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Re: Some questions regarding GuixSD


From: 宋文武
Subject: Re: Some questions regarding GuixSD
Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2016 09:50:11 +0800
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.1 (gnu/linux)

address@hidden writes:

> On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 10:18:40AM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> > 2) Are multiple versions of a package in the tree at any given time?
>> 
>> You can have multiple profiles, each containing a different version of a
>> given package, for example.
>> 
>> The source tree of Guix itself usually only contains the latest version
>> of each package.  There are exceptions for packages where it makes sense
>> to keep several stable series in parallel: GCC, Python, Guile, etc.
>
> I don't know where Guix/GuixSD is in regards to the plans for it, and I havn't
> had a chance to glance at the ROADMAP you mentioned later in this email, but I
> can say from personal experience that maintaining one and only one version of 
> a
> package in a tree is a Really Bad Idea. When I used Arch they had (and may 
> still
> have, I have no clue what has happened with that distro since) a policy to 
> only
> maintain one version of any package at any given time in the distro. This is a
> huge PITA and sometimes can make a system unusable if a package breaks. I
> distinctly recall having one package I relied on breaking when I used Arch and
> having to wait a few days for them to release a new version.

On GuixSD, you can rollback the whole system safely and easily (by
choosing a grub menu item at boot).  And the CI service (hydra) is
building (each package if any of its inputs changed) and testing (system
with services in qemu) the whole distribution.

While in Guix it's easier than Debian or ArchLinux to have multiple
versions of the same packages, it's reasonble only do it when needed :-)

>
>> 
>> > 3) Is there any way to install GuixSD from something other than the LiveUSB
>> > image on the site?
>> 
>> You can install Guix on top of your GNU/Linux system and run:
>> 
>>   guix system init config.scm /
>> 
>> Be careful: this is a one-way change!
>
> So as long as Guix is installed correctly in the host system, the 
> aforementioned
> command is effectivly the install phase, while the rest is simply setting up 
> the
> enviroment for the new system? I can certain get behind that.

Yes, the install phase mainly contains:

- build the system from config, only write to /gnu/store. (safe)
- deploy the system to target, overwrite /etc, /var/, etc.
  and install the grub bootloader. (dangerous)

You can install it into a seperate partion (same as in the Manual),
it's more safe IMO.




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