diff --git a/nixos/modules/programs/command-not-found/command-not-found.pl b/nixos/modules/programs/command-not-found/command-not-found.pl
index 4a6b7fa22381..64f0f1a49877 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/programs/command-not-found/command-not-found.pl
+++ b/nixos/modules/programs/command-not-found/command-not-found.pl
@@ -14,8 +14,9 @@ if (! -e $dbPath) {
     print STDERR "$program: command not found\n";
     print STDERR "\n";
     print STDERR "command-not-found: Missing package database\n";
-    print STDERR "This likely means the database hasn't been generated yet.\n";
-    print STDERR "This tool requires nix-channels to generate the database.\n";
+    print STDERR "command-not-found is a tool for searching for missing packages.\n";
+    print STDERR "No database was found, this likely means the database hasn't been generated yet.\n";
+    print STDERR "This tool requires nix-channels to generate the database for the `nixos` channel.\n";
     print STDERR "\n";
     print STDERR "If you are using nix-channels you can run:\n";
     print STDERR "    sudo nix-channels --update\n";