WSL: Ubuntu Nix Setup

windowswsllinuxubuntuwsl-series

Introduction

WARNING

Make sure you have followed WSL Quick Setup Post first.

Nix and Nix flakes makes easier to install tools on Ubuntu. Although, not all of them work perfectly fine (I prefer to keep podman f.e. installed from apt) it makes easier to maintain the environment clean and reproducible.

  • nix provides a package-manager with a unique declarative approach. Do not confuse with NixOs which is a Linux Distribution on its own.
  • nix flakes provides a standard way to use nix for installing packages easily with nix files.

Install

Install nix multi-user with daemon

curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh -s -- --daemon

Log out, wait at least 8 seconds and log in again

exit
wsl -t Ubuntu

# wait at least 8 seconds
wsl -d Ubuntu

Enable Flakes

Enable flakes by creating ~/.config/nix/nix.conf

mkdir -p ~/.config/nix/
touch ~/.config/nix/nix.conf

Add to ~/.config/nix/nix.conf the following (run code ~/.config/nix/nix.conf)

experimental-features = nix-command flakes

Check nix flakes works

nix flake --help

nix run nixpkgs#hello

# Hello, World!