Different versions of software

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NixOS development is that much open and avoids such a fragmentation!
Thanks contributors for your work!

How is this feasible?

  1. Install (and name) different overlays for one package.
    Can I get 3 variants of one Firefox by applying (plain) overlay1, overlay2, “brocolly_overlay” and be able to simultaneously run 2 browser sessions: Firefox with overlay1 and Firefox with overlay2?

  2. Install 2 stacks of GNOME - 3.10 and 3.12 (NixPills, Chapter 1). What should I use? “nix-env”, “configuration.nix”?
    Switch between them without rebuild. How?

  3. Consider installing 4 versions of Opera altogether:

    • from nixpkgs: opera-66…
    • from nixpkgs-unstable: opera-67…
    • from nixpkgs (version is same as in nixpkgs, but with an overlay applied)
    • from different repository: opera-68…

How can I run (start) specific version (one of four Opera versions installed)?

  • Can I do that, using KDE Plasma menu?
    Search for “opera”, get 4 versions of Opera, start one of them.
    Search for “opera-66”. Version and overlay usage are not “very much” specified. Therefore, get 2 versions of Opera to choose from: one with an overlay, another without an overlay.
    Search for “opera-67.0.3575.31”. Get 1 version of Opera (version is clearly specified).
  • Somehow edit “configuration.nix” file …?
    Then, enter following in the terminal: “opera”. Opera version specified for a user in the “configuration.nix” as a default should start.

Although, it’s uncommon to encounter multiple versions of a package usually on NixOS Search - Loading..., is that right?

I have found that:

  • “nix-env -f nixpkgs-unstable -i (package_name)” installs latest version of a package from nixpkgs-unstable.
  • In “configuration.nix”, at least 1 overlay can be configured with:
    nixpkgs.overlays = [ … ];
1 Like
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I don’t have time to write an in-depth reply (or dig up the right documentation) right now, but as a quick pointer, I think nix-shell is the tool with which you can achieve many of your goals, especially with the -I nixpkgs=/path/to/another/nixpkgs option to run it with different branches of the nixpkgs tree.

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Thank you for your answer, @raboof. I don’t know, what nix-shell is used for. Like I suppose, for efficient overlays testing.

Can I install packages once, permanently, without need to (re)install them once and then with nix-shell?

In my opinion, both the landing page and the documentation currently
need to be updated, latter looks like wiki without an introduction. It
seems, that you should be a Linux programmer to understand them.

Besides the documentation could less include ambiguous sentences, an
introduction could explain terminology:

  1. Build, compile. What is the difference?
  2. Continuous build process?
  3. Persistent environment (from landing page)?
  4. Prebuilt binaries (from small amount of text on
    https://cache.nixos.org)?
    Reading the documentation for the Nix programming language usually
    brings me a lot more questions, than reading discourse, although I am
    not object to doing it.

I have got used to pick questions, explanations and code blocks from
discourse. It embraced the Nix programming language in practice.