* Release notes.
This commit is contained in:
Eelco Dolstra
parent
a9a6356ffc
commit
015ac7c7da
1 changed files with 131 additions and 84 deletions
|
|
@ -26,7 +26,10 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<!-- Usability / features -->
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><command>nix-env</command> usability improvements:
|
||||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
|
@ -66,26 +69,6 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Berkeley DB 4.4’s process registry feature is used
|
||||
to recover from crashed Nix processes.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<!-- <listitem><para>TODO: shared stores.</para></listitem> -->
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>A performance issue has been fixed with the
|
||||
<literal>referer</literal> table, which stores the inverse of the
|
||||
<literal>references</literal> table (i.e., it tells you what store
|
||||
paths refer to a given path). Maintaining this table could take a
|
||||
quadratic amount of time, as well as a quadratic amount of Berkeley
|
||||
DB log file space (in particular when running the garbage collector)
|
||||
(<literal>NIX-23</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Nix now catches the <literal>TERM</literal> and
|
||||
<literal>HUP</literal> signals in addition to the
|
||||
<literal>INT</literal> signal. So you can now do a <literal>killall
|
||||
nix-store</literal> without triggering a database
|
||||
recovery.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>New language features:
|
||||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
|
@ -111,13 +94,13 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
<listitem><para>Multi-line string literals.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>String concatenations can now involve
|
||||
derivations, as in the example above —
|
||||
<code>"--with-freetype2-library=" + freetype + "/lib"</code>.
|
||||
This was not previously possible because we need to register
|
||||
that a derivation that uses such a string is dependent on
|
||||
<literal>freetype</literal>. The evaluator now properly
|
||||
propagates this information. Consequently, the subpath operator
|
||||
(<literal>~</literal>) has been deprecated.</para></listitem>
|
||||
derivations, as in the example <code>"--with-freetype2-library="
|
||||
+ freetype + "/lib"</code>. This was not previously possible
|
||||
because we need to register that a derivation that uses such a
|
||||
string is dependent on <literal>freetype</literal>. The
|
||||
evaluator now properly propagates this information.
|
||||
Consequently, the subpath operator (<literal>~</literal>) has
|
||||
been deprecated.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Default values of function arguments can now
|
||||
refer to other function arguments; that is, all arguments are in
|
||||
|
|
@ -128,10 +111,62 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
<listitem><para>TODO: domain checks (r5895).</para></listitem>
|
||||
-->
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Lots of new builtin primitives, such as
|
||||
functions for list manipulation and integer arithmetic. See the
|
||||
manual for a complete list. All primops are now available in
|
||||
the set <varname>builtins</varname>, allowing one to test for
|
||||
the availability of primop in a backwards-compatible
|
||||
way.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
</itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>New commands <command>nix-pack-closure</command> and
|
||||
<command>nix-unpack-closure</command> than can be used to easily
|
||||
transfer a store path with all its dependencies to another machine.
|
||||
Very convenient whenever you have some package on your machine and
|
||||
you want to copy it somewhere else.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>XML support:
|
||||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -q --xml</literal> prints the
|
||||
installed or available packages in an XML representation for
|
||||
easy processing by other tools.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-instantiate --eval-only
|
||||
--xml</literal> prints an XML representation of the resulting
|
||||
term. (The new flag <option>--strict</option> forces ‘deep’
|
||||
evaluation of the result, i.e., list elements and attributes are
|
||||
evaluated recursively.)</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>In Nix expressions, the primop
|
||||
<function>builtins.toXML</function> converts a term to an XML
|
||||
representation. This is primarily useful for passing structured
|
||||
information to builders.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
</itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>You can now unambigously specify which derivation to
|
||||
build or install in <command>nix-env</command>,
|
||||
<command>nix-instantiate</command> and <command>nix-build</command>
|
||||
using the <option>--attr</option> / <option>-A</option> flags, which
|
||||
takes an attribute name as argument. (Unlike symbolic package names
|
||||
such as <literal>subversion-1.4.0</literal>, attribute names in an
|
||||
attribute set are unique.) For instance, a quick way to perform a
|
||||
test build of a package in Nixpkgs is <literal>nix-build
|
||||
pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix -A
|
||||
<replaceable>foo</replaceable></literal>. <literal>nix-env -q
|
||||
--attr</literal> shows the attribute names corresponding to each
|
||||
derivation.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>If the top-level Nix expression used by
|
||||
<command>nix-env</command>, <command>nix-instantiate</command> or
|
||||
|
|
@ -142,26 +177,53 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
<replaceable>value</replaceable></option> can be used to specify
|
||||
function arguments on the command line.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>TODO: proxy support.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-install-package --url
|
||||
<replaceable>URL</replaceable></literal> allows a package to be
|
||||
installed directly from the given URL.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>New commands <command>nix-pack-closure</command> and
|
||||
<command>nix-unpack-closure</command> than can be used to easily
|
||||
transfer a store path with all its dependencies to another machine.
