ERROR: Unknown options: "store-dir"

[iljah]

Problem

Trying to build nix from source following https://nix.dev/manual/nix/2.26/installation/building-source but getting all kinds of errors from meson, for example ERROR: Unknown options: "store-dir"

Proposal

Give unambiguous installation instructions such as

git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nix
cd nix
meson ?..
??? -Dstore-dir=path

Checklist

• checked [latest Nix manual] ([source])
• checked [open documentation issues and pull requests] for possible duplicates

[allrealmsoflife]

I failed building this from source:

# Start Docker with Ubuntu 24.04
docker run -it --rm ubuntu:24.04 bash

# System preparation
apt update
apt install -y \
  git cmake g++ ninja-build meson pkg-config \
  build-essential bison flex python3-pip \
  libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev liblzma-dev \
  zlib1g-dev libsqlite3-dev libbz2-dev \
  libarchive-dev libsodium-dev libboost-all-dev \
  libedit-dev libperl-dev libdbi-perl libdbd-sqlite3-perl \
  libreadline-dev nlohmann-json3-dev libbrotli-dev \
  libgtest-dev

# Manually build libblake3
cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/BLAKE3-team/BLAKE3.git
cd BLAKE3/c
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local
cmake --build build
cmake --install build

# Manually build toml11
cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/ToruNiina/toml11.git
cd toml11
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local
cmake --build build
cmake --install build

# Build gtest (Ubuntu ships headers only)
cd /usr/src/gtest
cmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON .
make
cp lib/*.so /usr/lib

# Clone Nix source
cd /
git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nix.git
cd nix

# Patch src/libcmd/meson.build to hardcode readline
vim src/libcmd/meson.build
# Replace conditional block with:
# readline = dependency('readline')
# deps_private += readline
# configdata.set('USE_READLINE', 1, description: 'Use readline instead of editline')

# Fix fs.name(this_exe) -> fs.name(this_exe.path())
vim src/nix/meson.build
# Or:
sed -i 's/fs\.name(this_exe)/fs.name(this_exe.path())/g' src/nix/meson.build

# (Optional) Skip test-only subdirs
vim src/meson.build
# Comment out:
# subdir('libutil-tests')
# subdir('libutil-test-support')

# Build steps
rm -rf build
meson setup build --prefix=/nix-test
ninja -C build

# ❌ Final error:
# ../src/libfetchers/git-utils.cc:269:13: error: 'git_mempack_write_thin_pack' was not declared in this scope

I'll try again and search

[RobbieBuxton]

You need to use -Dlibstore:store-dir=path, the docs should probably be updated.