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> - I don't see a word about GuixSD there - what's the status of this? Is it also 1.0 now? Yes. GuixSD is now called "Guix System". > can I pin my whole conf

by rekado 7y ago

> - I don't see a word about GuixSD there - what's the status of this? Is it also 1.0 now? Yes. GuixSD is now called "Guix System". > can I pin my whole config to a particular commit of the package set/channel Yes, you can. You only need to describe the channels you want to use (and possibly their commits) in ~/.config/guix/channels.scm and then run "guix pull". You now have that particular version of Guix and it won't change until you change the channel specification and run "guix pull" again. That's great for reproducing a system elsewhere or at a different point in time. > Can I replace kernel with L4Linux I don't know if anyone has tried. > Does GNU mirror/archive all package sources used by Guix somewhere We cache sources for as long as possible on the build farm; we also fall back to looking up sources through Nix caches; and finally we fall back to the Software Heritage archive. > Can I package non-libre software for Guix? Are there third-party non-libre package sets/channels? Yes and yes. Adding channels is easy: just add a specification to ~/.config/guix/channels.scm > Does Guix have something like Nix's home-manager Sadly it doesn't. I'd love to see something like this in Guix.

colemickens 7y ago
Just for context to the GP, Nix channels work basically the exact same way. Or, you can do as I do, and not use channels and always specify the exact nixpkgs revision as part of your Nix file. Anyone can `nix-build chimera.nix` and get a (nearly) bit-for-bit identical build of my laptop, which is great - we don't have to have a conversation about which channel I'm on, or which rev of which channel I'm on, etc. I can then independently rev the nixpkgs revision and either commit that, or not.
- akavel 7y ago
  Oh oh, can you show me your chimera.nix file? I'm having trouble finding a correct incantation how to do that and how to use it in an /etc/configuration.nix for NixOS :(
  - colemickens 7y ago
    I'm sorry, I tend not to view replies on HN. Here's my repo: https://github.com/colemickens/nixcfg/ https://github.com/colemickens/nixcfg/ Start in {configurations,machines}/chimera.nix and explore outward from there ;). EDIT: I forgot, I decommissioned 'chimera' because computers are terrible. `xeep` is probably a better example of what you're looking for. `azera` is an Azure VM that runs the services `chimera` used to host. Sorry if the repos a bit messy. I don't practice good git hygiene there. Feel free to ping me on the nix IRC rooms or email me. I love NixOS and enjoy evangelizing cool tech.
akavel 7y ago
Thanks! How about the multi-user story for non-OS Guix? Also, can you share some links to third-party non-libre package sets/channels, or some place where I can find them to see what's available? Edit: As to kernel: are you using Hurd, or Linux? Or any one of them can be chosen? If it's choosable, I imagine L4Linux should not be that hard. Edit 2: I see there was some work being done on this: https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/gnuhurd/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/gnuhurd/ but last news seems to be from Feb 2017. Did the work get integrated into trunk, or did it bitrot in an old branch? Edit 3: Found some info: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-04/msg00232.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-04/msg0023... IIUC, not very stable (missing some Shepherd stuff?), but at least the work seems upstreamed (?)
- rekado 7y ago
  > multi-user story I don't know what this means, so I'm just answering what I'm guessing this means :) Probably one of the biggest non-OS deployments of Guix is at the institute where I work. We use Guix as a package manager on an HPC cluster. Hundreds of users share the same Guix daemon but each of them can use their own version of Guix with it. They simply invoke "guix pull" to upgrade whenever they feel like it to get a new version of Guix and this affects nobody else. Users are, of course, not limited to having just one profile. Just like Guix can be used to manage different software environments per user it can just as well be used to manage separate software environments per project. At the institute we do this all the time to create separate environments for independent projects that each have their own upgrade schedule. > Hurd? We're using Linux libre by default. Guix runs as a package manager on a Hurd system (such as Debian GNU/Hurd) and Guix has packages for building Hurd servers as well, so a Guix System that uses the Hurd instead of Linux libre is close to being ready. Most of this work was done by a very dedicated student who did this as part of GSoC (twice) and who continued to fix problems afterward. Not all features of Guix will work on a Hurd system; Linux-style containers obviously only work on Linux --- the Hurd has much prettier support for container features, including unprivileged file system virtualization (something I hate to miss on Linux). The biggest problem with Guix + Hurd is that we aren't yet building packages for the Hurd on our build farms, so no binaries are available. This means there are only very few people who would be willing to use this and report bugs or contribute fixes. I'm planning to attach some Debian GNU/Hurd VMs to the build farm within the next few weeks so that this obstacle is removed. Many of the Guix developers are Hurd enthusiasts (myself included), so I hope now some of us can close the gaps that prevent us from having a native Guix + Hurd GNU system. > third party channels with non-free software As one of the maintainers of Guix I'd rather not share links to channels providing non-free software. I also sincerely hope that people will put their time into improving free software than to develop workarounds to allow them to keep software alive that does not respect their freedom and thus harms our communities. That said, there are countless repositories on popular hosting sites that provide package definitions of varying quality for non-free software (also of varying quality :)) --- some of them are also used in HPC deployments.

