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dkim=none; dmarc=pass (policy=none) header.from=gnu.org; spf=pass (aspmx1.migadu.com: domain of "bug-guix-bounces+larch=yhetil.org@gnu.org" designates 209.51.188.17 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom="bug-guix-bounces+larch=yhetil.org@gnu.org" X-Migadu-Queue-Id: 133053C604 X-Spam-Score: -3.62 X-Migadu-Scanner: scn1.migadu.com X-TUID: xxhkWdb4Q3T0 Hi Leo, Leo Famulari skribis: > I pointed to this blog post, which was linked from that email: > >> > Specifically see this blog post: >> > http://excalamus.com/2021-10-06-guix-debug.html > > It's the story of an attempt to learn what the "conflicting entries" > message means and how to resolve it. Oh sorry, I had overlooked this. It makes perfect sense now, and this blog post is useful in understand what it feels like to encounter that error message for the first time. >> Currently, on profile collisions, the error message shows where the >> collision originates and a hint on how to work around it. Perhaps the >> hint is sometimes wrong (in which cases?), or perhaps it=E2=80=99s too t= erse? >> Can it be improved? > > The hint is perfectly clear, when you understand "profiles" and > "propagation". > > It's like I said later in my message: People use Guix without knowing > very much about it. > > That's surprising to me, because I started using Guix *because* I > learned about profiles and how they are used: it's one of the core > innovations of Guix / Nix, to implement unprivileged package management. > > But nevertheless, people are using Guix without understanding how it > works. And it's hard to learn about Guix when you are dealing with a > profile collision that you don't understand at all. For many people, > that is not a good moment to start learning. On top of that, profile > collisions are an error state that we can't fix as a bug: we have to > give users the knowledge to resolve the collisions themselves. Yeah. So, given that =E2=80=9Cprofile=E2=80=9D is already defined in =E2= =80=9CGetting Started=E2=80=9D, I think we can=E2=80=99t do a lot more in the manual. However, as a way of helping users incrementally discover concepts they need to understand, we could use one-time hints (sorta like the =E2=80=9CDi= d you know?=E2=80=9D boxes in GUIs.) =E2=80=98guix shell=E2=80=99 already uses a= one-time hint inviting users to run =E2=80=98--check=E2=80=99. We could imagine that the first run of =E2=80=98guix install=E2=80=99 & co.= would print a message explaining that your packages=E2=80=99 files are now in ~/.guix-profile, and that it=E2=80=99s what we call a =E2=80=9Cprofile=E2= =80=9D. Would that make sense? > For example, the blog post that I linked to ends with "Lessons Learned", > which includes this: > > ------ > What is a profile? > > A profile is a directory of symlinks located at ~/.guix-profile. > > Propagated inputs can cause conflicts > > Propagated inputs are treated somehow differently. It's still not 100% > clear how or why, but it's good to know they're a potential source of > errors. > ------ > > This person spent a lot of time trying to understand the situation and > writing the blog post, but their understanding is still rather weak. To be fair, the person didn=E2=80=99t look for =E2=80=9Cprofile=E2=80=9D in= the manual. I=E2=80=99m not blaming=E2=80=94mentioning it to clarify what it is we=E2=80=99re trying to= fix. > That's why I propose a Cookbook chapter that specifically addresses > profile collisions, to help new users go from "oh no, an error message" > to "aha!" Makes sense! >> In some early talks we had illustrations of the symlink forest of a >> profile borrowed from Eelco Dolstra=E2=80=99s own talks on the matter; s= ee for >> instance p. 17 of . I [...] > The illustrations of the symlink forest were *extremely* helpful to me > when learning how Guix implements unprivileged package management. I > think that later talks from the 2015-2017 era refined the illustrations > to be even more clear. OK, let=E2=80=99s see if we can include an illustration like that under =E2=80=9CManaging Software the Guix Way=E2=80=9D or something like that. > I'm sorry if the use case for my proposal is still unclear. I can work > on the Cookbook chapter myself. Great, thanks. Ludo=E2=80=99.