|
||||
Very convenient whenever you have some package on your machine and
|
||||
you want to copy it somewhere else.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><command>bsdiff</command> updated
|
||||
4.3.</para></listitem>
|
||||
<listitem><para>Nix now works behind an HTTP proxy server; just set
|
||||
the standard environment variables <envar>http_proxy</envar>,
|
||||
<envar>https_proxy</envar>, <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> or
|
||||
<envar>all_proxy</envar> appropriately. Functions such as
|
||||
<function>fetchurl</function> in Nixpkgs also respect these
|
||||
variables.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>TODO: --attr / -A flags in
|
||||
nix-env/nix-instantiate/nix-build. Also nix-env -qa
|
||||
--attr.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-build -o
|
||||
<replaceable>symlink</replaceable></literal> allows the symlink to
|
||||
the build result to be named something other than
|
||||
<literal>result</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<!-- Stability / performance / etc. -->
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Platform support:
|
||||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Support for 64-bit platforms, provided a <link
|
||||
xlink:href="http://bugzilla.sen.cwi.nl:8080/show_bug.cgi?id=606">suitably
|
||||
patched ATerm library</link> is used. Also, files larger than 2
|
||||
GiB are now supported.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Added support for Cygwin (Windows,
|
||||
<literal>i686-cygwin</literal>), Mac OS X on Intel
|
||||
(<literal>i686-darwin</literal>) and Linux on PowerPC
|
||||
(<literal>powerpc-linux</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Users of SMP and multicore machines will
|
||||
appreciate that the number of builds to be performed in parallel
|
||||
can now be specified in the configuration file in the
|
||||
<literal>build-max-jobs</literal> setting.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
</itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Garbage collector improvements:
|
||||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
|
@ -188,14 +250,38 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
--gc</literal>). This is an easy way to get rid of all old
|
||||
packages in the Nix store.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><command>nix-store</command> now has an
|
||||
operation <option>--delete</option> to delete specific paths
|
||||
from the Nix store. It won’t delete reachable (non-garbage)
|
||||
paths unless <option>--ignore-liveness</option> is
|
||||
specified.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
</itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>New command <literal>nix-store --delete</literal> to
|
||||
delete specific paths from the Nix store. It won’t delete reachable
|
||||
(non-garbage) paths unless <option>--ignore-liveness</option> is
|
||||
specified.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Berkeley DB 4.4’s process registry feature is used
|
||||
to recover from crashed Nix processes.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<!-- <listitem><para>TODO: shared stores.</para></listitem> -->
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>A performance issue has been fixed with the
|
||||
<literal>referer</literal> table, which stores the inverse of the
|
||||
<literal>references</literal> table (i.e., it tells you what store
|
||||
paths refer to a given path). Maintaining this table could take a
|
||||
quadratic amount of time, as well as a quadratic amount of Berkeley
|
||||
DB log file space (in particular when running the garbage collector)
|
||||
(<literal>NIX-23</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Nix now catches the <literal>TERM</literal> and
|
||||
<literal>HUP</literal> signals in addition to the
|
||||
<literal>INT</literal> signal. So you can now do a <literal>killall
|
||||
nix-store</literal> without triggering a database
|
||||
recovery.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><command>bsdiff</command> updated
|
||||
4.3.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Substantial performance improvements in expression
|
||||
evaluation and <literal>nix-env -qa</literal>, all thanks to <link
|
||||
|
|
@ -225,51 +311,12 @@ irreversible.</para></warning>
|
|||
|
||||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>XML support:
|
||||
|
||||
<itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-env -q --xml</literal> prints the
|
||||
installed or available packages in an XML representation for
|
||||
easy processing by other tools.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para><literal>nix-instantiate --eval-only
|
||||
--xml</literal> prints an XML representation of the resulting
|
||||
term. (The new flag <option>--strict</option> forces ‘deep’
|
||||
evaluation of the result, i.e., list elements and attributes are
|
||||
evaluated recursively.)</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>In Nix expressions, the primop
|
||||
<function>builtins.toXML</function> converts a term to an XML
|
||||
representation. This is primarily useful for passing structured
|
||||
information to builders.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
</itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Nix source distributions are a lot smaller now since
|
||||
we no longer include a full copy of the Berkeley DB source
|
||||
distribution (but only the bits we need).</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Support for 64-bit platforms, provided <link
|
||||
xlink:href="http://bugzilla.sen.cwi.nl:8080/show_bug.cgi?id=606">suitably
|
||||
patched ATerm library</link> is used. Also, files larger than 2 GiB
|
||||
are now supported.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Users of SMP and multicore machines will appreciate
|
||||
that the number of builds to be performed in parallel can now be
|
||||
specified in the configuration file in the
|
||||
<literal>build-max-jobs</literal> setting.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>Added support for Cygwin (Windows,
|
||||
<literal>i686-cygwin</literal>) and Mac OS X on Intel
|
||||
(<literal>i686-darwin</literal>).</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
<listitem><para>TODO: <literal>nix-push
|
||||
--target</literal>.</para></listitem>
|
||||
<listitem><para>Header files are now installed so that external
|
||||
programs can use the Nix libraries.</para></listitem>
|
||||
|
||||
</itemizedlist>
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in a new issue