nix-env beginner problem: can't run on AWS t2.micro EC2 node

[rgeary1]

Most tutorials on nix start with "nix-env -qa". However if you run this on a standard AWS free-tier t2.micro node it runs out of memory and kills the machine.
"unable to fork: Cannot allocate memory"...
When the node dies, it requires a hard reboot.

This type of issue has been reported before (#421 NixOS/nixpkgs#12019) but does not specifically address the issue from the perspective of new Nix users like me.

Is there a hard technical reason why "nix-env -qa" requires more than 500Mb of RAM? Or is it possible to significantly improve the memory consumption?

Maybe it is possible to modify nix-env to detect that you are running low on RAM and terminate itself before it kills the machine?

If "nix-env -qA " is considered the right way to query, why not reach out to tutorial writers?

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[stale]

I closed this issue due to inactivity. → More info

[vimkim]

Still having this problem