Nix: It’s easy to miss that nix-channel has different contexts

[Profpatsch]

(copied over from nixpkgs, https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/7113#issuecomment-186664610)
It took me a few hours of head scratching to find out, that nix-channel needs to be called as root to change the system channel. In hindsight that’s obvious, but it seems easy to miss.

I’m aware that this is a nix thing, but it mostly is of concern to NixOS I guess.

How about a message “switched to / added channel foo for user bar”? Since it’s an instant command I think it makes sense to break the rule of silence for that.

[retrry]

I had the same problem, when I started using NixOS. Couldn't understand why my nixos-rebuild wasn't updating my system.

[domenkozar]

Good thing is, channels are going away with new cli.

[copumpkin]

I have yet to see a viable replacement proposal! Curious what will replace them :)

On Feb 29, 2016, at 15:27, Domen Kožar [email protected] wrote:

Good thing is, channels are going away with new cli.

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[0xABAB]

Why isn't channel configuration part of configuration.nix? It is configuration afterall.

[eqyiel]

Good thing is, channels are going away with new cli.

@domenkozar is this still happening?

[edolstra]

Channels will be replaced by flakes, so I'll close this.