edit box configuration

> /usr/sbin/prtconf
Processor Type: PowerPC_POWER5
Processor Implementation Mode: POWER 5
Processor Version: PV_5_3 <= aix 5.3
Number Of Processors: 1
Processor Clock Speed: 2097 MHz
CPU Type: 64-bit
Kernel Type: 64-bit

edit Requirements

My box had very minimal configuration. So I discovered that need to install some additional software to compile nix. Some packages I have downloaded from ibm.com, but most from http://www.perzl.org/aix/

edit AIX packages

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/linux/toolbox/alpha.html

#this requires for sed. I could not install latest gettext-0.17-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm because it required to install too many others
rpm -i gettext-0.10.40-8.aix5.2.ppc.rpm

edit perzl.org

All packages below you can find on http://www.perzl.org/aix/

curl-7.9.3-2.aix4.3.ppc.rpm
make-3.80-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
gcc-4.2.4-2.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
gcc-c++-4.2.4-2.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
gcc-cpp-4.2.4-2.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
libgcc-4.2.4-2.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
libstdc++-4.2.4-2.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
libstdc++-devel-4.2.4-2.aix5.2.ppc.rpm
info-4.6-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
sed-4.2.1-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

To install in the folder with all rpms

rpm -i *.rpm

You need to make sure that you have proper version of tar. I had very old 1.13 version and had issues during unpacking of some nixexprs.tar.bz2

tar-1.26-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

edit coreutils

coreutils was compiled and installed separately, just because I had to upgrade too many packages to install rpm You can find core utils here http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/. I had troubles to compile the latest version of core utils so I finally picked version 8.4. But you may have better luck to compile latest or you may just install ready to go rpm

export PATH=/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH #we need this for gmake
rm -rf /opt/qib/app/coreutils-8.4
./configure --prefix=/opt/qib/app/coreutils-8.4
make
make install

If you noticed I have used /opt/qib/app/ folder to install my own packages. You can use your own location

edit compilation of nix

I downloaded the latest nix-0.16 from http://nixos.org/nix/download.html

user-envs.builder.sh had small issue. AIX does not have $shell environment variable, but has $SHELL. This small change helped to correct user-envs.sh and remote-store.sh failure

#
#
# --enable-static - otherwise nix-env coredumps
# --enable-static-nix - otherwise nix-env coredumps
# --disable-largefile - prevent linking issues
# --localstatedir - point to /home/lowes/ with enough space
# --with-store-dir - point to /home/lowes/ with enough space
# --with-system - uname -m works incorrectly on AIX so configure
#                 was not able to set properly machine
#
#
#
#fallocate function does not work correctly on AIX
#
export PATH=/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH
export PATH=/opt/qib/app/coreutils-8.4/bin/:$PATH
export INSTALL_DIR=/opt/qib/app/nix-0.16
rm -rf ${INSTALL_DIR} \
&& ./configure \
 --prefix=${INSTALL_DIR} \
 --localstatedir=/home/lowes/nix/var \
 --with-store-dir=/home/lowes/nix/store \
 --enable-static \
 --enable-static-nix \
 --disable-largefile \
 --with-system=powerpc-aix \
 --with-coreutils-bin=/opt/qib/app/coreutils-8.4/bin \
&& perl -p -i -e 's/#define HAVE_POSIX_FALLOCATE 1/\/\*#define HAVE_POSIX_FALLOCATE 1\*\//g' config.h \
&& perl -p -i -e 's/\$shell/\$SHELL/g' tests/user-envs.builder.sh \
&& make \
&& make check \
&& make install

edit Run nix-env

I discovered that nix-env requires memory in data segment I had to use http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/ITAME/GC32-0846-00/en_US/HTML/am39_perftune11.htm Make sure that you have 7 zeros. Original document has some mistakes

export LDR_CNTRL=MAXDATA=0x20000000
#Add on 02/08/2012 about LDR_CNTRL. You may use ldedit to modify compiled executable to set MAXDATA or use -   qmaxdata:0x20000000 during compilation. Can not verify this right now

Next you can use instructions for simple verification of nix-env http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/download.html

nix-channel --add http://nixos.org/releases/nixpkgs/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
nix-channel --update
nix-env -qa \*

edit compile nix-trunk

You will need two more packages

readline-6.2-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
sqlite-3.7.5-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
sqlite-devel-3.7.5-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm
pkg-config-0.19-6.aix5.2.ppc.rpm

#
#
# --enable-static - otherwise nix-env coredumps
# --enable-static-nix - otherwise nix-env coredumps
# --disable-largefile - prevent linking issues
# --localstatedir - point to /home/lowes/ with enough space
# --with-store-dir - point to /home/lowes/ with enough space
# --with-system - uname -m works incorrectly on AIX so configure
#                 was not able to set properly machine
#
#
#
#fallocate function does not work correctly on AIX
#
export PATH=/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH
export PATH=/opt/qib/app/coreutils-8.4/bin/:$PATH
export INSTALL_DIR=/opt/qib/app/nix-trunk
rm -rf ${INSTALL_DIR} \
&& ./configure \
 --prefix=${INSTALL_DIR} \
 --localstatedir=/home/lowes/nix-trunk/var \
 --with-store-dir=/home/lowes/nix-trunk/store \
 --enable-static \
 --enable-static-nix \
 --disable-largefile \
 --with-system=powerpc-aix \
 --with-sqlite=/usr/bin \
 --with-coreutils-bin=/opt/qib/app/coreutils-8.4/bin \
&& perl -p -i -e 's/#define HAVE_POSIX_FALLOCATE 1/\/\*#define HAVE_POSIX_FALLOCATE 1\*\//g' config.h \
&& perl -p -i -e 's/\$shell/\$SHELL/g' tests/user-envs.builder.sh \
&& make \
&& make check \
&& make install

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