Suggestions when you want to build NixOS livecd ISO image on non-Nixos Linux distribuction, e.g. Arch Linux, using Nix Flake

1. Enable experimental-features.

mkdir -p ~/.config/nix
echo "experimental-features = nix-command flakes" >> ~/.config/nix/nix.conf

And restart nix-daemon.service using sudo systemctl restart nix-daemon.

Flakes

2. nix-env --install might be required.

Nix | Arch

3. To manually gc:

nix-env --delete-generations 1d
nix-store --gc
nix-collect-garbage -d

4. To apply new flake:

nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#blacksteel
nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#invar

5. To generate hardware configuration (then delete them and use them in your own input):

nixos-generate-config --root /mnt

Error handling for building nixos using nix flake

Nix flakes /nix/store/***-source no such file or directory

1. Make sure you are using bash.

Unfortunatly nix assumes that the NIX_BUILD_SHELL is a bash variant and passes bash specific arguments to the shell.

zsh in nix-shell

2. Make sure you did git add flake.nix if you newly cloned a git repo or similar.

Custom live media with Nix flakes

Segmentation fault when building ISO image with nixFlakes

GC_DONT_GC=1 nix build ...

Nix | Issue #4246

Error: experimental Nix feature ‘auto-allocate-uids’ is disabled, use '--extra-experimental-features auto-allocate-uids' when using nixos-install --flake .#example to install NixOS from an ISO iamge

The correct command should be: e.g.

nixos-install --impure --root /mnt --flake .#blacksteel --option extra-experimental-features auto-allocate-uids --option extra-experimental-features cgroups