Desire for daml-sdk nix package?

Questions Features & Bugs
1

I wrote up a very simple nix package deriviation for Daml.

I wanted to check if this is something that would be interesting to the Daml team or others you know?

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2

Hi @ryan,

Thanks for doing this! We don’t have a strong need for this ourselves and don’t currently have the bandwidth or expertise to maintain a Nix derivation, but we have seen a few people asking for one.

I’m not personally very familiar with Nix, but a couple comments based on reading through this:

  • I believe a JRE is sufficient to run the Daml SDK, in case Nix makes a distinction between JDK and JRE.
  • Given that, within a Nix environment, we cannot install new Daml versions, it would be nice if there was a way to choose which version to install. I’m not quite sure what kind of mechanics Nix gives you for that; perhaps a way to override the version string and expected tarball hash?
3

Sure thing!

  • I believe a JRE is sufficient to run the Daml SDK, in case Nix makes a distinction between JDK and JRE.

Thanks for the suggestion. Using jre works!

  • Given that, within a Nix environment, we cannot install new Daml versions, it would be nice if there was a way to choose which version to install. I’m not quite sure what kind of mechanics Nix gives you for that; perhaps a way to override the version string and expected tarball hash?

Indeed this is doable. What I’ve seen is autogeneration of a .nix file with all of the versions and hashes based on scraping a release base that is checked into version control. Then you can choose which you want.

I will hold off on going down the path of making a package unless I see more desire from the community.

4

We’ve added some nix support for daml and canton, described here: Daml + Nix

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