diff --git a/pkgs/misc/nix/builder.sh b/pkgs/misc/nix/builder.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000000..aafa61da2caf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/misc/nix/builder.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+#! /bin/sh -e
+
+. $stdenv/setup 
+
+tar xvfj $src 
+cd nix-* 
+./configure --prefix=$out \
+ --with-store-dir=/nix/store --localstatedir=/nix/var
+make 
+make install 
diff --git a/pkgs/misc/nix/default.nix b/pkgs/misc/nix/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..2dff0ae6e365
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/misc/nix/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+{stdenv, fetchurl}:
+
+derivation {
+  name = "nix-0.5pre789";
+  system = stdenv.system;
+  builder = ./builder.sh;
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = http://catamaran.labs.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/nix-0.5pre789/nix-0.5pre789.tar.bz2;
+    md5 = "1c5c1cd6e8bf9b68cc9df3b70017ce15";
+  };
+  inherit stdenv;
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix b/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
index 8dfa47e8521f..beb669b6f082 100644
--- a/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
+++ b/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
@@ -661,4 +661,8 @@
     patch = gnupatch;
   };
 
+  nix = (import ../misc/nix) {
+    inherit fetchurl stdenv;
+  };
+
 }
diff --git a/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix b/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix
index ca72269d70af..56508f9cdda2 100644
--- a/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix
+++ b/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix
@@ -46,5 +46,6 @@ let {
       pkgs.hello
       pkgs.nxml
       pkgs.uml
+      pkgs.nix
     ];
 }