Since this repo uses a new Nix feature called "Flakes", it is recommended to enable it. It massively improves the nix CLI UX, and adds many useful features. We include instructions for Nix without flakes enabled, but using flakes is the recommended way.

See the NixOS wiki for information on how to enable and use flakes.

It is recommended to first set up the Cachix cache to save time with builds:

nix shell nixpkgs#cachix -c cachix use veloren-nix
# or if you don't have flakes:
nix-shell -p cachix --run "cachix use veloren-nix"

As this repository uses git-lfs, please make sure git-lfs is in your path. If you have a locally cloned repo, you can make sure it is set up with:

git lfs install --local && git lfs fetch && git lfs checkout

This should be automatically done if you use the development shell.

If you get an issue such as WARN gfx_backend_vulkan: Unable to create Vulkan instance: VkError(ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER), it might be that your system nixpkgs version and veloren repo nixpkgs version might be too far apart. In that case, you can try changing your system nixpkgs to the unstable channel, or change the nixpkgs input in the flake.nix to match your system nixpkgs.

If you just want to run the game without installing it, you can do so with:

# Voxygen (the default):
nix run gitlab:veloren/veloren
# Server CLI:
nix run gitlab:veloren/veloren#veloren-server-cli
# or if you have a local repo
nix run
nix run .#veloren-server-cli

To install the game into your user profile:

# Voxygen:
nix profile install gitlab:veloren/veloren
# Server CLI:
nix profile install giltab:veloren/veloren#veloren-server-cli
# or if you have a local repo:
nix profile install
nix profile install .#veloren-server-cli

To install (for example) Voxygen on your system, the NixOS configuration (if you use a flake based setup) could look something like this:

{ description = "NixOS configuration with flakes";

  inputs.veloren.url = gitlab:veloren/veloren;

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, veloren }: {
    nixosConfigurations.<your-hostname> = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem rec {
      system = <your-system-arch>;
      # ...
      modules = [
        # add to your overlay so that the packages appear in pkgs
        # for subsequent modules
        ({...}: {
          nixpkgs.overlays = [
            # ...
            (final: prev: {
              inherit (veloren.packages."${system}") veloren-voxygen;
            })
          ];

          # You can also add the flake to your registry
          nix.registry.veloren.flake = veloren;
          # with this, you can run latest master
          # regardless of version installed like this:
          # nix run veloren/master
        })

        # some module
        ({ pkgs, ... }: {
          environment.systemPackages = [
            pkgs.veloren-voxygen
          ];
        })
        # ...
      ];
    };
  };
}

You can do this to run the game without installing it (you will need a local clone of the repo though):

# build the game
nix-build nix/default.nix
# run it
./result/bin/veloren-voxygen
# or for server cli
./result-2/bin/veloren-server-cli

To install Voxygen and server CLI into user profile:

nix-env -f nix/default.nix -i

You'll need to use nixGL to be able to run the game (after installing it):

## For Intel and AMD:
# Install it (sadly no flake yet)
nix-env -f https://github.com/guibou/nixGL/archive/master.tar.gz -iA nixGLIntel
nixGLIntel veloren-voxygen
## For Nvidia:
# Install it
nix-env -f https://github.com/guibou/nixGL/archive/master.tar.gz -iA nixGLNvidia
nixGLNvidia veloren-voxygen
## For Nvidia driver on hybrid hardware:
# Install it
nix-env -f https://github.com/guibou/nixGL/archive/master.tar.gz -iA nixGLNvidiaBumblebee
nixGLNvidiaBumblebee veloren-voxygen

The development shell automatically setups the Cachix cache for you, so it is recommended to be in the dev shell always. If you have the Cachix cache setup in ~/.config/nix/nix.conf (as described in the beginning of this document), then this isn't a necessity.

To enter a shell environment with the necessary tools:

nix develop

You can use the bundle subcommand to bundle the game into a single distro-agnostic executable file:

## bundling latest commit to master
# Voxygen:
nix bundle gitlab:veloren/veloren
# Server CLI:
nix bundle gitlab:veloren/veloren#veloren-server-cli
## for local repo:
# Voxygen:
nix bundle .#veloren-voxygen
# Server CLI:
nix bundle .#veloren-server-cli

To enter the development shell:

nix-shell nix/shell.nix

This only works if you have flakes. There is an issue with the git-lfs hook in shellHook erroring out with use nix, so you'll have to enable flakes if you want to use the envrc file included.

If you have direnv and nix-direnv on your system, you can copy the envrc file to the root of the repository as .envrc:

cp nix/envrc .envrc

If a specific revision is specified in flake.nix, you will have to update that first, either by specifying a new desired revision or by removing it.

You can update dependencies with:

nix flake update

It is inadvised to update revisions without the use of nix flake update as it's both tedious and error-prone to attempt setting all fields to their correct values in both flake.nix and flake.lock, but if you need to do it for testing, flake.lock is where legacy nix commands get the input revisions from (through flake-compat), regardless of what is specified in flake.nix (see edolstra/flake-compat#10).

Modify the relevant rev field in flake.lock to what you need - you can use nix-prefetch-git to find an up-to-date revision. Leave the narHash entry as is and attempt a rebuild to find out what its value should be.

Use alejandra to format files.

To format every Nix file:

# From repository root
alejandra .