Cannot install nixGL, is there an impure option?

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1

I am trying to see how much I can achieve with flox as a replacement for a system package manager. So instead of using apt on Ubuntu and brew on macOS, I would use flox on both (and maybe even on nixOS?). So despite recommendations to the contrary I am trying to install GUI applications :slight_smile:

When I flox install alacritty and run alacritty I get the following error:

Error: Error { raw_code: None, raw_os_message: None, kind: NotSupported("provided display handle is not supported") }

As far as I can tell (see previous link) this is because I don’t have nixGL. However when I try to install nixGL with flox install github:guibou/nixGL#nixGLDefault I get the following error:

❌ ERROR: Caught Nix error while locking flake:
error:
       … while evaluating the attribute 'auto.nixGLDefault'

         at /nix/store/wnf3rly6jbw4ywqhzgn0vl6lk8hwgkg3-source/nixGL.nix:243:7:

          242|       # nixGLNvidia or nixGLIntel using an heuristic.
          243|       nixGLDefault = if nvidiaVersionAuto != null then
             |       ^
          244|         nixGLCommon autoNvidia.nixGLNvidia

       … while evaluating a branch condition

         at /nix/store/wnf3rly6jbw4ywqhzgn0vl6lk8hwgkg3-source/nixGL.nix:243:22:

          242|       # nixGLNvidia or nixGLIntel using an heuristic.
          243|       nixGLDefault = if nvidiaVersionAuto != null then
             |                      ^
          244|         nixGLCommon autoNvidia.nixGLNvidia

       (stack trace truncated; use '--show-trace' to show the full trace)

       error: attribute 'currentTime' missing

       at /nix/store/wnf3rly6jbw4ywqhzgn0vl6lk8hwgkg3-source/nixGL.nix:223:18:

          222|           # Add an impure parameter to force the rebuild on each access.
          223|           time = builtins.currentTime;
             |                  ^
          224|           preferLocalBuild = true;

I also tried flox install github:nix-community/nixGL since that appears to be the new address.

I found an upstream report of the same issue that suggested the solution was:

nix profile install github:guibou/nixGL#nixGLNvidia --impure

Is there an --impure equivalent for flox, or can I specify it in manifest.toml? If not can I simply run this nix command in my flox environment to achieve the same effect?

(Note, both alacritty and nixGL are theoretical targets for me, I’m just attempting to install any cross-platform GUI application.)

2

we don’t yet unfortunately. I’ve logged an enhancement for this as I think it’d be a good addition! flox install impure flakes · Issue #2061 · flox/flox · GitHub

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