121 lines
5.1 KiB
Org Mode
121 lines
5.1 KiB
Org Mode
-*- mode: org -*-
|
||
|
||
[[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] (IPA: /ɡiːks/) is a purely functional package manager, and
|
||
associated free software distribution, for the [[https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]]. In addition
|
||
to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional
|
||
upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user
|
||
profiles, and garbage collection.
|
||
|
||
It provides [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/][Guile]] Scheme APIs, including a high-level embedded
|
||
domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to describe how packages are to be
|
||
built and composed.
|
||
|
||
GNU Guix can be used on top of an already-installed GNU/Linux distribution, or
|
||
it can be used standalone (we call that “Guix System”).
|
||
|
||
Guix is based on the [[https://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] package manager.
|
||
|
||
|
||
* Requirements
|
||
|
||
If you are building Guix from source, please see the manual for build
|
||
instructions and requirements, either by running:
|
||
|
||
info -f doc/guix.info "Requirements"
|
||
|
||
or by checking the [[https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Requirements.html][web copy of the manual]].
|
||
|
||
* Installation
|
||
|
||
See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running
|
||
|
||
info -f doc/guix.info "Installation"
|
||
|
||
or by checking the [[https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Installation.html][web copy of the manual]].
|
||
|
||
For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the section
|
||
"Building from Git" in the manual.
|
||
|
||
* Installing Guix from Guix
|
||
|
||
You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix.
|
||
To do so:
|
||
|
||
- Start a shell with the development environment for Guix:
|
||
|
||
guix environment guix
|
||
|
||
- Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option
|
||
'--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir'
|
||
value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the
|
||
new Guix to consider the store to be empty!). We recommend to use the
|
||
value '/var'.
|
||
|
||
- Run "make", "make check", and "make install".
|
||
|
||
* How It Works
|
||
|
||
Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is
|
||
the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under
|
||
=/gnu/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the
|
||
`derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as
|
||
`build-expression->derivation'.
|
||
|
||
Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the build daemon (the =guix-daemon=
|
||
command), which in turn performs builds and accesses to the store on its
|
||
behalf. The RPCs are implemented in the (guix store) module.
|
||
|
||
* Contact
|
||
|
||
GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/.
|
||
|
||
Please email <help-guix@gnu.org> for questions and <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug
|
||
reports; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for general issues regarding the
|
||
GNU system.
|
||
|
||
Join #guix on irc.freenode.net.
|
||
|
||
* Guix & Nix
|
||
|
||
GNU Guix is based on [[https://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same
|
||
package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code.
|
||
Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described
|
||
below.
|
||
|
||
Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library
|
||
and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies
|
||
on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter.
|
||
|
||
Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the
|
||
features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL,
|
||
Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose
|
||
language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages
|
||
(EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what
|
||
can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them.
|
||
|
||
Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’
|
||
daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix
|
||
“derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in
|
||
the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted
|
||
by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use
|
||
derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa).
|
||
|
||
With Nix and the [[https://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at
|
||
the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash.
|
||
Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package
|
||
composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is
|
||
written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code,
|
||
but exposes all the API as Scheme.
|
||
|
||
* Related software
|
||
|
||
- [[https://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated
|
||
software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix
|
||
- [[https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a
|
||
symlink tree to create user environments
|
||
- [[https://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea
|
||
- [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a
|
||
specified set of packages
|
||
- The [[https://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software
|
||
distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the
|
||
host system
|