NixOS · toraritte · Feb 22, 2023
@@ -1,10 +1,17 @@
 # Table of Contents
 
 - [Introduction](introduction.md)
-- [Quick Start](quick-start.md)
+  - [Quick Start](quick-start.md)
+  - [Contributing](contributing/contributing.md)
+    - [Hacking](contributing/hacking.md)
+    - [CLI guideline](contributing/cli-guideline.md)
+    - [Contributing to these docs](contributing/to-docs.md)
 - [Installation](installation/installation.md)
   - [Supported Platforms](installation/supported-platforms.md)
   - [Installing a Binary Distribution](installation/installing-binary.md)
+    - [Using the official install script](installation/via-install-script.md)
+    - [Install a specific Nix version](installation/specific-nix-version.md)
+    - [Installing from a binary tarball](installation/from-tarball.md)
   - [Installing Nix from Source](installation/installing-source.md)
     - [Prerequisites](installation/prerequisites-source.md)
     - [Obtaining a Source Distribution](installation/obtaining-source.md)
@@ -15,6 +22,7 @@
     - [Multi-User Mode](installation/multi-user.md)
   - [Environment Variables](installation/env-variables.md)
   - [Upgrading Nix](installation/upgrading.md)
+- [Uninstallation](uninstallation/uninstallation.md)
 - [Package Management](package-management/package-management.md)
   - [Basic Package Management](package-management/basic-package-mgmt.md)
   - [Profiles](package-management/profiles.md)
@@ -49,6 +57,7 @@
     - [nix-shell](command-ref/nix-shell.md)
     - [nix-store](command-ref/nix-store.md)
   - [Utilities](command-ref/utilities.md)
+    - [install script](command-ref/nix-install.md)
     - [nix-channel](command-ref/nix-channel.md)
     - [nix-collect-garbage](command-ref/nix-collect-garbage.md)
     - [nix-copy-closure](command-ref/nix-copy-closure.md)
@@ -62,9 +71,6 @@
     - [nix.conf](command-ref/conf-file.md)
 - [Architecture](architecture/architecture.md)
 - [Glossary](glossary.md)
-- [Contributing](contributing/contributing.md)
-  - [Hacking](contributing/hacking.md)
-  - [CLI guideline](contributing/cli-guideline.md)
 - [Release Notes](release-notes/release-notes.md)
   - [Release X.Y (202?-??-??)](release-notes/rl-next.md)
   - [Release 2.13 (2023-01-17)](release-notes/rl-2.13.md)

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+# Name
+
+`install` - The Nix installer
+
+# Synopsis
+
+`install` {`--daemon` | `--no-daemon` | `--yes` | `--no-channel-add` | `--no-modify-profile` | `-daemon-user-count` [*number*] | `--nix-extra-conf-file` | `--tarball-url-prefix` [???] }
+
+# Description
+
+> PR_COMMENT This description is sloppy by choice; don't want to spend too much time on it if this page is rejected.
+
+1. **`nix-install.sh`** (fictitious name!)
+
+   The shell script at https://nixos.org/nix/install (let's call it **`nix-install.sh`**) is built from [`scripts/install.in`](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/924ef6761bbbc75fda3cf85dc1c8d782130291b4/scripts/install.in).
+
+   It provides the following options:
+
+   + `--tarball-url-prefix`
+
+     From a comment: `Use this command-line option to fetch the tarballs using nar-serve or Cachix`
+
+     > PR_COMMENT no clue how to use this
+
+2. **[`scripts/install-nix-from-closure.sh`][2]**
+
+   `nix-install.sh` will download the latest Nix release, unpack the tarball, and it seems that `install-nix-from-closure.sh` will be called at one point. It provides the following options:
+
+    + `--daemon`
+
+      Installs and configures a background daemon that manages the store, providing multi-user support and better isolation for local builds. Both for security and reproducibility, this method is recommended if supported on your platform.
+
+      See https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/installation/installing-binary.html#multi-user-installation
+
+    + `--no-daemon`
+
+      Simple, single-user installation that does not require root and is trivial to uninstall. (default)
+
+    + `--yes`
+
+      Run the script non-interactively, accepting all prompts.
+
+    + `--no-channel-add`
+
+      Don't add any channels. `nixpkgs-unstable` is installed by default.
+
+    + `--no-modify-profile`
+
+      Don't modify the user profile to automatically load nix.
+
+    + `--daemon-user-count`
+
+      Number of build users to create. Defaults to 32, if this option is not provided.
+
+    + `--nix-extra-conf-file`
+
+      Path to nix.conf to prepend when installing `/etc/nix/nix.conf`
+
+> PR_COMMENT Things to note here:
+> + The install script is **not** provided by Nix (the application) but by the Nix project as a convencience to deploy Nix application (hence it will never show up in the Nix commands; the reason why I put this under Utilities.)
+> + It is used indirectly most of the time via `curl`, `wget`, etc.
+> + Building the Nix project repo will yield an install script that **can** be used directly. (TODO: Expand the "Build from source" sections)
+> + Some aspects of the install script cannot be modified using options / flags, but only by editing the its source (as noted at several places in the Installation section). Corollary: Document that it is a two-stage process.
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+> PR_COMMENT Notes:
+> + Untracked files won't go into build results (at least, they don't seem to do so for me; changed but uncommitted files are ok.)
+> + A [discourse thread]() on how to build the docs from the repo; this is how I do it:
+>   ```
+>   nix build -vv .#nix^doc --extra-experimental-features nix-command --extra-experimental-features flakes
+>   ```
+>   It takes about 2m 40s, not sure what I'm doing wrong...
+> + It should be noted that these docs use mdBook - and document where to find help because the docs I found wasn't much help... [Their docs](https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/) looks incomplete. E.g., how to link to other pages? I constantly get "link errors" when I do the same format that is used on the `command-ref` pages.
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# Installing from a binary tarball
+
+> PR_COMMENT TODO Add reference to the documentation of the install script.
+
+You can also download a binary tarball that contains Nix and all its
+dependencies. (This is what the install script at
+<https://nixos.org/nix/install> does automatically.) You should unpack
+it somewhere (e.g. in `/tmp`), and then run the script named `install`
+inside the binary tarball:
+
+```console
+$ cd /tmp
+$ tar xfj nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2
+$ cd nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin
+$ ./install
+```
+
+If you need to edit the multi-user installation script to use different
+group ID or a different user ID range, modify the variables set in the
+file named `install-multi-user`.