Differences

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--- howto:languages [2023/07/29 13:18] – tcmal
+++ howto:languages [2024/02/23 11:05] (current) – tcmal
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== 3. Installing new packages ======
+====== 5. Installing new packages ======
 If you want to run some code you wrote, you probably need some language or runtime to do so - eg Python, GCC, Haskell. It might happen to be installed system wide, but when it's not, we use a tool called [[https://nixos.org/|Nix]] to install packages per-user without having version conflicts.
@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 <code>
 # install 'hello' from nixpkgs
-$ nix-env -iA nixpkgs.hello
+$ nix profile install nixpkgs#hello
-installing 'hello-2.12.1'
 $ hello
 Hello, world!
@@ Line 14: / Line 13: @@
 # see everything installed for the current user
-$ nix-env -q
+$ nix profile list
-hello-2.12.1
+flake:nixpkgs#legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.hello github:NixOS/nixpkgs/98b00b6947a9214381112bdb6f89c25498db4959#legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.hello /nix/store/63l345l7dgcfz789w1y93j1540czafqh-hello-2.12.1
 # uninstall 'hello'. note no 'nixpkgs.' this time
-$ nix-env --uninstall hello
+$ nix profile remove 0
+removing 'flake:nixpkgs#legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.hello'
 </code>
@@ Line 29: / Line 29: @@
   * [[https://zero-to-nix.com/|Zero to Nix]], a more up-to-date but slightly incomplete resource
+===== Alternatives =====
+The language versions that Nix can install might not be the ones you want, or it might be missing a package you need. In this case, you might want to try an alternative:
+  * Rust has [[https://rustup.rs/|rustup]]
+  * Node.JS has [[https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm|NVM]]
+  * Ruby has [[https://github.com/rvm/rvm|RVM]]
+  * [[https://asdf-vm.com/|asdf]] supports many other languages
+  * You can just compile it from source and install it somewhere in your home directory.
+If you're having problems, feel free to ask an admin.