diff --git a/helpers/info-wrapper.nix b/helpers/info-wrapper.nix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..0f482dd4c27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/helpers/info-wrapper.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+# Quick hack to make the `info' command work properly.  `info' needs a
+# "dir" file containing all the installed Info files, which we don't
+# have (it would be impure to have a package installation update some
+# global "dir" file).  So this wrapper script around "info" builds a
+# temporary "dir" file on the fly.  This is a bit slow (on a cold
+# cache) but not unacceptably so.
+
+{bash, texinfo, writeScriptBin}:
+
+writeScriptBin "info"
+  ''
+    #! ${bash}/bin/sh
+  
+    dir=$(mktemp --tmpdir -d "info.dir.XXXXXX")
+
+    if test -z "$dir"; then exit 1; fi
+
+    trap 'rm -rf "$dir"' EXIT
+
+    shopt -s nullglob
+
+    for i in $(IFS=:; echo $INFOPATH); do
+        for j in $i/*.info; do
+            ${texinfo}/bin/install-info --quiet $j $dir/dir
+        done
+    done
+
+    INFOPATH=$dir:$INFOPATH ${texinfo}/bin/info "$@"
+  ''
diff --git a/system/system.nix b/system/system.nix
index bbb7d83f543..7d814993844 100644
--- a/system/system.nix
+++ b/system/system.nix
@@ -226,6 +226,7 @@ rec {
     pkgs.usbutils
     pkgs.utillinux
     pkgs.wirelesstools
+    (import ../helpers/info-wrapper.nix {inherit (pkgs) bash texinfo writeScriptBin;})
   ]
   ++ pkgs.lib.optional config.security.sudo.enable pkgs.sudo
   ++ pkgs.lib.optional config.services.atd.enable pkgs.at