[kwlug-disc] Help installing Nix packages the Proper Way(tm)

[Paul Nijjar]

On Tue, May 12, 2026 at 10:13:58PM +0000, Scott King via kwlug-disc wrote:
> Nix(OS) is a strange, and almost exclusive system.
> 

> I've installed NixOS on a machine a couple weeks back after a few
> times of trying. Admittedly, I needed some help from the robots to
> get my config behaving how I'd like it. I'm less familiar with Nix
> on Debian, but similar concepts should still apply.

Yes, this is the third kick at the can for me. I tried NixOS as my
daily driver and gave up because I wanted a working system with
unattended upgrades. I used Nix once to install an old version of
firefox (which I have mentioned before on the list) but I just used
nix-env for that, and then I learned that it was the Wrong Way. So
here we go again.

> Hope this helps.

Yes, this is helpful. I realized that one frustration I have is that
established Nix-heads have a sense for what is right and what is
wrong, and as an outsider I don't have that knowledge, but also the
ecosystem has moved so fast that things that were correct before are
not best practices any more. (I still wish the documentation was
better, though.) 

> nix profile is good for using Nix on a system that's not NixOS. The
> way profile stores packages is a la Nix and makes builds
> reproducible. It's still an imperative operation though.

So it sounds as if this is what I want? I do the imperative command
and then Nix somehow creates a config file someplace? Instead of
hand-creating a config file I just get nix profile to do it?

> (If you used home-manager as well, you could edit a local config
> file and populate home.packages = [ ... ]; for new packages and
> rebuild. home-manager is to manage your application config + local
> dotfiles.)

Here's part of my confusion. I am using Debian, and mostly using
Debian packages. I am choosing to use Nix for packages tied to
specific versions, which is (as far as I understand) what Nix is good
at. Do I want to consider home-manager at all in this case?

> My NixOS config is here: https://github.com/kingscott/kingscott.nix.

That is not directly applicable to my situation, but it helps in terms
of syntax. Thanks. 

- Paul