bug#17152: GNU Guix backend for PackageKit / Gnome-Software

bug#17152: GNU Guix backend for PackageKit / Gnome-Software

[Kẏra]

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This will make GNU Guix much more accessible to a wider audience.

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bug#17152:

[Kẏra]

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I also filed against PackageKit here:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76810

and gnome-software here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=727367

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bug#17152:

[Ludovic Courtès]

Kẏra <kxra@riseup.net> skribis:

> I also filed against PackageKit here:
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76810
>
> and gnome-software here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=727367

This is a good idea, but looking at
<https://gitorious.org/packagekit/packagekit/source/e7bf8d39548e6edb6802c7058239d457e3f63845:src/org.freedesktop.PackageKit.Transaction.xml>,
it seems that PackageKit is not well suited for non-root install systems
and per-user profiles, for instance.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

bug#17152:

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi!

Kẏra <kxra@riseup.net> skribis:

> I also filed against PackageKit here:
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76810

FWIW, a Nix back-end has just been merged:

  https://github.com/hughsie/PackageKit/pull/126
  https://github.com/hughsie/PackageKit/pull/126/commits/108da8ed6784673758ea7a7a240eda0f8bdddc28

I think a Guix back-end may be simpler, notably because Guix has a
notion of package whereas all Nix sees is derivations, which are
low-level.

The Guix back-end, as I imagine, could essentially embed Guile into
PackageKit and have most of the code written in Scheme.  That way it
could trivially use all the support code we have in (guix profiles),
(guix packages), and (gnu packages).

Any takers?  :-)

Ludo’.

bug#17152: GNU Guix backend for PackageKit / Gnome-Software

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

Hi,

How does it work when Nix is installed on top of another distribution?
Is there something to handle that in packagekit? 

Or with distributions like Ubuntu that also use snap, it is is handled
transparently somehow? Or do users have to choose which package manager
to use?

I wonder that because I'd be interested in somehow supporting the
package manager of a foreign distribution (Parabola) to have an unified
configuration that can work also when guix / guix home is used on top
of another distribution[1].

[1] There are various advantages of using the distribution package
    manager instead of guix home in that case, like having the packages
    installed system wide for instance, or having the packages take
    less space.

Denis.

bug#17152: GNU Guix backend for PackageKit / Gnome-Software

[Parnikkapore via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

(I hope it's OK to bump! 🙂️)

I'm using KDE Neon. In Plasma Discover (which is a PackageKit
frontend), packages from both apt and Flatpak are shown, and you can
pick which way you want to install the package. You can also set a
default.

If a package isn't available on one package manager, that package
manager simply doesn't show up on the list, and pressing "Install" will
simply use another package manager that does have the package.

Flatpak is actually listed twice - once for installing system-wide and
once for installing for the current user only. Only the latter does not
require the equivalent of sudo-ing. So that should point towards a way
to get PackageKit to do non-root installs.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to get pkcon to behave in a
similar way - it's mostly just an apt frontend here.