What is the easiest way to find a Debian equivalent package in NixOS?

I’m a very beginner in NixOS. Previously, I mainly worked with Debian-like distributions. Due to most of the installation documentation covering Ubuntu/Debian but not NixOS, it is usually necessary to find a Debian equivalent package in NixOS. What is your most efficient/easiest way to map Ubuntu packages into NixOS packages?

Welcome!

I think the package names are pretty often the same. If not, NixOS Search may help, or https://repology.org/

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Hello @dbalabka !

As @raboof previously mentioned, the official website offers a very good tool for searching packages. I’d like to add that searching for available options first before looking for packages might be a good habit, because options take care of additional technical details as well, like opening firewall ports etc.

MyNixOS.com also offers an extensive search tool that includes even home-manager related stuff.

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it’s not always fast but I sometimes use:
nix search nixpkgs#cowsay
(you might need to use this flag: Experimental Features - Nix Reference Manual)

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