January 2020 in NixOS

[samueldr]

Let’s see how this goes!

First of all, let’s talk methodology. This will focus on merged PRs in the nixpkgs/nixos repository. Any change sent directly to master will not be seen. I’m not focusing on WIP and upcoming changes, only what’s already in!

I’m combing through a dump of the PRs, looking at what caught my eye. I will likely miss package bumps and new packages you liked. Please share them if you know of notable ones!

Overview

This January, we merged 1588 PRs. Of these, 409 were automated. Giving us 1179 PRs.

(I’m sorry, starting here GitHub doesn’t give the right tooling to dig more deeply with links here.)

Of the 1126 targeting master or staging, 154 are new packages, and 909 are package updates.

Notable PRs

• #77311 Add cachix as a blocker for channel updates
• #75539, reworked in #78337 lib: improve cli module
• #78346 Don’t set background to black if ~/.background-image not present
• #77985 gcc: remove versions 4.9 and 5 (which kept 4.9 in the end.)
• #76985 gdm: refactor to properly handle wayland sessions
• #70138 lib/types: Introduce lazyAttrsOf
• #78713 linuxPackages: 4.19 → 5.4
• #77149 Reduce AsciiDoctor closure size
• #77835 Reduce closure gnome-shell closure
• #66640 rename iso_graphical to iso_plasma5

Notably broken, then fixed

• #76972 #77525 fixing glibc cross-compilation after gcc upgrades.

Notably reverted

• #69057 add config.environment.ld-linux

New packages

• #78051 dasher: init at 2018-04-03
• #72306 mindustry: init at 99 (and updates)
• Cinnamon!

Package upgrades

• #76851 bazel: 1.2.1 → 2.0.0
• #78216 uboot: 2019.10 → 2020.01
• #78464 weston: 7.0.0 → 8.0.0

New modules

• #77252 nixos/corerad: init
• #77830 nixos/dokuwiki: init module
• #76821 nixos/freeswitch: init
• #77408 nixos/geary: init
• #77953 nixos/traceroute: init

Removals

• #77657 blitz: remove package
• #77078 facette: remove
• #77452 firefoxPackages.tor-browser*, tor-browser-bundle: remove
• #77985 gcc: remove versions 4.9 and 5
• #77989 llvm: remove 3.5, 3.8 and 4
• #78583 nixos/display-managers/auto: remove
• #78004 nixos/multitouch: remove (properly known as mtrack)
• #77840 python2Packages.pyezminc: remove
• #78578 qt5: remove last vestiges of Qt 5.11
• #77051 Remove bison2
• #77417 remove old gradle versions
• #77690 way-cooler: Remove

---

Disclaimer: 21 PRs got caught in an incident that made them lose their original title, this affects some of the stats.

---

Finally, some homework for you: I want you all to tell me what caught your interest in January! Reminder: what was merged in January!

[worldofpeace]

Thank you so much @samueldr.
I actually had the exact same idea like this last month, and actually a while.
My idea was to give people a way to keep up the massive amount of work that goes into NixOS development, but at a glance.

Lmk, I could help out with this.

[samueldr]

@worldofpeace you can! And the best way is to tell us, right here, right now, what you noticed and you want everyone to know. Even better if you can tell us why!

[ryantm]

Thank you @samueldr, this is great!

[worldofpeace]

I noticed that I’m doing to much Perhaps I can commentate on the work that I was involved in January.

Notable PRs

Out of the notable PRs I authored 1 of them (rename iso_graphical to iso_plasma5).
Was waiting on that one forever to get a more specific name for the iso artifact.
There’s still in progress discussion to make room for a Gnome 3 flavored ISO.

New Packages

I’ve been involved in helping @mkg20001 integrate Cinnamon into nixpkgs extensively and I believe everyone could look forward to that being in NixOS 20.09.

Package upgrades

Always, and too many to count or remember

New modules

Thank you @petabyteboy for making the nixos/geary: init · Pull Request #77408 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub, it helped me out a lot.

Removals

I authored nixos/display-managers/auto: remove by worldofpeace · Pull Request #78583 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub and nixos/multitouch: remove (properly known as mtrack) by worldofpeace · Pull Request #78004 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub. I made the mtrack/multitouch module removal after talking with pained users confusing it for libinput. I ultimately made the decision to remove it.
I was also happy to get llvm: remove 3.5, 3.8 and 4 by lblasc · Pull Request #77989 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub merged with @Ma27 and the wonderful work that lblasc has contributed.