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Try Nix with Podenv

This tutorial teachs you how to use the Nix package manager with Podenv. If you don't have the podenv command already installed, read the Install and use podenv tutorial first.

All the podenv commands are executed inside rootless containers so that they don't modify your host.

Usage

You can run most nix commands by prefixing them with podenv:

$ podenv nix shell nixpkgs#cowsay --command cowsay hi o/

To run local application, adds the --cwd argument. For example, to run devenv you can:

$ git clone https://github.com/podenv/devenv
$ cd devenv
$ podenv --cwd nix run .#emacs-minimal

Run a fully qualified installable:

$ podenv nix run github:NixOS/nixpkgs/b569c6ef73baceebea085a143d84b0391ab18ce7#dhall -- --version
1.40.2

Display a flake content:

$ podenv nix flake show github:podenv/modularix

Run an existing application defined with nix, for example vcv.dhall:

$ podenv vcv

The vcv podenv application is a shortcut for podenv --dri --x11 --alsa --pipewire nix:github:podenv/modularix#vcv

Manual usage

You can also add nix to an existing Podenv application.

Create the store

Run this command to ensure the nix store is configured. This is automatically done when running podenv nix, but feel free to run it again to check everything is working:

$ podenv nix.setup
[Display the nix version]

You can check what the nix.setup application does by running podenv --show nix.setup.

Setup the environment

Attach the Nix package manager to an existing application, for example a fedora container:

$ podenv nixify fedora

The nixify function adds the store volume and the nix command to the PATH.

Then run nix command inside the container:

fedora-bash$ nix run nixpkgs#hello -- -g "Hello from podenv"
[Display the greeting message]

Nixpkgs channel

The nix.setup does not configure the nixpkgs channel, thus to use commands that require a global nixpkgs, run these commands:

fedora-bash$ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
fedora-bash$ nix-channel --update

This setups a ~/.nix-channels and ~/.nix-defexpr/ configuration. Though it is recommended to use the new nix commands which does not requires such existing channel configuration.

This conclude the tutorial on how to use Nix with podenv.