Qubes: Install Nix Package Manager

Install Nix package manager

Package managers in Linux provide secure ways to install applications, this guide will show you how to install the Nix package manager on a Debian based system and how to configure this in QubesOS

There are two versions of the Nix package manager: Multi-user and Single-user, if Root access is available then it’s Multi-user, if its a shared environment then it’s Single-user. This install guide follows the multi-user install of Nix.

The first step is to create the mount point for the package manager, following the Linux philosophy of everything being a file, the mount point is basically a directory to place files in and restarting the terminal at the end of the install will make it available on the $PATH variable:

1// Create a Directory

mkdir /nix

2// Download & Install the Nix Package Manager Files

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon

3// Restart Terminal

exit

*// Non-root users run

rm -rf ~/nix ~/.nix/ && mkdir ~/nix

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --no-daemon

exit

4// Install first Nix Application

nix-env <options> <package name> e.g: to install tmux

nix-env -i tmux

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.tmux

This guide users Debian as its base template, QubesOS comes with two Templates: Debian and Fedora. Genearlly, for bleeding edge applications that benefit from the latest releases then Fedora is a great package manager. For long term stability using Debian provides rock solid performance and ubiquity

Nix Package Manager - NixOS

The Nix package manager allows for reproducible package builds and this consistency makes it a popular choice for web3 developers, when working with the blockchain having uniform application builds is an integral part of immutable distributed ledger technologies. Nix can be installed on most Linux distributions and NixOS is an independent Linux distro with over eighty thousand packages and is a great implementation of open source software, NixOS is a distro with developers powertools built-in

QubesOS Nix Configuration

QubesOS is similar to Nix in that the decisions made about its development follow a philosophy, Qubes uses a hypervisor to provide compartmentalised security and allows for a great OS for creating isolated instances that cannot affect other parts of the operating system. Building Nix in its own standaloneVM means everything installed via the NixOS qube is isolated away from all other applications

The main menu in Qubes is accessed via the blue Q in the top right hand corner when using the XFCE interface, this will bring a number of options and choose the Qubes: NixOS option and then select NixOS: Terminal this will open the bash terminal to install the packages