Building, burning, and booting from an installation CD is rather tedious, so here is a quick way to see if the installer works properly: # mount -t tmpfs none /mnt # nixos-generate-config --root /mnt $ nix-build '<nixpkgs/nixos>' -A config.system.build.nixos-install # ./result/bin/nixos-install To start a login shell in the new NixOS installation in /mnt: $ nix-build '<nixpkgs/nixos>' -A config.system.build.nixos-enter # ./result/bin/nixos-enter