something like below let pkgs = import nixpkgs-old { system = "linux-x86_64"; } in pkgs.mkShell { packages = [ pkgs.node ]; }

You can use 2 spaces after a newline to format it:

  let 
     pkgs = import nixpkgs-old { system = "linux-x86_64"; } 
  in 
     pkgs.mkShell { packages = [ pkgs.node ]; }
Combine this with the input statement in the comment below to get a decent flake. You can mix and match multiple inputs if you want to install different versions of packages

Re: Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

#8

Post by lucilleh »

drunner wrote: post #4

Ok, as a nix noob. I find a given package, say `nixpkgs/3276b62e6639096014652132f4824ac2b4f2a2c4#nodejs` Then what? How do I throw that in a configuration.nix or flake.nix file?

If you are unfamiliar with Nix, just install with devbox. That said, you can also do `nix profile install` but then you kinda lose that nice declarative layer that devbox has. Now for some reason if you really want to do advanced customization of nodejs, then make a flake. Overkill for nodejs tho. Rust maybe.

Re: Show HN: Nixhub.io – Find Specific Versions of Nix Packages

#9

Post by jljljl »

Cool bonus feature of Nixhub.io I wanted to share -- Package pages are linkable/bookmarkable!

So if you want to view all the versions available for NodeJS, you can visit https://nixhub.io/packages/nodejs

You can even link to a specific version with an anchor link. For example, you can see NodeJS 19.8.0 at https://nixhub.io/packages/nodejs#19.8.0

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