> That's the purpose of /usr/local. I think you must have ignored a substantial portion of my comment. Let's take a look at what (part of) my Nix store looks l

> That's the purpose of /usr/local. I think you must have ignored a substantial portion of my comment. Let's take a look at what (part of) my Nix store looks like (you'll see it fundamentally looks nothing like /usr/local): /nix/store/2mmvks92lx37xghj0795ldzrg50lh2pg-bash-4.3-p42 ├── bin │ ├── bash │ ├── bashbug │ └── sh -> bash └── share ├── info │ ├── bash.info … … └── man └── man1 ├── bash.1.gz └── bashbug.1.gz /nix/store/8g6gb6r49fxsrp547rdi3zr06vd69khq-git-2.7.4 ├── bin │ ├── git │ ├── git-cvsserver │ ├── git-http-backend -> /nix/store/8g6gb6r49fxsrp547rdi3zr06vd69khq-git-2.7.4/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend │ ├── git-receive-pack -> git │ ├── git-shell │ ├── git-upload-archive -> git … └── git-upload-pack Note that each package under /nix/store is its own prefix; that is, it contains its own bin, lib, share, etc. /usr/local is a dumping ground "for use by the system administrator when installing software locally"[1]. If you need multiple versions of automake installed: tough luck, the paths collide. If you need multiple versions of Erlang: tough luck, the paths collide. Would you like to be able to rollback your system by changing one symlink[2]? Too bad: when you last installed packages into /usr/local, your package manager clobbered the previous version. Technically, we could make /usr/local a symlink forest pointing into /nix/store, but we don't: we want to make sure that only the packages we explicitly declared are picked up by build tools, rather than defaulting to searching through the currently "installed" packages. > /nix/store? Really? You can't just make up new root level directories. That's so wrong. Can you substantiate your claim? Note that "it doesn't feel right" doesn't count as a rational criticism. [1]: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHIERARCHY http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHI... [2]: This probably sounds like a bold claim. I tried to explain how this works above, but if you don't believe me, feel free to ask and I'll explain further. Alternatively, feel free to read the first paragraph here: http://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sec-profiles http://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sec-profiles