Re: Nixpkgs updates

Demi Marie Obenour
2026-02-23T15:58:49Z

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On 2/23/26 06:28, Alyssa Ross wrote:
> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 2/9/26 14:41, Alyssa Ross wrote:
>>> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On 2/9/26 03:02, Yureka wrote:
>>>>> My systems attempted to build a spectrum image against nixpkgs master
>>>>> last night, and failed because of pkgsMusl.netpbm and pkgsMusl.gdb,
>>>>> which are known blockers since the GCC 15 updates:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20author%3Ayuyuyureka
>>>>
>>>> Can those be removed from the closure somehow?
>>>
>>> I'm pretty sure I answered a very similar question last time, but just
>>> in case: it would likely be more ongoing maintenance work to maintain
>>> closure reducing overrides than it would be to fix the occasional build
>>> failure of a dependency that is not strictly required, at least until we
>>> have better tooling for identifying problematic Nixpkgs changes. In
>>> addition, that larger amount of work would have less overall utility,
>>> because package fixes benefit other Nixpkgs users, whereas adding to an
>>> ever-expanding list of local overrides does not.
>>
>> What would the plan be if Spectrum had already been released?
>> Not being able to ship security fixes while nixpkgs is fixed
>> would be bad.
>
> We'd, in rough order of preference:
>
> - Use an overlay to apply a patch downstream
> - Use an overlay to temporarily disable dependencies
> - Use a modified Nixpkgs input

Thank you!

I've seen Fedora delay updates for too long because of problems like this,
and I know that Spectrum aims to be a rolling release which means regular
updates. So it's good to know that it will be able to keep updating even
when glitches like this arise.
--
Sincerely,
Demi Marie Obenour (she/her/hers)

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