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While the word 'simply' is usually added to encourage readers, it often has the opposite effect and may even appear condescending, especially when the reader runs into trouble trying to apply the suggestions from the documentation. It is almost always an improvement to simply drop the word from the sentence. (there are more possible improvements like this, we can apply those in separate PRs)
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Declarative Package Management
With declarative package management, you specify which packages you want
on your system by setting the option
. For instance, adding the
following line to configuration.nix enables the Mozilla Thunderbird
email application:
environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.thunderbird ];
The effect of this specification is that the Thunderbird package from
Nixpkgs will be built or downloaded as part of the system when you run
nixos-rebuild switch.
::: {.note} Some packages require additional global configuration such as D-Bus or systemd service registration so adding them to might not be sufficient. You are advised to check the list of options whether a NixOS module for the package does not exist. :::
You can get a list of the available packages as follows:
$ nix-env -qaP '*' --description
nixos.firefox firefox-23.0 Mozilla Firefox - the browser, reloaded
...
The first column in the output is the attribute name, such as
nixos.thunderbird.
Note: the nixos prefix tells us that we want to get the package from
the nixos channel and works only in CLI tools. In declarative
configuration use pkgs prefix (variable).
To "uninstall" a package, remove it from
and run nixos-rebuild switch.
customizing-packages.section.md
adding-custom-packages.section.md