Unattended installation + deb package for aarch64 (Debian on RPi 4B+)

Feature Requests
21

That should be an easy fix!

Would it be simpler to just have steps 1-3? At which point flox is /usr/bin/flox and everything is good to go?

Thank you we appreciate the feedback!

22

That would be perfect, if it also creates the default environment. Just apt install and youā€™re good to go. Awesome! :slight_smile:

One other idea: for people that come from nix-env, it would be awesome if the apt install flox would take care of the nix uninstall. Right now I have this in the script to uninstall nix cleanly:

# Remove nix
if [ -e $HOME/.nix-profile/bin/nix ]; then
    echo "Remove Nix multi-user"
    echo "- removing Nix daemons"
    systemctl stop nix-daemon.service &> /dev/null
    systemctl disable nix-daemon.socket nix-daemon.service
    systemctl daemon-reload
    echo "- removing Nix files/folders"
    rm -f /etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.service /etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.socket /etc/tmpfiles.d/nix-daemon.conf &> /dev/null
    rm -rf /nix /etc/nix /etc/profile/nix.sh ~root/.nix-profile ~root/.nix-defexpr ~root/.nix-channels ~/.nix-profile ~/.nix-defexpr ~/.nix-channels &> /dev/null
    echo "- removing Nix users"
    for i in $(seq 1 32); do
        userdel nixbld$i
    done
    echo "- removing Nix user group"
    groupdel nixbld
fi
[ -e "/etc/bash.bashrc.backup-before-nix" ] && echo "- restoring bashrc pre Nix" && mv /etc/bash.bashrc.backup-before-nix /etc/bash.bashrc
[ -e "/etc/zsh/zshrc.backup-before-nix" ] && echo "- restoring zshrc pre Nix" && mv /etc/zsh/zshrc.backup-before-nix /etc/zsh/zshrc
23

@mkenigs Matthew, I forgot one thing: it would be really nice to be able to pre-configure whatā€™s needed to share environments. Iā€™m referring to the GH token , and also, for the push command, to be able to have command-line options to pass the token so we can actually have a real unattended installation, without prompts, etc.

In the .config/flox folder there are config files automatically created, and itā€™s specified not to edit those, but it would be awesome having those in a dotfiles setup so you have everything setup when installing the first time.

24

apt purge should be getting rid of Nix - are you noticing that itā€™s not?

25

I followed nix docs to uninstall: Installing a Binary Distribution - Nix Reference Manual

26

Oh sorry you meant when youā€™re installing flox initially, you want it to clean up a pre-existing Nix installation?

27

We definitely need to streamline the experience when Nix is already installed. I think itā€™s a bit invasive to completely uninstall /nix though, as that could contain software the user still wants to use directly with Nix

28

Opened an issue to track this internally!

29

Exactly. Iā€™m migrating all servers to flox, and used nix on all of them. :slight_smile:

Well, since flox sits on top of nix, a sort of ā€œconversionā€ of the installation should be possible, right? Or itā€™s necessary to start from scratch because you have a specific setup? So when you apt install floxif nix is already installed, you modify/integrate that into flox. Something like thatā€¦

You mean on the GH repo?

30

Yes exactly, we attempt to do that, per the ā€œInstalling over a previous installation of Nix?ā€ section of flox in 5 minutes | flox:docs Did you run into an issue with how itā€™s doing that, or is there a reason you thought you needed to completely uninstall Nix? Sorry if Iā€™ve lost track of something in the thread

No something internal for us to triage

31

Well, frankly speaking: since I had problems installing nix in the past with the official procedure, I had to revert to ansible to properly install the daemon multi-user version on any server. So I didnā€™t really trust this ā€œconversionā€ process described in your docs. So I removed it completely before installing flox.

But if you say the ā€œconversionā€ works fine, and the apt install flox will take care of that, itā€™s all good. :slight_smile:

32

Conversion is definitely a bit more error prone, but that would still be the recommended path. Please report issues though if you run into them though!

33

Hi Robin,

I noticed the same issue again, while trying to upgrade these two packages: flyctl and chezmoi.

If I check on https://search.nixos.org/ last versions in the unstable channel are:

  • chezmoi: 2.33.4
  • flyctl: 0.0.553

If I check with flox:

āÆ flox -V
Version: 0.1.5-r448-0.0.10-r234

āÆ flox search chezmoi -v
chezmoi - Manage your dotfiles across multiple machines, securely
  stable.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.29.3
  stable.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.30.0
  stable.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.32.0
  staging.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.31.1
  staging.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.32.0
  staging.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.33.0
  unstable.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.31.1
  unstable.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.32.0
  unstable.nixpkgs-flox.chezmoi@2.33.0

āÆ flox search flyctl -v
flyctl - Command line tools for fly.io services
  stable.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.450
  stable.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.456
  stable.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.492
  staging.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.498
  staging.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.500
  staging.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.509
  unstable.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.498
  unstable.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.500
  unstable.nixpkgs-flox.flyctl@0.0.509
34

Hi @alexdelprete - thanks for letting us know. This has been resolved and the correct versions should now be available in our catalog. Please let us know if you are seeing otherwise. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
35

looks ok now, thank you.

Iā€™m worried there could be other packages in the same condition, but I donā€™t have the time right now to check all the ones Iā€™m using. Is this something that could happen again? How are the repositerories synced?

36

Hi @alexdelprete - thanks for your queries. The correction wasnā€™t just made for the 2 packages you mentioned. There is an automated process we have to update the flox catalog but unfortunately it had fallen over which went unnoticed. We restarted the process and now things are back to normal. We are also putting in better monitoring so if this happens again, we can be proactive and over time, if there is an underlying bug causing it to fall over, hunt it down and fix it. :slight_smile:

37

Thanks for your feedback @robinbrantley, you and all other team members that support us are always very kind and I much appreciate it. :slight_smile:

Is the automated process a github action visible on the public repo? Glad that you will monitor it more closely so we donā€™t have to worry about not catching updates.

38

Thank you @alexdelprete - that was lovely to hear :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
No, the catalog update process isnā€™t a github action but is instead a service that runs continuously on one of our internal infrastructure hosts.

1 Like