Document small channels

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Eelco Dolstra 2014-12-30 22:31:01 +01:00 committed by Peter Simons
parent e2166c3a1e
commit d01a381e41

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@ -14,8 +14,8 @@ been built. These channels are:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Stable channels, such as <literal
xlink:href="https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.04">nixos-14.04</literal>.
<para><emphasis>Stable channels</emphasis>, such as <literal
xlink:href="https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.12">nixos-14.12</literal>.
These only get conservative bug fixes and package upgrades. For
instance, a channel update may cause the Linux kernel on your
system to be upgraded from 3.4.66 to 3.4.67 (a minor bug fix), but
@ -23,14 +23,28 @@ been built. These channels are:
3.11.<replaceable>x</replaceable> (a major change that has the
potential to break things). Stable channels are generally
maintained until the next stable branch is created.</para>
<para></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The unstable channel, <literal
<para>The <emphasis>unstable channel</emphasis>, <literal
xlink:href="https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable">nixos-unstable</literal>.
This corresponds to NixOSs main development branch, and may thus
see radical changes between channel updates. Its not recommended
for production systems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Small channels</emphasis>, such as <literal
xlink:href="https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.12-small">nixos-14.12-small</literal>
or <literal
xlink:href="https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable-small">nixos-unstable-small</literal>. These
are identical to the stable and unstable channels described above,
except that they contain fewer binary packages. This means they
get updated faster than the regular channels (for instance, when a
critical security patch is committed to NixOSs source tree), but
may require more packages to be built from source than
usual. Theyre mostly intended for server environments and as such
contain few GUI applications.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
To see what channels are available, go to <link
@ -41,8 +55,8 @@ appliances.)</para>
<para>When you first install NixOS, youre automatically subscribed to
the NixOS channel that corresponds to your installation source. For
instance, if you installed from a 14.04 ISO, you will be subscribed to
the <literal>nixos-14.04</literal> channel. To see which NixOS
instance, if you installed from a 14.12 ISO, you will be subscribed to
the <literal>nixos-14.12</literal> channel. To see which NixOS
channel youre subscribed to, run the following as root:
<screen>
@ -57,13 +71,19 @@ $ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/<replaceable>channel-name</replac
</screen>
(Be sure to include the <literal>nixos</literal> parameter at the
end.) For instance, to use the NixOS 14.04 stable channel:
end.) For instance, to use the NixOS 14.12 stable channel:
<screen>
$ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.04 nixos
$ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.12 nixos
</screen>
But if you want to live on the bleeding edge:
If you have a server, you may want to use the “small” channel instead:
<screen>
$ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.12-small nixos
</screen>
And if you want to live on the bleeding edge:
<screen>
$ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable nixos