diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/manual/introduction/about-nix.xml | 13 |
1 files changed, 10 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/doc/manual/introduction/about-nix.xml b/doc/manual/introduction/about-nix.xml index 54c18a1e6127..56ec39916b6c 100644 --- a/doc/manual/introduction/about-nix.xml +++ b/doc/manual/introduction/about-nix.xml @@ -161,13 +161,19 @@ library and the compiler) would have to built, at least if they are not already in the Nix store. This is a <emphasis>source deployment model</emphasis>. For most users, building from source is not very pleasant as it takes far too long. However, Nix can automatically -skip building from source and download a pre-built binary instead if -it knows about it. <emphasis>Nix channels</emphasis> provide Nix -expressions along with pre-built binaries.</para> +skip building from source and instead use a <emphasis>binary +cache</emphasis>, a web server that provides pre-built binaries. For +instance, when asked to build +<literal>/nix/store/b6gvzjyb2pg0…-firefox-33.1</literal> from source, +Nix would first check if the file +<uri>http://cache.nixos.org/b6gvzjyb2pg0….narinfo</uri> exists, and if +so, fetch the pre-built binary referenced from there; otherwise, it +would fall back to building from source.</para> </simplesect> +<!-- <simplesect><title>Binary patching</title> <para>In addition to downloading binaries automatically if they’re @@ -176,6 +182,7 @@ package in the Nix store into a new version. This speeds up upgrades.</para> </simplesect> +--> <simplesect><title>Nix Packages collection</title> |