[Nix-dev] Proposal: adding fetchapt support to nixpkgs

[Stefan Huchler]

Profpatsch <mail at profpatsch.de> writes:

> That doesn’t work, and it’s by design.
> In order for nix (the package manager) to be able to install something,
> it needs to know the input files *beforehand*, by hash. So nix **cannot**
> evaluate a derivation where the source hash changes.
>
> The one thing that could be done is completely automating the
> version-bumping process, that is write a program that follows debian
> releases, bumps the hashes, tests the functionality of the resulting
> executables (!!) and then commits the new version to nixpkgs.


Also I think its a cornercase right? isnt the goal of snap or flatpkgs
or appimages to solve suchh problems.

Isnt it the problem that its a proprietary software that creates that
problem because of that?

So the question is, does chromium as example have the same problem? do
we/you package there also a deb file?

So would be support of app-package / snaps or similar tools not be the
better solution to such problems?