diff --git a/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/default.nix b/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/default.nix
index 14015ab64abb..e058e70f3888 100644
--- a/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/default.nix
+++ b/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/default.nix
@@ -83,10 +83,13 @@ let
   optionsListVisible = lib.filter (opt: opt.visible && !opt.internal) (lib.optionAttrSetToDocList options);
 
   # Customly sort option list for the man page.
+  # Always ensure that the sort order matches sortXML.py!
   optionsList = lib.sort optionLess optionsListDesc;
 
   # Convert the list of options into an XML file.
-  optionsXML = builtins.toFile "options.xml" (builtins.toXML optionsList);
+  # This file is *not* sorted sorted to save on eval time, since the docbook XML
+  # and the manpage depend on it and thus we evaluate this on every system rebuild.
+  optionsXML = builtins.toFile "options.xml" (builtins.toXML optionsListDesc);
 
   optionsNix = builtins.listToAttrs (map (o: { name = o.name; value = removeAttrs o ["name" "visible" "internal"]; }) optionsList);
 
@@ -185,9 +188,10 @@ in {
       exit 1
     fi
 
+    ${pkgs.python3Minimal}/bin/python ${./sortXML.py} $optionsXML sorted.xml
     ${pkgs.libxslt.bin}/bin/xsltproc \
       --stringparam revision '${revision}' \
-      -o intermediate.xml ${./options-to-docbook.xsl} $optionsXML
+      -o intermediate.xml ${./options-to-docbook.xsl} sorted.xml
     ${pkgs.libxslt.bin}/bin/xsltproc \
       -o "$out" ${./postprocess-option-descriptions.xsl} intermediate.xml
   '';
diff --git a/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/sortXML.py b/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/sortXML.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..717820788c94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/sortXML.py
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
+import sys
+
+tree = ET.parse(sys.argv[1])
+# the xml tree is of the form
+# <expr><list> {all options, each an attrs} </list></expr>
+options = list(tree.getroot().find('list'))
+
+def sortKey(opt):
+    def order(s):
+        if s.startswith("enable"):
+            return 0
+        if s.startswith("package"):
+            return 1
+        return 2
+
+    return [
+        (order(p.attrib['value']), p.attrib['value'])
+        for p in opt.findall('attr[@name="loc"]/list/string')
+    ]
+
+# always ensure that the sort order matches the order used in the nix expression!
+options.sort(key=sortKey)
+
+doc = ET.Element("expr")
+newOptions = ET.SubElement(doc, "list")
+newOptions.extend(options)
+ET.ElementTree(doc).write(sys.argv[2], encoding='utf-8')