nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/configuration/adding-custom-packages.section.md

Adding Custom Packages

It's possible that a package you need is not available in NixOS. In that case, you can do two things. Either you can package it with Nix, or you can try to use prebuilt packages from upstream. Due to the peculiarities of NixOS, it is important to note that building software from source is often easier than using pre-built executables.

Building with Nix

This can be done either in-tree or out-of-tree. For an in-tree build, you can clone the Nixpkgs repository, add the package to your clone, and (optionally) submit a patch or pull request to have it accepted into the main Nixpkgs repository. This is described in detail in the Nixpkgs manual. In short, you clone Nixpkgs:

$ git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs
$ cd nixpkgs

Then you write and test the package as described in the Nixpkgs manual. Finally, you add it to , e.g.

{
  environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.my-package ];
}

and you run nixos-rebuild, specifying your own Nixpkgs tree:

# nixos-rebuild switch -I nixpkgs=/path/to/my/nixpkgs

The second possibility is to add the package outside of the Nixpkgs tree. For instance, here is how you specify a build of the GNU Hello package directly in configuration.nix:

{
  environment.systemPackages =
    let
      my-hello = with pkgs; stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
        name = "hello-2.8";
        src = fetchurl {
          url = "mirror://gnu/hello/${name}.tar.gz";
          hash = "sha256-5rd/gffPfa761Kn1tl3myunD8TuM+66oy1O7XqVGDXM=";
        };
      };
    in
    [ my-hello ];
}

Of course, you can also move the definition of my-hello into a separate Nix expression, e.g.

{
  environment.systemPackages = [ (import ./my-hello.nix) ];
}

where my-hello.nix contains:

with import <nixpkgs> {}; # bring all of Nixpkgs into scope

stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
  name = "hello-2.8";
  src = fetchurl {
    url = "mirror://gnu/hello/${name}.tar.gz";
    hash = "sha256-5rd/gffPfa761Kn1tl3myunD8TuM+66oy1O7XqVGDXM=";
  };
}

This allows testing the package easily:

$ nix-build my-hello.nix
$ ./result/bin/hello
Hello, world!

Using pre-built executables

Most pre-built executables will not work on NixOS. There are two notable exceptions: flatpaks and AppImages. For flatpaks see the dedicated section. AppImages will not run "as-is" on NixOS. First you need to install appimage-run: add to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

{
  environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.appimage-run ];
}

Then instead of running the AppImage "as-is", run appimage-run foo.appimage.

To make other pre-built executables work on NixOS, you need to package them with Nix and special helpers like autoPatchelfHook or buildFHSEnv. See the Nixpkgs manual for details. This is complex and often doing a source build is easier.