libnix mingw status
17 apr 2024
motivation
status of native windows nix using MinGW from my series libnix
status
native nix on windows, using MinGW work from this branch: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/8901 i was able to:
- cross-compile nix.exe from nixos-wsl
- run nix-instantiate.exe on windows to compute ‘2+2’ -> 4
- run unit tests on windows, see the check output
build using nix build
on nixos-wsl, after you checked out the branch:
nix-repl
:lf .
:b packages.x86_64-linux.nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32and you can build the software using the nix build command:
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32 -v
nix log .#packages.x86_64-linux.nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32the result is this:
This derivation produced the following outputs:
check -> /nix/store/a09j2l5s1prx7hijjh347zrkykjdmlq7-nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32-2.22.0pre20240409_76b7331-check
dev -> /nix/store/2w7xn62vdf01g47kkjsm6195wl5gqy2n-nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32-2.22.0pre20240409_76b7331-dev
out -> /nix/store/l3isj28znw1gvpxzj9mmq57jspz12sgs-nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32-2.22.0pre20240409_76b7331but you need to copy the files to the windows machine in order to execute it, for me this is /mnt/c/Users/joschie/.
verbose build
diff --git a/package.nix b/package.nix
index c9e50c399..0f8c5711e 100644
--- a/package.nix
+++ b/package.nix
@@ -313,6 +313,8 @@ in {
enableParallelBuilding = true;
makeFlags = "profiledir=$(out)/etc/profile.d PRECOMPILE_HEADERS=1";
+ NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = "-v";
+ NIX_LDFLAGS = "-v";and run the build with:
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32 -Lcopy the files to windows
the the directory:
nix derivation show .#packages.x86_64-linux.nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32 | jq -r '.[] | .outputs.out.path'
/nix/store/l3isj28znw1gvpxzj9mmq57jspz12sgs-nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32-2.22.0pre20240409_76b7331note: the dev-shell below is used to access the $LINK_DLL_FOLDERS variable to extract the dlls!
nix develop .#devShells.x86_64-linux.x86_64-w64-mingw32
cd /nix/store/l3isj28znw1gvpxzj9mmq57jspz12sgs-nix-x86_64-w64-mingw32-2.22.0pre20240409_76b7331/bin
rm -rf /tmp/copy-to-windows
mkdir /tmp/copy-to-windows
cp -rL *.{exe,dll} /tmp/copy-to-windows
# _linkDLLs creates symlinks but doesn't copy them
# meaning that recursive dependencies don't get copied!
# For example, libhttp_parser.2.9.4.dll which libgit2 needs.
for i in $(echo "$LINK_DLL_FOLDERS" | tr ':' ' '); do
for dll in $(find $i -name "*.dll"); do
if [ ! -e "/tmp/copy-to-windows/$(basename $dll)" ]; then
cp $dll /tmp/copy-to-windows/
fi
done
doneand finally copy the files to the windows machine:
cp -r /tmp/copy-to-windows /mnt/c/Users/joschie/in an admin power shell run this command:
cd C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows
cmd /c mklink nix-build.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-channel.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-collect-garbage.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-copy-closure.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-daemon.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-env.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-hash.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-instantiate.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-prefetch-url.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-shell.exe nix.exe
cmd /c mklink nix-store.exe nix.exethe output should look like this:
(base) PS C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows> ls
Directory: C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 81299 capi.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 175006 legacy.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 1133001 libarchive-13.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 66371 libatomic-1.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 158587 libbrotlicommon.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 76247 libbrotlidec.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 745991 libbrotlienc.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 125885 libbz2-1.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 61588 libcharset-1.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 260067 libcpuid-16.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 4991360 libcrypto-3-x64.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 158103 libgcc_s_seh-1.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 1530891 libgit2.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 31313 libgmock_main.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 168524 libgmock.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 62990 libgtest_main.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 653348 libgtest.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 94169 libhistory8.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 56639 libhttp_parser.2.9.4.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 1036160 libiconv-2.