405 lines
12 KiB
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405 lines
12 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
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<title>Nixpkgs Release Notes</title>
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<section><title>Release 0.10 (October 12, 2006)</title>
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<note><para>This release of Nixpkgs requires <link
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xlink:href='http://nix.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/nix-0.10/'>Nix
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0.10</link> or higher.</para></note>
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<para>This release has the following improvements:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para><filename>pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix</filename>
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is gone, we now just have
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<filename>pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix</filename> that contains
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all available packages. This should cause much less confusion with
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users. <filename>all-packages.nix</filename> is a function that by
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default returns packages for the current platform, but you can
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override this by specifying a different <varname>system</varname>
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argument.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Certain packages in Nixpkgs are now
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user-configurable through a configuration file, i.e., without having
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to edit the Nix expressions in Nixpkgs. For instance, the Firefox
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provided in the Nixpkgs channel is built without the RealPlayer
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plugin (for legal reasons). Previously, you could easily enable
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RealPlayer support by editing the call to the Firefox function in
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<filename>all-packages.nix</filename>, but such changes are not
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respected when Firefox is subsequently updated through the Nixpkgs
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channel.</para>
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<para>The Nixpkgs configuration file (found in
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<filename>~/.nixpkgs/config.nix</filename> or through the
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<envar>NIXPKGS_CONFIG</envar> environment variable) is an attribute
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set that contains configuration options that
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<filename>all-packages.nix</filename> reads and uses for certain
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packages. For instance, the following configuration file:
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<programlisting>
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{
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firefox = {
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enableRealPlayer = true;
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};
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}</programlisting>
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persistently enables RealPlayer support in the Firefox
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build.</para>
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<para>(Actually, <literal>firefox.enableRealPlayer</literal> is the
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<emphasis>only</emphasis> configuration option currently available,
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but more are sure to be added.)</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Support for new platforms:
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para><literal>i686-cygwin</literal>, i.e., Windows
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(using <link xlink:href="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</link>).
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The standard environment on <literal>i686-cygwin</literal> by
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default builds binaries for the Cygwin environment (i.e., it
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uses Cygwin tools and produces executables that use the Cygwin
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library). However, there is also a standard environment that
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produces binaries that use <link
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xlink:href="http://www.mingw.org/">MinGW</link>. You can use it
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by calling <filename>all-package.nix</filename> with the
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<varname>stdenvType</varname> argument set to
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<literal>"i686-mingw"</literal>.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para><literal>i686-darwin</literal>, i.e., Mac OS X
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on Intel CPUs.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para><literal>powerpc-linux</literal>.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para><literal>x86_64-linux</literal>, i.e., Linux on
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64-bit AMD/Intel CPUs. Unlike <literal>i686-linux</literal>,
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this platform doesn’t have a pure <literal>stdenv</literal>
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yet.</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem><para>The default compiler is now GCC 4.1.1.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>X11 updated to X.org’s X11R7.1.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Notable new packages:
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para>Opera.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition and
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the Windows SDK.</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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In total there are now around 809 packages in Nixpkgs.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem><para>It is now <emphasis>much</emphasis> easier to
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override the default C compiler and other tools in
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<literal>stdenv</literal> for specific packages.
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<filename>all-packages.nix</filename> provides two utility
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functions for this purpose: <function>overrideGCC</function> and
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<function>overrideInStdenv</function>. Both take a
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<literal>stdenv</literal> and return an augmented
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<literal>stdenv</literal>; the formed changes the C compiler, and
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the latter adds additional packages to the front of
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<literal>stdenv</literal>’s initial <envar>PATH</envar>, allowing
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tools to be overriden.</para>
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<para>For instance, the package <varname>strategoxt</varname>
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doesn’t build with the GNU Make in <literal>stdenv</literal>
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(version 3.81), so we call it with an augmented
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<literal>stdenv</literal> that uses GNU Make 3.80:
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<programlisting>
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strategoxt = (import ../development/compilers/strategoxt) {
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inherit fetchurl pkgconfig sdf aterm;
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stdenv = overrideInStdenv stdenv [gnumake380];
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};
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gnumake380 = <replaceable>...</replaceable>;</programlisting>
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Likewise, there are many packages that don’t compile with the
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default GCC (4.1.1), but that’s easily fixed:
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<programlisting>
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exult = import ../games/exult {
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inherit fetchurl SDL SDL_mixer zlib libpng unzip;
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stdenv = overrideGCC stdenv gcc34;
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};</programlisting>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>It has also become much easier to experiment with
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changes to the <literal>stdenv</literal> setup script (which notably
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contains the generic builder). Since edits to
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<filename>pkgs/stdenv/generic/setup.sh</filename> trigger a rebuild
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of <emphasis>everything</emphasis>, this was formerly quite painful.
