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diff --git a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-0.10.md b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-0.10.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..bf0e59fad --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-0.10.md @@ -0,0 +1,212 @@ +# Release 0.10 (2006-10-06) + +> **Note** +> +> This version of Nix uses Berkeley DB 4.4 instead of 4.3. The database +> is upgraded automatically, but you should be careful not to use old +> versions of Nix that still use Berkeley DB 4.3. In particular, if you +> use a Nix installed through Nix, you should run +> +> $ nix-store --clear-substitutes +> +> first. + +> **Warning** +> +> Also, the database schema has changed slighted to fix a performance +> issue (see below). When you run any Nix 0.10 command for the first +> time, the database will be upgraded automatically. This is +> irreversible. + + - `nix-env` usability improvements: + + - An option `--compare-versions` (or `-c`) has been added to + `nix-env + --query` to allow you to compare installed versions of packages + to available versions, or vice versa. An easy way to see if you + are up to date with what’s in your subscribed channels is + `nix-env -qc \*`. + + - `nix-env --query` now takes as arguments a list of package names + about which to show information, just like `--install`, etc.: + for example, `nix-env -q gcc`. Note that to show all + derivations, you need to specify `\*`. + + - `nix-env -i + pkgname` will now install the highest available version of + pkgname, rather than installing all available versions (which + would probably give collisions) (`NIX-31`). + + - `nix-env (-i|-u) --dry-run` now shows exactly which missing + paths will be built or substituted. + + - `nix-env -qa --description` shows human-readable descriptions of + packages, provided that they have a `meta.description` attribute + (which most packages in Nixpkgs don’t have yet). + + - New language features: + + - Reference scanning (which happens after each build) is much + faster and takes a constant amount of memory. + + - String interpolation. Expressions like + + "--with-freetype2-library=" + freetype + "/lib" + + can now be written as + + "--with-freetype2-library=${freetype}/lib" + + You can write arbitrary expressions within `${...}`, not just + identifiers. + + - Multi-line string literals. + + - String concatenations can now involve derivations, as in the + example `"--with-freetype2-library=" + + freetype + "/lib"`. This was not previously possible because + we need to register that a derivation that uses such a string is + dependent on `freetype`. The evaluator now properly propagates + this information. Consequently, the subpath operator (`~`) has + been deprecated. + + - Default values of function arguments can now refer to other + function arguments; that is, all arguments are in scope in the + default values (`NIX-45`). + + - Lots of new built-in primitives, such as functions for list + manipulation and integer arithmetic. See the manual for a + complete list. All primops are now available in the set + `builtins`, allowing one to test for the availability of primop + in a backwards-compatible way. + + - Real let-expressions: `let x = ...; + ... z = ...; in ...`. + + - New commands `nix-pack-closure` and `nix-unpack-closure` than can be + used to easily transfer a store path with all its dependencies to + another machine. Very convenient whenever you have some package on + your machine and you want to copy it somewhere else. + + - XML support: + + - `nix-env -q --xml` prints the installed or available packages in + an XML representation for easy processing by other tools. + + - `nix-instantiate --eval-only + --xml` prints an XML representation of the resulting term. (The + new flag `--strict` forces ‘deep’ evaluation of the result, + i.e., list elements and attributes are evaluated recursively.) + + - In Nix expressions, the primop `builtins.toXML` converts a term + to an XML representation. This is primarily useful for passing + structured information to builders. + + - You can now unambiguously specify which derivation to build or + install in `nix-env`, `nix-instantiate` and `nix-build` using the + `--attr` / `-A` flags, which takes an attribute name as argument. + (Unlike symbolic package names such as `subversion-1.4.0`, attribute + names in an attribute set are unique.) For instance, a quick way to + perform a test build of a package in Nixpkgs is `nix-build + pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix -A + foo`. `nix-env -q + --attr` shows the attribute names corresponding to each derivation. + + - If the top-level Nix expression used by `nix-env`, `nix-instantiate` + or `nix-build` evaluates to a function whose arguments all have + default values, the function will be called automatically. Also, the + new command-line switch `--arg + name + value` can be used to specify function arguments on the command + line. + + - `nix-install-package --url + URL` allows a package to be installed directly from the given URL. + + - Nix now works behind an HTTP proxy server; just set the standard + environment variables http\_proxy, https\_proxy, ftp\_proxy or + all\_proxy appropriately. Functions such as `fetchurl` in Nixpkgs + also respect these variables. + + - `nix-build -o + symlink` allows the symlink to the build result to be named + something other than `result`. + + - Platform support: + + - Support for 64-bit platforms, provided a [suitably patched ATerm + library](http://bugzilla.sen.cwi.nl:8080/show_bug.cgi?id=606) is + used. Also, files larger than 2 GiB are now supported. + + - Added support for Cygwin (Windows, `i686-cygwin`), Mac OS X on + Intel (`i686-darwin`) and Linux on PowerPC (`powerpc-linux`). + + - Users of SMP and multicore machines will appreciate that the + number of builds to be performed in parallel can now be + specified in the configuration file in the `build-max-jobs` + setting. + + - Garbage collector improvements: + + - Open files (such as running programs) are now used as roots of + the garbage collector. This prevents programs that have been + uninstalled from being garbage collected while they are still + running. The script that detects these additional runtime roots + (`find-runtime-roots.pl`) is inherently system-specific, but it + should work on Linux and on all platforms that have the `lsof` + utility. + + - `nix-store --gc` (a.k.a. `nix-collect-garbage`) prints out the + number of bytes freed on standard output. `nix-store + --gc --print-dead` shows how many bytes would be freed by an + actual garbage collection. + + - `nix-collect-garbage -d` removes all old generations of *all* + profiles before calling the actual garbage collector (`nix-store + --gc`). This is an easy way to get rid of all old packages in + the Nix store. + + - `nix-store` now has an operation `--delete` to delete specific + paths from the Nix store. It won’t delete reachable + (non-garbage) paths unless `--ignore-liveness` is specified. + + - Berkeley DB 4.4’s process registry feature is used to recover from + crashed Nix processes. + + - A performance issue has been fixed with the `referer` table, which + stores the inverse of the `references` table (i.e., it tells you + what store paths refer to a given path). Maintaining this table + could take a quadratic amount of time, as well as a quadratic amount + of Berkeley DB log file space (in particular when running the + garbage collector) (`NIX-23`). + + - Nix now catches the `TERM` and `HUP` signals in addition to the + `INT` signal. So you can now do a `killall + nix-store` without triggering a database recovery. + + - `bsdiff` updated to version 4.3. + + - Substantial performance improvements in expression evaluation and + `nix-env -qa`, all thanks to [Valgrind](http://valgrind.org/). + Memory use has been reduced by a factor 8 or so. Big speedup by + memoisation of path hashing. + + - Lots of bug fixes, notably: + + - Make sure that the garbage collector can run successfully when + the disk is full (`NIX-18`). + + - `nix-env` now locks the profile to prevent races between + concurrent `nix-env` operations on the same profile (`NIX-7`). + + - Removed misleading messages from `nix-env -i` (e.g., + ``installing + `foo'`` followed by ``uninstalling + `foo'``) (`NIX-17`). + + - Nix source distributions are a lot smaller now since we no longer + include a full copy of the Berkeley DB source distribution (but only + the bits we need). + + - Header files are now installed so that external programs can use the + Nix libraries. |