Nix on alpine, binaries vs compiling

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So I am setting up nix in a docker alpine image. Basic reason is to use it as part of jenkins slave node and use nix-shell for encapsulating testing dependencies.

Anyway doing a quick test of a nix-shell -p python36 and well we are compiling everything, and it is of course taking a while, I know why of course, glibc vs musl libc. My question is there a way to alleviate this time. Install glibc though apk perhaps, or maybe as part of the image build have nix install some packages to start to alleviate what might have to be compiled during the container run time when kicking off a nix shell.

Ken

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Normally nix packages just pull even (g)libc. They have it in closure, etc. You’d have to explicitly configure stuff to actually use musl. So… I can’t see from this what exactly happens in your case.

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Sorry, I never came back after figuring out the real why of this. Had to do with something in the pinned release channel that had to be compiled. IN essence a python36 vs 37 issue. Nothing to do with alpine and musl.

Sorry for my lack of follow up

Ken

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