Yeah, thanks. To add to that, the Nixpkgs "standard library" includes lots of convenient tools for patching like this, and much of the common stuff is done auto

Yeah, thanks. To add to that, the Nixpkgs "standard library" includes lots of convenient tools for patching like this, and much of the common stuff is done automatically by the standard package function. The #nixos IRC channel is a good place to ask if you run into trouble when packaging something. Generally, making NixOS packages is really delightful. Even the patching stuff is straightforward and easy to use. Now that I've learned the basics, I routinely make small packages. With many typical packages the only thing you need to do is specify how to fetch the source, plus the list of build dependencies, and there are built-in functions for fetching from HTTPS or Git.