How to use nixos-unstable for some packages only?

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1

Hello,

I’m using flakes and I’d like to use the new stable channel 23.11 but for some packages, I’d like to use the latest versions (unstable). I always get an error when trying to rebuild.

I’m able to set nixpkgs-unstable.url and then I have

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, nixpkgs-unstable, ... }@attrs: {
    nixosConfigurations.fnord = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      specialArgs = attrs;
      modules = [ ./configuration.nix ];
    };
  };

How in my configuration.nix can I use nixpkgs-unstable?

I’d like to be able to do something like

systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  unstable.rustc
  git
  # ...

Thank you!

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2

I’m probably the last person who should be answering, cus I barely know what I’m doing, but I did manage to get that working recently with an overlay:

https://git.sr.ht/~pkulak/nix/tree/main/item/configuration.nix#L57

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3

Another example using flakes is here (found via the ZFS Root for Nixos pages):

https://github.com/ne9z/dotfiles-flake.git

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4

I also use an overlay called “unstable” like this:

(final: prev: {
  unstable = import nixpkgs-unstable {
    system = prev.system;
  };
})

when installing packages it’s then possible to use pkgs.unstable.rustc like in your example.

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