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But now <literal>stdenv</literal> contains a function to
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“regenerate” <literal>stdenv</literal> with a different setup
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script, allowing the use of a different setup script for specific
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packages:
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<programlisting>
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pkg = import <replaceable>...</replaceable> {
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stdenv = stdenv.regenerate ./my-setup.sh;
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<replaceable>...</replaceable>
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}</programlisting>
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</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Packages can now have a human-readable
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<emphasis>description</emphasis> field. Package descriptions are
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shown by <literal>nix-env -qa --description</literal>. In addition,
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they’re shown on the Nixpkgs release page. A description can be
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added to a package as follows:
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<programlisting>
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stdenv.mkDerivation {
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name = "exult-1.2";
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<replaceable>...</replaceable>
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meta = {
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description = "A reimplementation of the Ultima VII game engine";
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};
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}</programlisting>
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The <varname>meta</varname> attribute is not passed to the builder,
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so changes to the description do not trigger a rebuild. Additional
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<varname>meta</varname> attributes may be defined in the future
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(such as the URL of the package’s homepage, the license,
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etc.).</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>The following people contributed to this release:
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Andres Löh,
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Armijn Hemel,
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Christof Douma,
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Eelco Dolstra,
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Eelco Visser,
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Mart Kolthof,
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Martin Bravenboer,
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Merijn de Jonge,
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Rob Vermaas and
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Roy van den Broek.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section><title>Release 0.9 (January 31, 2006)</title>
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<para>There have been zillions of changes since the last release of
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Nixpkgs. Many packages have been added or updated. The following are
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some of the more notable changes:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para>Distribution files have been moved to <link
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xlink:href="http://nix.cs.uu.nl/" />.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The C library on Linux, Glibc, has been updated to
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version 2.3.6.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The default compiler is now GCC 3.4.5. GCC 4.0.2 is
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also available.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The old, unofficial Xlibs has been replaced by the
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official modularised X11 distribution from X.org, i.e., X11R7.0.
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X11R7.0 consists of 287 (!) packages, all of which are in Nixpkgs
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though not all have been tested. It is now possible to build a
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working X server (previously we only had X client libraries). We
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use a fully Nixified X server on NixOS.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The Sun JDK 5 has been purified, i.e., it doesn’t
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require any non-Nix components such as
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<filename>/lib/ld-linux.so.2</filename>. This means that Java
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applications such as Eclipse and Azureus can run on
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NixOS.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Hardware-accelerated OpenGL support, used by games
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like Quake 3 (which is now built from source).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Improved support for FreeBSD on
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x86.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Improved Haskell support; e.g., the GHC build is now
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pure.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Some support for cross-compilation: cross-compiling
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builds of GCC and Binutils, and cross-compiled builds of the C
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library uClibc.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Notable new packages:
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para>teTeX, including support for building LaTeX
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documents using Nix (with automatic dependency
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determination).</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Ruby.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>System-level packages to support NixOS,
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e.g. Grub, GNU <literal>parted</literal> and so
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on.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para><literal>ecj</literal>, the Eclipse Compiler for
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Java, so we finally have a freely distributable compiler that
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supports Java 5.0.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para><literal>php</literal>.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>The GIMP.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Inkscape.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>GAIM.</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para><literal>kdelibs</literal>. This allows us to
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add KDE-based packages (such as
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<literal>kcachegrind</literal>).</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>The following people contributed to this release:
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Andres Löh,
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Armijn Hemel,
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Bogdan Dumitriu,
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Christof Douma,
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Eelco Dolstra,
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Eelco Visser,
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Mart Kolthof,
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Martin Bravenboer,
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Rob Vermaas and
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Roy van den Broek.
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</para>
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</section>
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<section><title>Release 0.8 (April 11, 2005)</title>
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<para>This release is mostly to remain synchronised with the changed
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hashing scheme in Nix 0.8.</para>
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<para>Notable updates:
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para>Adobe Reader 7.0</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Various security updates (zlib 1.2.2, etc.)</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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</section>
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<section><title>Release 0.7 (March 14, 2005)</title>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>The bootstrap process for the standard build
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environment on Linux (stdenv-linux) has been improved. It is no
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longer dependent in its initial bootstrap stages on the system
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Glibc, GCC, and other tools. Rather, Nixpkgs contains a statically
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linked bash and curl, and uses that to download other statically
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linked tools. These are then used to build a Glibc and dynamically
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linked versions of all other tools.</para>
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<para>This change also makes the bootstrap process faster. For
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instance, GCC is built only once instead of three times.</para>
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<para>(Contributed by Armijn Hemel.)</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Tarballs used by Nixpkgs are now obtained from the same server
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that hosts Nixpkgs (<link
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xlink:href="http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/" />). This reduces the
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risk of packages being unbuildable due to moved or deleted files on
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various servers.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>There now is a generic mechanism for building Perl modules.
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See the various Perl modules defined in
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pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Notable new packages:
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para>Qt 3</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>MySQL</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>MythTV</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Mono</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>MonoDevelop (alpha)</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Xine</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Notable updates:
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem><para>GCC 3.4.3</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>Glibc 2.3.4</para></listitem>
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<listitem><para>GTK 2.6</para></listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</section>
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</article>
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