Glibc Error in FHS nix-shell with Stable & Unstable Packages

Help
1

I have a nix expression for an FHS shell that looks like:

{ pkgs ? import <nixos> { } }:
let unstable = import <nixos-unstable> { };
in with pkgs;
(pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
  name = "fhs";
  targetPkgs = pkgs:
    with pkgs; [
      nodejs
      which
      curl
      git
      gnumake
      gcc
      cmake
      unstable.neovim
      python
      unzip
      hostname
      file
    ];
}).env

And I get this error when trying to start the unstable neovim inside said nix-shell:

/nix/store/can473ld4dc8izcjlm4i5daxsh1yl5d8-bash-4.4-p23/bin/bash: /usr/lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.33' not found (required by /nix/store/can473ld4dc8izcjlm4i5daxsh1yl5d8-bash-4.4-p23/bin/bash)

Is it not possible to mix channels in nix-shell?

2

your shell is bringing in binaries which are linked against a newer version of glibc.

You have two options:

  • pull packages from a similar checkout of nixpkgs as your system
  • update your system, then restart
3

Thanks Jon, I found another answer of yours to a similar question and have run nixos switch --upgrade and rebooted, however that didn’t help. Forgive me if you meant something different by “update your system”.

Anyway, I’m more interested in understanding the cause of this issue.

I think I’ve found the issue: LD_LIBRARY_PATH
If I unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH inside nix-shell, neovim works fine
The neovim derivation is exactly the same in- and outside the nix-shell, ldd is the same version, but LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set to /run/opengl-driver/lib:/run/opengl-driver-32/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/lib32 in nix-shell, where it is unset outside it

So where is that pesky LD_LIBRARY_PATH coming from?

4

being a stable user, and pulling in packages from unstable would also have the same behavior

You can use LD_PRELOAD, and set that to the newer glibc.so, and that should also fix your issues.

So where is that pesky LD_LIBRARY_PATH coming from?

That’s probably from buildFHSUserEnv, as that allows for the libraries to be found.