Install Nix

Linux

If you prefer to use Linux, you may be interested in installing NixOS. The following instructions are for users of other Linux distros as well as macOS.

Install Nix using the unofficial installer: ¹

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install

Graphical installer for macOS

The unofficial installer is also available as a graphical installer for macOS. You can get get it here.

After installing Nix, open a new terminal and run the Nix Health checks,

nix --accept-flake-config run github:juspay/nix-health

Expect to see all results in either green (or yellow).

Next Steps

Checkout First steps with Nix and

Nix for Development if you are looking to use Nix for development.
home-manager (and nix-darwin if you are on macOS) if you would like to use Nix for more than packages and devShells.

Footnotes

You can use the official installer. However, there are a couple of manual steps necessary:

As it does not yet include an uninstaller, you will have to manually uninstall Nix when the time comes (example).
As it does not automatically enable Flakes, you will have to manually enable it.

Links to this page

Rapid Introduction to Nix

Install Nix: Nix can be installed on Linux and macOS. If you are using NixOS, it already comes with Nix pre-installed.
NixOS Asia

Start from here if you are new to Nix.
Nix is broken after macOS upgrade

Install Nix

Upgrading macOS is known to break Nix. When this happens, just uninstall Nix and then install it again.
Nix

The Linux distro NixOS comes with Nix pre-installed. You can Install Nix manually on other platforms.
First steps with Nix

You have installed Nix. Now let’s play with the nix command but without bothering to write any Nix expressions yet (we reserve that for the next tutorial). In particular, we will learn how to use packages from the nixpkgs repository and elsewhere.

nix profile install installs symlinks under the $HOME/.nix-profile directory, which the Nix installer already added to your $PATH. For details, see the Nix manual.