Release 24.11 ("Vicuña") Highlights

# Release 24.11 (“Vicuña”, 2024.11/28) {#sec-release-24.11}  ## Highlights {#sec-release-24.11-highlights} - Nix was updated to 2.24, which brings a lot of improvements and fixes. See the release notes for [2.19](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/latest/release-notes/rl-2.19), [2.20](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/latest/release-notes/rl-2.20), [2.21](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/latest/release-notes/rl-2.21), [2.22](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/latest/release-notes/rl-2.22), [2.23](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/latest/release-notes/rl-2.23), [2.24](https://nix.dev/manual/nix/latest/release-notes/rl-2.24). Notable changes include improvements to Git fetching, documentation comment support in `nix-repl> :doc`, as well as many quality of life additions. - There have been significant changes to macOS support. - The build environment has been redesigned to be closer to a native Xcode toolchain, enabling us to provide all SDKs from macOS Sierra 10.12 to macOS Sequoia 15, simplify build definitions, and build more software without hacks or patching. Although compatibility shims for the old SDK scheme are provided, some builds may break, and the old mechanisms will be removed by 25.11 at the latest. See the [Darwin section](https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/#sec-darwin) of the Nixpkgs manual for details of the new scheme and how to use it, and [the announcement on Discourse](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-darwin-sdks-have-been-updated/55295) for more information on the changes and benefits. - **This will be the last release of Nixpkgs to support macOS Sierra 10.12 to macOS Catalina 10.15.** Starting with release 25.05, the minimum supported version will be macOS Big Sur 11, and we cannot guarantee that packages will continue to work on older versions of macOS. Users on old macOS versions should consider upgrading to a supported version (potentially using [OpenCore Legacy Patcher](https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/) for old hardware) or installing NixOS. If neither of those options are viable and you require new versions of software, [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/) supports versions back to Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6. - This will be the last release of Nixpkgs to support versions of CUDA prior to CUDA 12.0. These versions only work with old compiler versions that will be unsupported by the time of the Nixpkgs 25.05 release. In the future, users should expect CUDA versions to be dropped as the compiler versions they require leave upstream support windows. - Convenience options for `amdgpu`, the open source driver for Radeon cards, are now available under [`hardware.amdgpu`](#opt-hardware.amdgpu.initrd.enable). - [AMDVLK](https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK), AMD's open source Vulkan driver, is now available to be configured under the [`hardware.amdgpu.amdvlk`](#opt-hardware.amdgpu.amdvlk.enable) option. This also allows configuring runtime settings for AMDVLK, including enabling experimental features. - The `moonlight-qt` package (for [Moonlight game streaming](https://moonlight-stream.org/)) now has HDR support on Linux systems. - [Sched-ext](https://github.com/sched-ext/scx), a Linux kernel feature to run schedulers in userspace, is now available [`services.scx`](options.html#opt-services.scx.enable). Requires Linux kernel version 6.12 or later. - PostgreSQL now defaults to major version 16. - GNOME has been updated to version 47. Refer to the [release notes](https://release.gnome.org/47/) for more details. - `authelia` has been upgraded to version 4.38. This version brings several features and improvements which are detailed in the [release blog post](https://www.authelia.com/blog/4.38-release-notes/). This release also deprecates some configuration keys which are likely to be removed in version 5.0.0. - `netbird` has been updated to 0.31.1. This adds a built-in relay server which is not yet supported by the NixOS module, as well as a metrics endpoint for both the management and signal services. The default metrics port for the `signal` service has been changed from `9090` to `9091` to prevent a port conflict with the management server. This can be changed with their respective `metricsPort` as needed. Refer to the [release notes](https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/releases/tag/v0.31.1) and [this pull request](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/354032#issuecomment-2480925927) for more information.

This section details the highlights of the Nixpkgs 24.11 release, codenamed "Vicuña." Key updates include Nix updated to version 2.24, significant changes to macOS support (including the eventual deprecation of older macOS versions and a redesigned build environment), the dropping of support for CUDA versions prior to 12.0, new options for AMDGPU, the availability of AMDVLK, HDR support for Moonlight on Linux, the introduction of Sched-ext, PostgreSQL defaulting to version 16, GNOME updated to version 47, Authelia upgraded to version 4.38, and Netbird updated to 0.31.1.