If you are using Linux or Mac OS X, the easiest way to install Nix is to run the following command: $ bash <(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install) This will perform a single-user installation of Nix, meaning that /nix is owned by the invoking user. You should run this under your usual user account, not as root. The script will invoke sudo to create /nix if it doesn’t already exist. If you don’t have sudo, you should manually create /nix first as root, e.g.: $ mkdir /nix $ chown alice /nix You can also download a binary tarball that contains Nix and all its dependencies. (This is what the install script at https://nixos.org/nix/install does automatically.) You should unpack it somewhere (e.g. in /tmp), and then run the script named install inside the binary tarball: alice$ cd /tmp alice$ tar xfj nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2 alice$ cd nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin alice$ ./install Nix can be uninstalled using rpm -e nix or dpkg -r nix on RPM- and Dpkg-based systems, respectively. After this you should manually remove the Nix store and other auxiliary data, if desired: $ rm -rf /nix You can uninstall Nix simply by running: $ rm -rf /nix