There's been work to get the Nix functional package manager available on Fedora Linux for those wanting to leverage its available packages or features like supporting side-by-side packages of different versions, atomic upgrades/rollbacks, non-root user for installing software, and other features. One of the hurdles though is that the Nix package manager relies by default on the /nix directory, which goes against Fedora's default directory requirements. Now though the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has granted permission for using the /nix directory hierarchy.

The past few months there has been a [1]review request pending for the Nix functional package manager on Fedora. But Nix uses the /nix directory by default for its package store, local state, etc. Overriding this default can lead to pre-built binaries for Nix not working.

Thus the matter of Fedora Nix packages needing to use the /nix directory was tossed into the purview of the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee to evaluate. The [2]exception request has been under discussion the past month. Some were initially against this since nine years ago when there was work on Snaps for Fedora, usage of the /snap directory was previously blocked by Fedora.

But now at today's FESCo meeting ( [3]meeting minutes ) the exception request for Nix has been granted:

TOPIC:#3473 Exception request for /nix (@humaton:fedora.im, 17:13:47)

AGREED: /nix top-level directory may be used exclusively for Nix runtime and package store. It shall not be part of the filesystem package, but packages are allowed to create it. (+6, 1, -0) (@humaton:fedora.im, 17:27:01)

So that path is now cleared for nice Nix package management support on Fedora once the review request is hopefully all wrapped up and approved.



[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2388768

[2] https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/3473

[3] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/meeting_matrix_fedoraproject-org/2025-10-14/fesco.2025-10-14-17.00.html