The Nix Hour #49

November 1, 2023

Questions can only be asked by voice or chat in the meeting: https://meet.zrh.init7.net/nix-hour.

The Nix Hour is an open beginner-oriented Q&A-style lecture on Nix, where you can bring your questions and we’ll answer them with more context, examples, alternatives, tradeoffs and related topics.

Matrix room for questions, feedback and notifications: https://matrix.to/#/%23nix-hour:matrix.org
Issue tracker for asynchronous questions: https://github.com/tweag/nix-hour/issues
Previous sessions playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyzwHTVJlRc8yjlx4VR4LU5A5O44og9in

For more information and updates, check out https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-hour-a-weekly-nix-qa-lecture-by-tweag/22767

00:00 Intro
00:33 Q: How to contribute
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
01:27 nixpkgs structure:
01:35 lib: non-derivation library functions
02:22 maintainers: data and scripts for maintainers
03:12 pkgs: packages and builders
04:24 doc: nixpkgs manual
https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/
05:05 nixos: implementation of NixOS distro
05:35 nixos/doc/manual: NixOS manual
https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable
07:05 How to create pull requests
07:19 branches in nixpkgs (master, staging, release)
09:20 mass rebuilds (when to target staging)
16:31 example package update
20:52 detailed docs for nixpkgs parts
23:03 Hydra and tests overview
27:48 committing, pushing and creating PR
31:22 rebasing between branches
33:00 continue PR creation
35:59 PR review workflow
39:34 Q: When to use flakes for own library/tool
41:14 Q: How to name packages and handle name clashes
49:10 Q: How do packages refer to each other without infinite recursion
54:54 Q: Composing poetry2nix packages with nixpkgs ones
58:45 poetry2nix is being removed from nixpkgs
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/263308
59:44 Outro