Re: Python packages

[Wojtek Kosior]

Thanks for the details, Moritz. I'll try to clarify everything for you.
Although you sent your response just to me, I'm adding the help-guix
mailing list back into the CC field of the email (so that others can
see and perhaps add some useful advice at some point).

So, Guix uses its own repository for packages. Although it is a special
kind of package manager (a transactional one), in this specific regard
it is just as every conventional distro's package manager (e.g. APT,
RPM) — it needs given program to be packaged by someone and added to
its repository for it to be directly available to users. Apparently,
nobody has packaged WFDB yet, hence `guix search` gives you nothing.

`guix import`, on the other hand, is a tool meant for people who want
to package stuff by themselves. Its target audience is both packagers
and advanced users who are able and willing to package the missing
software by themselves. In fact, those 2 roles can (and should) overlap
:)

So, `guix import` is a tool that just aids in making a Guix package. It
tries to guess some things and it cannot guarantee it will guess
correctly (since sources like PyPI often lack all the information
required to automatically make a working package). The generated .scm
files are therefore meant to be reviewed and edited by the user.

Once you get everything to work, you can (and are encouraged to) help
others by submitting the new package definition for inclusion in Guix.
This, of course, requires a bit more effort (cloning the Guix' git repo,
placing your package definition in the proper file under
`gnu/packages/`, etc. More information here[1]. Once you get through
this, others will be able to `guix search` the package :)

Don't be surprised if many useful pieces of software are not yet in
Guix. You can look up the number of packages in Guix, Debian and NixOS.
Guix is a younger distro and therefore has way fewer packages ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hope I helped

Wojtek

[1] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Contributing.html

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On Tue, 3 Jan 2023 11:33:24 +0100
Moritz Tacke <moritz.tacke@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sure!
> I'm currently trying to install the WFDB python library. It is hosted on
> PyPI (pypi.org/project/wfdb/), but I can't find it using "guix search".
> What I did then was to use "guix import", which created a .scm-file. This
> file was not yet sufficient to use it directly for installation, therefore
> I had to modify the file (import some other files, change a problem in the
> license statement). This lead to a .scm-file I could use to install the
> module from the PyPi repository. Somehof I had the impression that I was
> not using the tools in the right way, e.g. why "guix import" returned a
> file that was not complete (but, instead, needed some quite mechanical
> modifications from my side). I was hoping that, somehow, there would be a
> way where I can packages from PyPi directly, with one single guix command.
> 
> On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 10:50 PM Wojtek Kosior <koszko@koszko.org> wrote:
> 
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I am trying to use guix to install packages that debian does not
> > > offer. However, in most cases (python modules) the package can't be
> > > installed directly using guix as the package file is missing. What is the
> > > correct way to proceed for e.g. a pypi module? I am currently creating a
> > > package file myself, but is this the way it's meant to be? Is there a
> > > standard place to store such custom scm files?
> > > Greetings!
> > >
> > >                 Moritz  
> >
> > I'm not sure I fully and correctly understand the question. Can you
> > clarify what you mean by "package file is missing"? Where is it missing
> > from? How are you creating the packages yourself?
> >
> > Wojtek
> >
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> >

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