bug#43744: guix-install.sh should do more first-time setup

bug#43744: guix-install.sh should do more first-time setup

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

One of the things we can do to provide a better first-time experience on
a foreign distro is to automatically do some of the things that make
Guix readily usable and convenient, even for someone who skips the
“Application Setup” section of the manual.  Things that come to mind:

  1. Installing Bash and Zsh completion files globally (actually making
     them a symlink to
     /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix/etc/…).
     There seems to be +/- a cross-distro conventional directory to
     collect those, for example /etc/bash_completion.d, no?  The script
     could create that symlink, perhaps asking the user to confirm.

  2. Adding the following lines to /etc/profile (taken from Guix System):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
# Arrange so that ~/.config/guix/current comes first.
for profile in "$HOME/.guix-profile" "$HOME/.config/guix/current"
do
  if [ -f "$profile/etc/profile" ]
  then
    # Load the user profile's settings.
    GUIX_PROFILE="$profile" ; \
    . "$profile/etc/profile"
  else
    # At least define this one so that basic things just work
    # when the user installs their first package.
    export PATH="$profile/bin:$PATH"
  fi
done
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

     The user should be explicitly asked whether they want this change
     to be made.

  3. It could check “ps aux | grep nscd” and install nscd using the host
     distro package manager if needed, or at least suggest doing it.

Any takers?  :-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.

bug#43744: guix-install.sh should do more first-time setup

[zimoun]

Hi,

On Thu, 1 Oct 2020 at 14:35, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

>   1. Installing Bash and Zsh completion files globally (actually making
>      them a symlink to
>      /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix/etc/…).
>      There seems to be +/- a cross-distro conventional directory to
>      collect those, for example /etc/bash_completion.d, no?  The script
>      could create that symlink, perhaps asking the user to confirm.

Done in patch 1/2 #43769 [1].


>   2. Adding the following lines to /etc/profile (taken from Guix System):
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> # Arrange so that ~/.config/guix/current comes first.
> for profile in "$HOME/.guix-profile" "$HOME/.config/guix/current"
> do
>   if [ -f "$profile/etc/profile" ]
>   then
>     # Load the user profile's settings.
>     GUIX_PROFILE="$profile" ; \
>     . "$profile/etc/profile"
>   else
>     # At least define this one so that basic things just work
>     # when the user installs their first package.
>     export PATH="$profile/bin:$PATH"
>   fi
> done
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Hum?  It looks like 'sys_create_init_profile'.  I have not checked the
current order but maybe that's only that.


>      The user should be explicitly asked whether they want this change
>      to be made.

Currently, 'sys_create_init_profile' is simply run without asking.


>   3. It could check “ps aux | grep nscd” and install nscd using the host
>      distro package manager if needed, or at least suggest doing it.

Done in patch 2/2 #43769 [1].

[1] <http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/43769>


All the best,
simon

bug#43744: guix-install.sh should do more first-time setup

[zimoun]

Dear,

On Thu, 01 Oct 2020 at 14:34, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> One of the things we can do to provide a better first-time experience on
> a foreign distro is to automatically do some of the things that make
> Guix readily usable and convenient, even for someone who skips the
> “Application Setup” section of the manual.  Things that come to mind:
>
>   1. Installing Bash and Zsh completion files globally (actually making
>      them a symlink to
>      /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix/etc/…).
>      There seems to be +/- a cross-distro conventional directory to
>      collect those, for example /etc/bash_completion.d, no?  The script
>      could create that symlink, perhaps asking the user to confirm.

Done in b3fba5ef043b161d05a9fdc371a32d89e9b22ea1.


>   2. Adding the following lines to /etc/profile (taken from Guix System):
>
> # Arrange so that ~/.config/guix/current comes first.
> for profile in "$HOME/.guix-profile" "$HOME/.config/guix/current"
> do
>   if [ -f "$profile/etc/profile" ]
>   then
>     # Load the user profile's settings.
>     GUIX_PROFILE="$profile" ; \
>     . "$profile/etc/profile"
>   else
>     # At least define this one so that basic things just work
>     # when the user installs their first package.
>     export PATH="$profile/bin:$PATH"
>   fi
> done
>
>      The user should be explicitly asked whether they want this change
>      to be made.

Nothing to done.


>   3. It could check “ps aux | grep nscd” and install nscd using the host
>      distro package manager if needed, or at least suggest doing it.

Done in b2683a2bed424f58722c9c17c9582e3e2e19d9a3.


So closing!