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I am using a Nix package manager on NixOS. Suppose I want to install a package that provides a file libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0. How do I find a package that provides this file, similar to other GNU/Linux distributions?

Currently I have to google the file and figure out which package it might belong and find the corresponding package on Nix repository, but I would like a more idiomatic method.

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Mirzhan Irkegulov
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    I got as far as "setup a ctags database..." https://nixos.org/wiki/Howto_find_a_package_in_NixOS#Indexing_and_searching_Nix_files before giving up. – thrig Dec 29 '15 at 21:03
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    Some package managers (e.g. `yum` and `dnf` in RPMland) allow you to say "install file", they figure out the right package and install that one. – vonbrand Dec 29 '15 at 21:12
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    We only have this for executables ATM (`$ command-not-found foo`). Note that searching nix files (e.g. with ctags) won't help there. You do have to perform the build to find what it installs. – Vladimír Čunát Dec 30 '15 at 09:37
  • Why? Are other package managers really have such a function? More "idiomatic" method is to read `INSTALL` file of the package (for which you want to create the environment), namely the `Requirements`/`Dependencies` section for the packages you have to have pre-installed. Then look for the *packages* in `nixpkgs`. (In other words, package managers are about packages not files...) – Andrew Mar 19 '16 at 00:48
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    @AndrewMiloradovsky, because sometimes you know the name of a command (or another filename) but not the name of the package that provides it. And yes, other package managers have such a feature, e.g. `yum provides '*/bin/grep'` or `dnf provides '*/bin/grep` or `apt-file search 'fprintf.3.gz'`. – maxschlepzig Oct 31 '16 at 22:18

2 Answers2

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nix-index is what you need.

Install and build the index:

nix-env -iA nixos.nix-index
nix-index

Locate libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0:

nix-locate -w libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0

Output:

(zed.out)                                             0 s /nix/store/bc4mngklj2j7hmm21jra4641x4pm9r8z-node-webkit-env/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
(thrust.out)                                          0 s /nix/store/wzg0k4i2cy0qsm3hwxlywxxbga019hbq-env-thrust/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
(nwjs_0_12.out)                                       0 s /nix/store/js6klvzjfi5q4djmwb0bqzfb4x0vzm6g-nwjs-env/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
(node_webkit_0_11.out)                                0 s /nix/store/30vm6a7bmc56ckl575rqassw60ccxjpg-node-webkit-env/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
(mumble_overlay.out)                                  0 s /nix/store/wayx023w1nslqg2z0c5v4n0b4jxn5n06-gtk+-2.24.31/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
gnome2.gtk.out                                        0 s /nix/store/3iqchhncghm5s458lzy99c3prfymrnp2-gtk+-2.24.31/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0

The last line says that package gtk+-2.24.31 with attribute path gnome2.gtk contains this file.

gmarmstrong
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R. Taukulis
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2

Looking through the documentation it doesn't look like there is an easy way to do this.

With yum based distro you could do yum provides $file and in apt-get distro you could install apt-file and do apt-file $file but I cannot see an equivalent in nix-env -q.

sysadmiral
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