tldr/pages/common/nix-classic.md

nix classic

A classic, stable interface to a powerful package manager that makes package management reliable, reproducible, and declarative. Some Nix commands such as nix-build, nix-shell, nix-env, and nix-store have their own pages. See also: tldr nix. More information: https://nixos.org.

• Search for a package in nixpkgs via its name:

nix-env {{[-qaP|--query --available --attr-path]}} {{search_term_regexp}}

• Start a shell with the specified packages available:

nix-shell {{[-p|--packages]}} {{pkg1 pkg2 pkg3...}}

• Install some packages permanently:

nix-env {{[-iA|--install --attr]}} {{nixpkgs.pkg1 nixpkgs.pkg2...}}

• Show all dependencies of a store path (package), in a tree format:

nix-store {{[-q|--query]}} --tree {{/nix/store/...}}

• Update the channels (repositories):

nix-channel --update

• Remove unused paths from Nix store:

nix-collect-garbage