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 292440 libidn2-0.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 232068 liblzma-5.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 242738 libnghttp2-14.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 1123300 libnixcmd.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 4040522 libnixexpr.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 397542 libnixexprc.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 1701921 libnixfetchers.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 419859 libnixmain.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 4974340 libnixstore.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 70372 libnixstorec.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 2425865 libnixutil.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 177556 libnixutilc.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 537482 libpcre-1.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 432213 libquadmath-0.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 902691 librapidcheck.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 359921 libreadline8.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 377154 libsodium-23.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 1444530 libsqlite3-0.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 361972 libssh2-1.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 819704 libssl-3-x64.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 38695 libssp-0.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 4263977 libstdc++-6.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 69342 libtermcap.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 2239635 libunistring-5.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 137216 libz.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 928693 libzstd.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 101628 loader_attic.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 72803 mcfgthread-12.dll
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-build.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-channel.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-collect-garbage.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-copy-closure.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-daemon.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-env.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-hash.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 2:41 PM 0 nix-instantiate.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-prefetch-url.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:52 PM 0 nix-shell.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
la--- 17-Apr-24 3:12 PM 0 nix-store.exe -> C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows\nix.exe
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:33 PM 4947837 nix.exe
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 54706 padlock.dll
-ar-- 17-Apr-24 2:13 PM 137216 zlib1.dllfinally run nix-instantiate.exe to check everything is working:
(base) PS C:\Users\joschie\copy-to-windows> .\nix-instantiate.exe --store 'dummy://' --eval -E '1+1'
2build using nix-shell
if you hack on nix you might like:
nix develop .#devShells.x86_64-linux.x86_64-w64-mingw32
declare | grep -i phases
so basically:
preConfigurePhases
configurePhase
buildPhase && installPhase && . ./copy-to-windows.shusing builddir one can use separate build directories to do linux and windows builds from the same source tree!
copy-to-windows.sh
#!/bin/sh
_linkDLLs
rm -rf copy-to-windows
mkdir copy-to-windows
cp -rL $prefix/bin/*.{exe,dll} copy-to-windows/
cp copy-to-windows/nix.exe copy-to-windows/nix-instantiate.exe
# _linkDLLs creates symlinks but doesn't copy them
# meaning that recursive dependencies don't get copied!
# For example, libhttp_parser.2.9.4.dll which libgit2 needs.
for i in $(echo "$LINK_DLL_FOLDERS" | tr ':' ' '); do
for dll in $(find $i -name "*.dll"); do
if [ ! -e "copy-to-windows/$(basename $dll)" ]; then
cp $dll copy-to-windows/
fi
done
done
# copy the checks
mkdir copy-to-windows/check
cp -rL outputs/check/bin/* copy-to-windows
cp -rL outputs/check/lib/* copy-to-windows
# update the windows copy
rm -rf /mnt/c/nix
cp -r copy-to-windows/* /mnt/c/nix-hacknix-instantiate.exe
powershell
cd C:\nix
.\nix-instantiate.exe --store 'dummy://' --eval -E '1+1'
2tests
powershell
cd C:\nix
./libnixfetchers-tests.exe --gtest_color=yes
Running main() from /build/source/googletest/src/gtest_main.cc
[==========] Running 2 tests from 1 test suite.
[----------] Global test environment set-up.
[----------] 2 tests from PublicKey
[ RUN ] PublicKey.jsonSerialization
[ OK ] PublicKey.jsonSerialization (0 ms)
[ RUN ] PublicKey.jsonDeserialization
[ OK ] PublicKey.jsonDeserialization (0 ms)
[----------] 2 tests from PublicKey (5 ms total)
[----------] Global test environment tear-down
[==========] 2 tests from 1 test suite ran. (12 ms total)
[ PASSED ] 2 tests.summary
given that some nix tools already run on windows natively, we have a shining future ahead!
see https://github.com/NixOS/nix/labels/windows for next steps!