NixOS users often face situations where the latest software versions have issues, but the NixOS channel only offers the fixed versions. Here’s how to use an older version of software:

According to the blog post How to use old versions of software in NixOS, you can follow these steps to use an older software version:

Search for the old version of the software

Use https://lazamar.co.uk/nix-versions/ to search for old packages.

For example, to install hugo version v0.60.0, search for hugo and find the desired version, which is here.

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let
  pkgs = import (builtins.fetchTarball {
    url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/ee355d50a38e489e722fcbc7a7e6e45f7c74ce95.tar.gz";
  }) {};

  myPkg = pkgs.hugo;
in

Add the above code to your configuration.nix:

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# { modulesPath, config, pkgs, lib, helix, ... }:
# with lib;
let
  pkgs = import (builtins.fetchTarball {
    url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/ee355d50a38e489e722fcbc7a7e6e45f7c74ce95.tar.gz";
  }) {};

  hugo = pkgs.hugo;
in
# let unstable = import <unstable> { };
#
# in {

Then refer to myPkg in environment.systemPackages of configuration.nix:

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environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  # ...
  myPkg
  # ... ];

Run nixos-rebuild switch to apply the changes.