Nix installed in /usr/local or /nix/store/xxx-nix-xxx?

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1

On Mac, I noticed that the installation archive had Nix binaries in a folder under store/ which it moved to /nix/store upon installation.

But when building from source, I noticed that instead of doing it that way, it installed the nix binaries to /usr/bin.

So why is the Nix binary sometimes in /usr/bin and sometimes in the store folder?

How can I make it like the darwin installer (store folder way) when building from source?

This is what I mean about the darwin installer:

sajoomac:nix-2.3.3-x86_64-darwin sajo$ tree -L 2
.
├── install
├── install-darwin-multi-user.sh
├── install-multi-user
├── install-systemd-multi-user.sh
└── store
    ├── 0xqs5h1n9avficlxbhh299bphpmnpbhk-Libsystem-osx-10.12.6
    ├── 11ddf3bwv0b4x6n0xawf1ssj1ixnmh6i-nss-cacert-3.49.2
    ├── 1imvvd3m2pl605advhw120n2ch4b9xxc-libkrb5-1.17
    ├── 1lclnmd7kbrg7rbild2ai8xbv1mgmrh5-aws-sdk-cpp-1.7.90
    ├── 22pmm1smwf6n0m8ixpzfpdwklbrcgxs8-boost-1.69.0
    ├── 2ymphfjwb8m5j35cs7dh5j5nha1a4pmb-boehm-gc-8.0.4-dev
    ├── 3rnknx1nzisffij3gaw83pa804r5x00g-libsodium-1.0.18
    ├── 3wgjw9v5winw82i96a1bhfzrif2362y9-bash-4.4-p23
    ├── 570jll91gad63x9005c466ljlkgxirq0-editline-1.17.0
    ├── 62jl3h78qjlh0023dk1466q3a3bp8m10-boehm-gc-8.0.4
    ├── 6cgl35a6xv7yvl7dy9z1v8464zl8yr64-nghttp2-1.40.0-lib
    ├── 6iy5fksb0n81f0dmq5jdh2n2zq52chs0-sqlite-3.30.1
    ├── 73vyzyqd6vzrb55ym15m4xs4y8wdfpvw-aws-c-common-0.3.11
    ├── 7prxjk8ly88md3v9w54zhk6d0zjfzfbs-libssh2-1.9.0
    ├── 99bx2rrjac8xfmsgryvyr3wzhsd6h1k6-xz-5.2.4
    ├── a0vva86kaciiln7hihnjxj87cz3gyb7z-openssl-1.1.1d
    ├── a4prsr6j89argq9znn7w4jiilfljqsh8-libssh2-1.9.0
    ├── a67hh2bfcqwpx3iqn2xdw0rny0xa74va-brotli-1.0.7-lib
    ├── axjapzs9a72wr7s98vamxxwmsyb4yh7s-icu4c-64.2
    ├── b23lm7r0k3kx2lgb06z0qjwq81jdsjzd-ICU-osx-10.10.5
    ├── dcg8b2m4i1rl9fclcczhhranxlz6wqic-nghttp2-1.40.0-lib
    ├── g7q8hlpv8p0r16s5z9465sjw1mf8scnw-bzip2-1.0.6.0.1-bin
    ├── h3fx093p5wgp4cf7hxdsxr11zwrsrdgh-aws-checksums-0.1.5
    ├── i9qqnb4mi65pk4ljzi9w82x5dp37qs76-libc++-7.1.0
    ├── iah7yipn0x803dp8n65rws4h6vhmayya-gnutar-1.32
    ├── ivxmq1867dvy35bixmxcrkf8azmrfllr-openssl-1.1.1d
    ├── k6y7z2kgi7q7zs795wb5bd814kaw606z-libiconv-osx-10.12.6
    ├── lrnvapsqmf0ja6zfyx4cpxr7ahdr7f9b-nix-2.3.3
    ├── n5jqb7xk5l764kb5b7y9w9nx6q26zfx0-aws-c-event-stream-0.1.1
    ├── nhrvpkhkppfd981q732rqp29ijgv26r8-curl-7.68.0
    ├── npzfzzdnh4dzqlzkqvpq90qlkvs9fiaj-bzip2-1.0.6.0.1
    ├── pp9yjv23yxvk71zp1685shfk106nbgqh-curl-7.68.0
    ├── qp1mha9r9ypw7xzap04y9kzfy338z173-libc++abi-7.1.0
    ├── rir47qylydpi9sgdw2ijfhsjiamz9zim-gmp-6.2.0
    ├── s2zp5n9zpbq4v354vw7iaiwk9g780jx7-libxml2-2.9.10
    ├── vlvi6lvl3zdk4ddn6fpbz0r42q7mqmkn-coreutils-8.31
    ├── xfsw3idzzbs69rq4ppg5xyd0axnl99px-gzip-1.10
    ├── xnap6vb7fqh6mwl92qh10kxpx03aqyr2-libkrb5-1.17
    ├── ya4ppawlzv7r1jv1f4xshda6mmylhnvf-xz-5.2.4-bin
    ├── yb8g3l91pb89w1wqbfwz02d0imgprj1p-gettext-0.20.1
    ├── z881xrv1p2d9da70fqsi4v5cg8y7jwx7-zlib-1.2.11
    └── zjzalq3mhx0rkk4a11ddwkwfhxkw4p62-swift-corefoundation

43 directories, 4 files
1 Like
2

I haven’t done so myself but I would imagine you would run nix-build ./release.nix -A build.x86_64-darwin as mentioned in the README. This of course relies on having an existing nix, though I imagine you could bootstrap by building locally by hand first, and using that binary to rebuild the release.

3

Ok I did that, and this built the nix binary. Not exactly the macos installer with its own store folder of nix and its dependencies though. Do I need to make this manually?

4

I see a binaryTarball derivation in release.nix, it’s including something that looks like closureInfo { rootPaths = [ toplevel cacert ]; } (where topLevel is the built nix). So try instead nix-build ./release.nix -A binaryTarball.x86_64-darwin.

5

THANK YOU. That looks like exactly what I was looking for.