I just released the version 0.2 of the nixos-scripts. Read here what is included in this release.

44 patches are included in this release, merges not counted. There were some basic changes and a handful of features were added.

First, the switch command includes the hostname of your machine by default now, whereas the flag is now changed from adding your hostname to preventing the hostname in your tag.

The tags which are generated by switch are no longer annotated.

The switch command also has now an option to do all the things, but not nixos-rebuild at all.

The switch command can also tag the local nixpkgs clone now if the switch succeeded. The subcommand switch is default for the switch command now, you don't have to do nix-script switch -c switch, you can do nix-script switch.

The command for updating a package definition has now a flag for not checking out a new branch before updating the package. This can be used to mass-update packages on one branch. Also a flag for not checking out the base branch after a successful update of a package.

The user gets less output now, only output which can be relevant to the user is printed if the -v flag is passed to the nix-script command. The -d (debugging) flag prints all the information which can be used to debug the scripts now. But normal users don't need this flag.

All the scripts have support for the RC file now. You can put configuration in ~/.nix-script.rc now, so you don't have to pass things all the time. For examples, see the nixos-scripts repository at github.

Channel tools were integrated as well. The channel tools can be used to diff between channel generations, list the channel generations, checkout a specific channel generation and so on. More utilities will be included as time goes on, of course.

What is in the pipeline

Of course, the next release is already planned. v0.3 will land as soon as there are enough new features. In the pipeline is already:

• A tool to update the nixos channel and generate tags for it in the configuration directory
• A repo-reset command, which can be used to generate a branch in your nixpkgs which is based on the commit which your current nixos generation is build from
• Container helpers. Everything you need to manage nixos-containers
• diff-generations will be able to list the diff in your configuration
• A tool for test-building a package based on a special branch

More things will be done behind the scenes: Verification that everything worked well, checks before commands are executed, on so on.

v0.4 will be a one-feature-release which will only include completion support. The PR on github for this feature exists already, but it will be developed until v0.3 is ready and if everything works, it will be integrated with a single merge commit.

So that's it for today. tags: #linux #nix #nixos #software #tools