diff --git a/pkgs/development/python-modules/detectron2/default.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/detectron2/default.nix
index da273415d831..cc750427dacb 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/python-modules/detectron2/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/detectron2/default.nix
@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
-{ lib
+{ stdenv
+, lib
 , buildPythonPackage
 , fetchFromGitHub
 , pythonRelaxDepsHook
 , ninja
+, which
 # build inputs
 , pillow
 , matplotlib
@@ -17,8 +19,10 @@
 , iopath
 , omegaconf
 , hydra-core
-, black
 , packaging
+, torch
+, pydot
+, black
 # optional dependencies
 , fairscale
 , timm
@@ -26,10 +30,16 @@
 , shapely
 , pygments
 , psutil
+# check inputs
+, pytestCheckHook
+, torchvision
+, av
+, opencv4
+, pytest-mock
 }:
 
 let
-  name = "detectron2";
+  pname = "detectron2";
   version = "0.6";
   optional-dependencies = {
     all = [
@@ -43,11 +53,12 @@ let
   };
 in
 buildPythonPackage {
-  inherit name version;
+  inherit pname version;
+  format = "setuptools";
 
   src = fetchFromGitHub {
     owner = "facebookresearch";
-    repo = name;
+    repo = "detectron2";
     rev = "v${version}";
     sha256 = "1w6cgvc8r2lwr72yxicls650jr46nriv1csivp2va9k1km8jx2sf";
   };
@@ -55,12 +66,9 @@ buildPythonPackage {
   nativeBuildInputs = [
     pythonRelaxDepsHook
     ninja
+    which
   ];
 
-  dontUseNinjaBuild = true;
-  dontUseNinjaInstall = true;
-  dontUseNinjaCheck = true;
-
   pythonRelaxDeps = [
     "black"
   ];
@@ -79,14 +87,78 @@ buildPythonPackage {
     iopath
     omegaconf
     hydra-core
-    black
     packaging
-  ] ++ optional-dependencies.all;
+    black
+    torch # not explicitly declared in setup.py because they expect you to install it yourself
+    pydot # no idea why this is not in their setup.py
+  ];
 
   passthru.optional-dependencies = optional-dependencies;
 
-  # disable the tests for now until someone can check on a linux machine.
-  # doCheck = false;
+  nativeCheckInputs = [
+    av
+    opencv4
+    pytest-mock
+    pytestCheckHook
+    torchvision
+  ];
+
+  preCheck = ''
+    # prevent import errors for C extension modules
+    rm -r detectron2
+  '';
+
+  pytestFlagsArray = [
+    # prevent include $sourceRoot/projects/*/tests
+    "tests"
+  ];
+
+  disabledTestPaths = [
+    # try import caffe2
+    "tests/test_export_torchscript.py"
+    "tests/test_model_analysis.py"
+    "tests/modeling/test_backbone.py"
+    "tests/modeling/test_roi_heads.py"
+    "tests/modeling/test_rpn.py"
+    "tests/structures/test_instances.py"
+    # hangs for some reason
+    "tests/modeling/test_model_e2e.py"
+  ];
+
+  disabledTests = [
+    # fails for some reason
+    "test_checkpoint_resume"
+    "test_map_style"
+    # requires shapely
+    "test_resize_and_crop"
+    # require caffe2
+    "test_predict_boxes_tracing"
+    "test_predict_probs_tracing"
+    "testMaskRCNN"
+    "testRetinaNet"
+    # require coco dataset
+    "test_default_trainer"
+    "test_unknown_category"
+    "test_build_dataloader_train"
+    "test_build_iterable_dataloader_train"
+    # require network access
+    "test_opencv_exif_orientation"
+    "test_read_exif_orientation"
+    # use deprecated api, numpy.bool
+    "test_BWmode_nomask"
+    "test_draw_binary_mask"
+    "test_draw_empty_mask_predictions"
+    "test_draw_instance_predictions"
+    "test_draw_no_metadata"
+    "test_overlay_instances"
+    "test_overlay_instances_no_boxes"
+    "test_get_bounding_box"
+  ] ++ lib.optionals (stdenv.isLinux && stdenv.isAarch64) [
+    "test_build_batch_dataloader_inference"
+    "test_build_dataloader_inference"
+    "test_build_iterable_dataloader_inference"
+    "test_to_iterable"
+  ];
 
   pythonImportsCheck = [ "detectron2" ];