Installation

This section describes how to install and configure Nix for first-time use.

The current recommended option on Linux and MacOS is multi-user.

Multi-user

This installation offers better sharing, improved isolation, and more security over a single user installation.

This option requires either:

• Linux running systemd, with SELinux disabled
• MacOS

Updating to macOS 15 Sequoia

If you recently updated to macOS 15 Sequoia and are getting

error: the user '_nixbld1' in the group 'nixbld' does not exist

when running Nix commands, refer to GitHub issue NixOS/nix#10892 for instructions to fix your installation without reinstalling.

$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh -s -- --daemon

Single-user

Single-user is not supported on Mac.

This installation has less requirements than the multi-user install, however it cannot offer equivalent sharing, isolation, or security.

This option is suitable for systems without systemd.

$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh -s -- --no-daemon

Distributions

The Nix community maintains installers for several distributions.

They can be found in the nix-community/nix-installers repository.