by rekado 7y ago

colemickens 7y ago

Just for context to the GP, Nix channels work basically the exact same way. Or, you can do as I do, and not use channels and always specify the exact nixpkgs revision as part of your Nix file. Anyone can `nix-build chimera.nix` and get a (nearly) bit-for-bit identical build of my laptop, which is great - we don't have to have a conversation about which channel I'm on, or which rev of which channel I'm on, etc. I can then independently rev the nixpkgs revision and either commit that, or not.

akavel 7y ago
Oh oh, can you show me your chimera.nix file? I'm having trouble finding a correct incantation how to do that and how to use it in an /etc/configuration.nix for NixOS :(
- colemickens 7y ago
  I'm sorry, I tend not to view replies on HN. Here's my repo: https://github.com/colemickens/nixcfg/ https://github.com/colemickens/nixcfg/ Start in {configurations,machines}/chimera.nix and explore outward from there ;). EDIT: I forgot, I decommissioned 'chimera' because computers are terrible. `xeep` is probably a better example of what you're looking for. `azera` is an Azure VM that runs the services `chimera` used to host. Sorry if the repos a bit messy. I don't practice good git hygiene there. Feel free to ping me on the nix IRC rooms or email me. I love NixOS and enjoy evangelizing cool tech.

akavel 7y ago

Thanks! How about the multi-user story for non-OS Guix? Also, can you share some links to third-party non-libre package sets/channels, or some place where I can find them to see what's available? Edit: As to kernel: are you using Hurd, or Linux? Or any one of them can be chosen? If it's choosable, I imagine L4Linux should not be that hard. Edit 2: I see there was some work being done on this: https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/gnuhurd/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/gnuhurd/ but last news seems to be from Feb 2017. Did the work get integrated into trunk, or did it bitrot in an old branch? Edit 3: Found some info: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-04/msg00232.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-04/msg0023... IIUC, not very stable (missing some Shepherd stuff?), but at least the work seems upstreamed (?)

rekado 7y ago
> multi-user story I don't know what this means, so I'm just answering what I'm guessing this means :) Probably one of the biggest non-OS deployments of Guix is at the institute where I work. We use Guix as a package manager on an HPC cluster. Hundreds of users share the same Guix daemon but each of them can use their own version of Guix with it. They simply invoke "guix pull" to upgrade whenever they feel like it to get a new version of Guix and this affects nobody else. Users are, of course, not limited to having just one profile. Just like Guix can be used to manage different software environments per user it can just as well be used to manage separate software environments per project. At the institute we do this all the time to create separate environments for independent projects that each have their own upgrade schedule. > Hurd? We're using Linux libre by default. Guix runs as a package manager on a Hurd system (such as Debian GNU/Hurd) and Guix has packages for building Hurd servers as well, so a Guix System that uses the Hurd instead of Linux libre is close to being ready. Most of this work was done by a very dedicated student who did this as part of GSoC (twice) and who continued to fix problems afterward. Not all features of Guix will work on a Hurd system; Linux-style containers obviously only work on Linux --- the Hurd has much prettier support for container features, including unprivileged file system virtualization (something I hate to miss on Linux). The biggest problem with Guix + Hurd is that we aren't yet building packages for the Hurd on our build farms, so no binaries are available. This means there are only very few people who would be willing to use this and report bugs or contribute fixes. I'm planning to attach some Debian GNU/Hurd VMs to the build farm within the next few weeks so that this obstacle is removed. Many of the Guix developers are Hurd enthusiasts (myself included), so I hope now some of us can close the gaps that prevent us from having a native Guix + Hurd GNU system. > third party channels with non-free software As one of the maintainers of Guix I'd rather not share links to channels providing non-free software. I also sincerely hope that people will put their time into improving free software than to develop workarounds to allow them to keep software alive that does not respect their freedom and thus harms our communities. That said, there are countless repositories on popular hosting sites that provide package definitions of varying quality for non-free software (also of varying quality :)) --- some of them are also used in HPC deployments.