diff --git a/doc/manual/development.xml b/doc/manual/development.xml
index 918bbe08a1a..017a0f007fa 100644
--- a/doc/manual/development.xml
+++ b/doc/manual/development.xml
@@ -21,18 +21,19 @@ To modify NixOS, however, you should check out the latest sources from
Subversion. This is done using the following command:
-$ nixos-checkout
+$ nixos-checkout /my/sources
This will check out the latest NixOS sources to
-/etc/nixos/nixos and the Nixpkgs sources to
-/etc/nixos/nixpkgs. If you want to rebuild your
-system using your (modified) sources, you need to tell
-nixos-rebuild about them using the
+/my/sources/nixos and
+the Nixpkgs sources to
+/my/sources/nixpkgs.
+If you want to rebuild your system using your (modified) sources, you
+need to tell nixos-rebuild about them using the
flag:
-$ nixos-rebuild -I /etc/nixos
+$ nixos-rebuild switch -I /my/sources
diff --git a/modules/installer/tools/nixos-checkout.nix b/modules/installer/tools/nixos-checkout.nix
index f90d24b0864..d591c01df19 100644
--- a/modules/installer/tools/nixos-checkout.nix
+++ b/modules/installer/tools/nixos-checkout.nix
@@ -14,7 +14,12 @@ let
isExecutable = true;
src = pkgs.writeScript "nixos-checkout"
''
- cd /etc/nixos
+ #! ${pkgs.stdenv.shell} -e
+
+ prefix="$1"
+ if [ -z "$prefix" ]; then prefix=/etc/nixos; fi
+ mkdir -p "$prefix"
+ cd "$prefix"
# Move any old nixos or nixpkgs directories out of the way.
backupTimestamp=$(date "+%Y%m%d%H%M%S")