This utility provides a single barf binary for managing your Nixpkgs and NixOS installation. It makes it easier, at least for me, instead of memorizing many commands with different interfaces. This is not exhaustive and only covers the commands listed here.

This program was salvaged from ebzzry/scripts, turning it into a repository of its own, to make it easier to distribute.

• Installation
• Initialization
• Commands
  • Base commands
  • Channel management
  • Channel commands
  • Upstream commands
  • Querying packages
  • Common commands
  • Miscellaneous commands
  • Prefetch commands
• Usage
• Notes

Install the dependencies:

nix-env -i git sbcl gnumake curl cl-launch bzip2 nix-prefetch-scripts fd ripgrep

Then, install barf:

mkdir -p ~/bin ~/common-lisp
git clone https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf ~/common-lisp/asdf
git clone https://github.com/ebzzry/barf ~/common-lisp/barf
curl -O https://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp
sbcl --load quicklisp.lisp --eval  '(quicklisp-quickstart:install)' --eval '(let ((ql-util::*do-not-prompt* t)) (ql:add-to-init-file) (ql:quickload :cl-launch) (sb-ext:quit))'
make -C ~/common-lisp/barf install

Or, in one line:

mkdir -p ~/bin ~/common-lisp; git clone https://gitlab.common-lisp.net/asdf/asdf ~/common-lisp/asdf; git clone https://github.com/ebzzry/barf ~/common-lisp/barf; curl -O https://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp; sbcl --load quicklisp.lisp --eval  '(quicklisp-quickstart:install)' --eval '(let ((ql-util::*do-not-prompt* t)) (ql:add-to-init-file)  (ql:quickload :cl-launch) (sb-ext:quit))'; make -C ~/common-lisp/barf install

On your first run, initialize the databases for the upstream nixpkgs checkout and index database:

barf init

Bear in mind that re-running init will purge the index and package databases.

Periodically, run the following command to update the aforementioned databases, plus the channels for the user and root:

barf full-update

Below are the currently available commands. When an option looks like <package> it means it accepts at least one package argument. When an option looks like <package?>it means it accepts zero ore more package arguments. When a command doesn’t have an argument, it means it doesn’t take any. The | indicates an alternative, shorter name.

• out-path|o-p <package>
• which|h <binary>
• store <options>
• repl
• pure-shell|shell
• impure-shell|i-s
• rebuild
• rebuild-switch|r-s
• rebuild-switch-upgrade|r-s-u
• instantiate
• eval <expression>
• grep|g <string>
• find|fd <package>
• install-package|i-p <location>
• install-package-uri|i-p-u <location>
• references|r <package>
• referrers|R <package>
• query-root|q-r
• closure|c <package>
• set-flag|s-f <options>
• option|o <options>
• garbage-collect|g-c
• garbage-collect-delete|g-c-d

• channel|ch <options>
• channel-list|ch-l
• channel-add|ch-a <url> <name>
• channel-remove|ch-r <name>
• channel-update|ch-u
• channel-name|ch-n
• root-channel|r-ch <options>
• root-channel-list|r-ch-l
• root-channel-add|r-ch-a <url> <name>
• root-channel-remove|r-ch-r <name>
• root-channel-update|r-ch-u
• root-channel-name|r-ch-n

• env|e <options>
• build|b <options>
• query|q <package>
• upgrade|U <package?>
• upgrade-always|U-a <package?>
• install|i <package>
• Install|I <package>
• query-available|q-a
• compare-versions|c-v
• compare-versions-less-than|c-v-l-t
• compare-versions-equal|c-v-e
• compare-versions-greater-than|c-v-g-t
• describe-available|d-a
• index-available|i-a
• search-available|s-a <package>
• view-available|v-a
• profile|p <profile>

• channels-env <options>
• channels-build|c-b <options>
• channels-query|c-q <package>
• channels-upgrade|c-U <package?>
• channels-upgrade-always|c-U-a <package?>
• channels-install|c-i <package>
• channels-Install|c-I <package>
• channels-query-available|c-q-a
• channels-compare-versions|c-c-v
• channels-compare-versions-less-than|c-c-v-l-t
• channels-compare-versions-equal|c-c-v-e
• channels-compare-versions-greater-than|c-c-v-g-t
• channels-describe-available|c-d-a
• channels-index-available|c-i-a
• channels-search-available|c-search|s-a|s <package>
• channels-view-available|c-v-a
• channels-profile|c-p <profile>

• query-installed|q-i <package>
• query-installed-names|q-i-n <package>
• search-installed|s-i <package>
• index-installed|i-i
• describe-installed|d-i

• uninstall|remove|erase|e <package>
• build-index|b-i|index <package>
• update|u
• full-update|f-u|complete-update
• full-upgrade|f-U|complete-upgrade
• full-search|f-s <package>

• view-packages|v-p
• make
• nix-version
• nixpkgs-version
• nixos-version
• version
• cleanup

• fetch-url <options>
• fetch-file <options>
• fetch-git <options>
• fetch-zip <options>
• fetch-hg <options>
• fetch-svn <options>
• fetch-bzr <options>
• fetch-cvs <options>

To install the latest Firefox:

barf install firefox

To install the latest Firefox from channels:

barf channels-install firefox

To uninstall it:

barf e firefox

To search for upstream packages with the name firefox:

barf search firefox

To search for channel packages with the name firefox:

barf channels-s firefox

To search for packages from both upstream and channels, with the name firefox:

barf full-searc firefox

To display the version of Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS:

barf version

To view the list of installed packages:

barf query-installed

To view the list of installed packages, including description:

barf describe-installed

To view the Haskell packages from upstream:

barf view-packages haskellPackages

To install Firefox from upstream on a different profile:

barf u-p firefox -iA firefox

then, to use this version of Firefox:

PATH=$PATH/.barf/profiles/firefox/bin firefox

On NixOS, to find out which package has the binary firefox:

barf which firefox

To get the store path of Firefox:

barf o-p firefox

To display the share/ subdirectory of Firefox, with some options to ls:

barf ls --color -FAtrl firefox/share

To look for files in upstream containing the string firefox:

barf find firefox

To grep the case insensitive string firefox in the upstream, displaying the name of the matching file:

barf grep -iH firefox

To garbage collect:

barf g-c

To aggressively garbage collect:

barf g-c-d

To subscribe to the nixos-unstable channel for the current user:

barf ch-a https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable nixos
barf ch-u

To subscribe to the nixos-unstable channel for root:

barf r-ch-a https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable nixos
barf r-ch-u

To rebuild NixOS from /etc/nixos/configuration.nix then perform switch:

barf r-s

To rebuild NixOS from /etc/nixos/configuration.nix, perform switch, and upgrade:

barf r-s-u

To update the user channel, root channel, upstream nixpkgs checkout, and index database on NixOS with full sudo access:

barf f-u

To perform the above, then upgrade the whole NixOS system:

barf f-U

In order for the which command to work on NixOS, put this in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

programs.command-not-found.enable = true;

To update barf to the latest version:

cd ~/common-lisp/barf; git pull --rebase origin master; make install

barf uses fd and ripgrep for finding files and text strings.