Determinate Systems Nix¶

Install¶

https://docs.determinate.systems explains how to install their Nix distribution on:

non-NixOS Linux systems, like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux, etc.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
macOS

This distribution is recommended on Fedora over the upstream nix.

It is usually behind the latest upstream Nix version, but typically only slightly.

Update¶

$ nix --version
nix (Determinate Nix 3.4.2) 2.28.3

$ sudo determinate-nixd upgrade
Upgrading Determinate Nixd...
Upgrading Determinate Nix...

$ nix --version
nix (Determinate Nix 3.11.3) 2.31.2

Daemon¶

$ systemctl status nix-daemon
● nix-daemon.service - Nix Daemon, with Determinate Nix superpowers.
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf, 50-keep-warm.conf
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-10-19 13:53:41 CEST; 1h 28min ago
 Invocation: 59028b3afdd644d598f1ae2a93c4748d
TriggeredBy: ● determinate-nixd.socket
             ● nix-daemon.socket
       Docs: man:nix-daemon
             https://determinate.systems
   Main PID: 701408 (determinate-nix)
      Tasks: 26 (limit: 1048576)
     Memory: 38.5M (peak: 66M)
        CPU: 4.889s
     CGroup: /system.slice/nix-daemon.service
             ├─701408 determinate-nixd daemon
             └─701422 /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin/nix-daemon --option json-log-path /nix/var/determinate/determinate-nixd-logger.socket

Use systemctl restart nix-daemon to restart the daemon after changing /etc/nix/nix.conf or ~/.config/nix/nix.conf.