Building Nix from Source
After cloning Nix's Git repository, issue the following commands:
$ autoreconf -vfi
$ ./configure options...
$ make
$ make install
Nix requires GNU Make so you may need to invoke gmake instead.
The installation path can be specified by passing the --prefix=prefix
to configure. The default installation directory is /usr/local. You
can change this to any location you like. You must have write permission
to the prefix path.
Nix keeps its store (the place where packages are stored) in
/nix/store by default. This can be changed using
--with-store-dir=path.
Warning
It is best not to change the Nix store from its default, since doing so makes it impossible to use pre-built binaries from the standard Nixpkgs channels — that is, all packages will need to be built from source.
Nix keeps state (such as its database and log files) in /nix/var by
default. This can be changed using --localstatedir=path.