To be fair `nix-channel --update` does take a ridiculously long time: $ time nix-channel --update unpacking channels... created 2 symlinks in user enviro

To be fair `nix-channel --update` does take a ridiculously long time: $ time nix-channel --update unpacking channels... created 2 symlinks in user environment nix-channel --update 1.92s user 16.58s system 15% cpu 1:56.62 total $ time nix-env -iA nixpkgs.ack installing 'perl5.28.2-ack-3.0.2' these paths will be fetched (0.06 MiB download, 0.19 MiB unpacked): /nix/store/43rvd2kinid0g48ng07d782dsqb497g1-perl5.28.2-ack-3.0.2 /nix/store/k3f819h2ncadkd6g8yzyzg24wn3vr609-perl5.28.2-ack-3.0.2-man /nix/store/p82srjihmh7vnq4szl9q83adcl9r6j2v-perl5.28.2-File-Next-1.16 copying path '/nix/store/k3f819h2ncadkd6g8yzyzg24wn3vr609-perl5.28.2-ack-3.0.2-man' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'... copying path '/nix/store/p82srjihmh7vnq4szl9q83adcl9r6j2v-perl5.28.2-File-Next-1.16' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'... copying path '/nix/store/43rvd2kinid0g48ng07d782dsqb497g1-perl5.28.2-ack-3.0.2' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'... building '/nix/store/p765c3dxn32zccl4q9xjgr74n2ljgiky-user-environment.drv'... created 134 symlinks in user environment nix-env -iA nixpkgs.ack 0.19s user 0.24s system 36% cpu 1.158 total