The NixOS 24.05 distribution has been released, based on the Nix package manager and offering a range of custom developments that simplify system configuration and maintenance. For example, in NixOS, all system configuration is done through a single system configuration file (configuration.nix), enabling quick rollback to a previous configuration version, support for switching between different system states, installation of individual packages by separate users, the ability to use multiple versions of the same program concurrently, and reproducible builds. Installation images with KDE (2.6 GB) and GNOME (2.5 GB) have been prepared for x86_64 and ARM64 architectures, as well as a reduced console version (1 GB).
When using Nix, the package build results are stored in a separate subdirectory in /nix/store. For example, after building the firefox package, it may be recorded in /nix/store/1onlv5pc3ed4n5nskg8ew4twcfd0d5ce4ec5d4-firefox-125.0.1/, where '1onlv5pc3ed4n5nskg8ew4twcfd0d5ce4ec5d4' is the hash of all its dependencies and build instructions. Package installation refers to its build or downloading an already built version (provided it was previously built on Hydra — the NixOS project build service), as well as creating a directory with symbolic links to all packages in the system or user profile, followed by adding this directory to the PATH list. A similar approach is used in the GNU Guix package manager, which is based on Nix's developments. The collection of packages is presented in a special repository called Nixpkgs.
Key innovations:
- A total of 17,777 packages have been added, 9,393 packages removed, and 16,249 packages updated. 145 new modules have been added, and 23 modules removed. 2,491 developers participated in the development and maintenance of the packages.
- Releases of the user environments KDE Plasma 6.0, GNOME 46, and MATE 1.28 have been proposed. The package includes components with the Lomiri user environment (formerly Unity8), utilizing Wayland and the server Mir 2.
- 66 new services have been added, including AppImage, Anki Sync Server, Clevis, dnsproxy, Guix, intel-gpu-tools, isolate, microsocks, RustDesk, watchdogd.
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.6 (previously 6.1). The zstd algorithm has been utilized for compressing firmware files.
- The installation of the ELF executable file loader has been provided, which outputs an error message if attempting to run executable files built for NixOS. There is a configuration option 'environment.stub-ld.enable' available to disable this feature.
- It is now possible to create systems without a Perl interpreter installed (system dependencies that use Perl have been moved to optional status).
Source: opennet.ru
