# Nix

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Nix is a powerful package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package
management reliable and reproducible. Please refer to the [Nix manual](https://nix.dev/reference/nix-manual)
for more details.

## Installation and first steps

Visit [nix.dev](https://nix.dev) for [installation instructions](https://nix.dev/tutorials/install-nix) and [beginner tutorials](https://nix.dev/tutorials/first-steps).

Full reference documentation can be found in the [Nix manual](https://nix.dev/reference/nix-manual).

## Building and developing

Follow instructions in the Nix reference manual to [set up a development environment and build Nix from source](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/development/development/building.html).

## Contributing

Check the [contributing guide](./CONTRIBUTING.md) if you want to get involved with developing Nix.

## Additional resources

Nix was created by Eelco Dolstra and developed as the subject of his PhD thesis [The Purely Functional Software Deployment Model](https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf), published 2006.
Today, a world-wide developer community contributes to Nix and the ecosystem that has grown around it.

- [The Nix, Nixpkgs, NixOS Community on nixos.org](https://nixos.org/)
- [Official documentation on nix.dev](https://nix.dev)
- [Nixpkgs](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs) is [the largest, most up-to-date free software repository in the world](https://repology.org/repositories/graphs)
- [NixOS](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/nixos) is a Linux distribution that can be configured fully declaratively
- [Discourse](https://discourse.nixos.org/)
- Matrix: [#users:nixos.org](https://matrix.to/#/#users:nixos.org) for user support and [#nix-dev:nixos.org](https://matrix.to/#/#nix-dev:nixos.org) for development

## License

Nix is released under the [LGPL v2.1](./COPYING).
