Re: Using julia in guix

[Théo Maxime Tyburn]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply!

> For now, it is either packages from Pkg.jl or either packages julia-*
> from Guix.  A patch [1] is still pending for being able to mix both.
> Aside that packages from Pkg.jl do not always work out-of-the-box,
> sadly.
>
> 1: <http://issues.guix.gnu.org/51319>

Ok I see so either I use guix julia-* packages and then I need julia to
ignore packages in ~/.julia and avoid using Pkg, or I use Pkg to
install packages but it will break in some cases and also ignore already
install julia packages from guix.

What about using JLLs ? I have no precise understanding of how a jll work
and how to use it but it seems they contain binaries and there are
guix packages for them. For example julia-glfw-jll. Could I use GLFW in
julia with this guix package installed ?

>> I encountered two problems. The first with the package "GR" the
>> second with the package "GLFW". I encountered these bugs while trying
>> the packages "Plots" and the "GLMakie" backend of "Makie"
>
> IIUC, you installed all the packages using Pkg.jl, right?

Yes until my first message I only installed stuff with Pkg. Now I tried
the guix packages and they work fine. Especially the GR package works so
I can at least plot things now, thanks ! (Makie with Cairo backend is
also working from Pkg install though)

> and I do not know if Pkg.jl works correctly with the current julia
> from Guix.  For instance, "guix shell julia -CN -- julia" then 'using
> Pkg; Pkg.add("Plots")' reports failures.  One is reference to build
> directory "/tmp/guix-build-julia-1.6.2.drv-0", see [2].
>
> 2: <http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/48238>

This seems nasty. For me however everything I tried to install and
precompile with Pkg worked. So "pkg>add Plots" and "using Plots" works
fine. Problems arise when I call a function, say "plot(1:3,1:3)".

> For now, I do not have a solution and I do not have time to work on
> it.  Sorry.  I would be happy if someone fixes the issue; probably
> patch#51319 helps here. :-)

I’ll try that out, it seems promising. Combining packages from Pkg and
guix while prioritizing guix packages and avoid reinstalling them seems
like the right way to get the problematic packages under control for now
(by that I mean creating a guix package for them).

I never tested a patch though. How do I do this ? Is it on a branch of
the git repo ?

Kind regards,

Théo