melonloader-installer: init at 4.2.1

[WillemToorenburgh]

Update, Jan 30th 2026

I've rebased this onto the latest master commit, bumped the minor version and dependencies, and checked again to make sure everything still works. I've also revised the title and this description to match.

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Hello! This is my first working attempt at packaging something for Nix(OS) after a few false starts. MelonLoader.Installer seemed like a good choice to try, as their team had just added Linux support as of version 4.1.0.

MelonLoader.Installer is a small utility that lets users easily install their chosen version of MelonLoader into Unity Engine games installed on the user's machine. It is capable of auto-detecting games, and was able to do so successfully on my NixOS installation.

The package is about as simple as it gets: a Dotnet program built with almost all the defaults from the Wiki. I set selfContainedBuild = true as that is what it seemed like the code wanted. I was able to verify that the program works as expected, successfully installing MelonLoader DLLs into Neon White.

As this is a new package, and I developed it on NixOS 25.11, it should be appropriate for backporting, but I'm not sure how to initiate that process just yet.

Output of nix-instantiate --eval -A lib.trivial.oldestSupportedRelease: 2511

Also to note: this software is compatible with macOS, but I didn't add support for that in this package as I have no way to test it.

Things done

• Built on platform(s)
  • x86_64-linux
  • aarch64-linux
  • x86_64-darwin
  • aarch64-darwin
• For non-Linux: Is sandboxing enabled in nix.conf? (See Nix manual)
  • sandbox = relaxed
  • sandbox = true
• Tested, as applicable:
  • NixOS test(s) (look inside nixos/tests)
  • and/or package tests
  • or, for functions and "core" functionality, tests in lib/tests or pkgs/test
  • made sure NixOS tests are linked to the relevant packages
• Tested compilation of all packages that depend on this change using nix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review rev HEAD". Note: all changes have to be committed, also see nixpkgs-review usage
• Tested basic functionality of all binary files (usually in ./result/bin/)
• 25.05 Release Notes (or backporting 24.11 and 25.05 Release notes)
  • (Package updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is major or breaking
  • (Module updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is significant
  • (Module addition) Added a release notes entry if adding a new NixOS module
• Fits CONTRIBUTING.md.

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Add a 👍 reaction to pull requests you find important.

[WillemToorenburgh]

Shoot. I'll see if I can find a reference implementation

[WillemToorenburgh]

Realized users will have a hard time running the program if there's no .desktop file, so I made an attempt at creating one. I was able to verify it works on my local system :)

[wolfgangwalther]

Seems like this is not a backport, so you will need to target the master branch, not release-24.11. You will need to rebase your PR and change the base branch.

[WillemToorenburgh]

Well shoot. Thanks for the guidance, @wolfgangwalther. I've done my best to properly rebase the branch to master

[WillemToorenburgh]

I'm not sure why ofborg labelled with merge conflict... perhaps it got triggered by the force push and ran before I changed the target branch? 🤔

[WillemToorenburgh]

Thanks for removing the conflict label! I confess I'm not sure what's up with the cherry-pick checker or why it has failed, but I can't imagine it would be indicative of a problem with this new PR... Right?

[WillemToorenburgh]

@nyukuru I honestly forgot about this PR! It stalled out with not getting any eyes from reviewers with commit permission, and I wasn't sure how to get it more attention. It'll need to be rebased and I'll have to make sure everything still works, but honestly, I don't see why it wouldn't still work. Is this something you'd find useful?

[nyukuru]

Is this something you'd find useful?

Maybe not directly, but I was looking into packaging melonloader itself now that there seems be support for linux native modding. So in the case that this pr was abandoned I was hoping to offer to take over or otherwise collaborate

[WillemToorenburgh]

@nyukuru your poking my ADHD-having butt on the matter is collaboration, as far as I'm concerned! The PR has been rebased and updated to the latest revision of MelonLoader Installer :D

EDIT: could I trouble you to review the PR? The only other approval I got is from someone who has since deleted their account.

[nyukuru]

nixpkgs-review result

Generated using nixpkgs-review.

Command: nixpkgs-review pr 384656
Commit: dc6697cf2fb31afb21838f5a25ccd389f657f002

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x86_64-linux

✅ 1 package built:

• melonloader-installer

[nyukuru]

Before this is merged I think the auto updating should be patched out, it wouldn't be functional anyway

[WillemToorenburgh]

I'm not against removing the update script, though I'd be interested to know why you're recommending it. Have they fallen out of use/favour?

[nyukuru]

Not the nix update script, the auto updating code of the installer itself (https://github.com/LavaGang/MelonLoader.Installer/blob/4.2.1/MelonLoader.Installer/Updater.cs)

[WillemToorenburgh]

Oh, well spotted! I'm going to try to suss out how that works and how to patch it out. Might stretch goal into a PR for them for a nice solution for turning auto-update off during build time, but first things first.

[WillemToorenburgh]

Patch has been created! I see one of the CI jobs failed, but the failure is suspicious to say the least. I'm having trouble imagining how it could be related to this latest change, and feel inclined to say it's not me?

[WillemToorenburgh]

@nyukuru I think the auto updating has been patched out!

[nyukuru]

looks good!

[WillemToorenburgh]

Thank you! I'm now wondering what I need to do in order to retry the failed CI jobs. I could make a trivial change and push, but that'd get rid of your approval. Would a committer/maintainer be able to re-run them?

[WillemToorenburgh]

Rebased onto master and resolved maintainers-list.nix conflict