# Building Nix from Source

After unpacking or checking out the Nix sources, issue the following commands:

    $ ./configure options...
    $ make
    $ make install

Nix requires GNU Make so you may need to invoke `gmake` instead.

When building from the Git repository, these should be preceded by the command:

    $ ./bootstrap.sh

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`.

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`.