On Sun, 2021-01-31 at 22:49 +0300, Oleg Pykhalov wrote:

(operating-system
    (inherit base-system)
    (essential-services
     (modify-services (operating-system-default-essential-services base-system)
       (shepherd-root-service-type config => (shepherd-configuration
                                              (inherit config)
                                              (shepherd shepherd)))))))

I'm currently running "guix time-machine etcetera", which hasn't completed yet,

but here's some quick speculation on what could have went wrong:

You shouldn't write (operating-system-default-essential-services base-system),

but rather (operating-system-default-essential-services this-operating-system).

The essential-services field is thunked, basically that means that the expression

under essential-services can refer to the operating-system definition itself,

using the macro this-operating-system.

A potentially fixed configuration is attached, I'll try to run it in a VM.