path: root/doc/manual/overview.xml

<chapter>
  <title>Overview</title>

  <para>
    This chapter provides a guided tour of Nix.
  </para>

  <sect1>
    <title>Basic package management</title>

    <para>
      Let's start from the perspective of an end-user.  Common operations at
      this level are to install and remove packages, ask what packages are
      installed or available for installation, and so on.
    </para>

    <para>
      To install packages, a <emphasis>Nix expression</emphasis> is required
      that tells Nix how to build that package.  There is a <ulink
        url='https://svn.cs.uu.nl:12443/dist/trace/trace-nixpkgs-trunk.tar.bz2'>standard 
        distribution of Nix expressions</ulink> for many common packages.
    </para>

  </sect1>

</chapter>

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