Re: Planning for the next release

[Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>]

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On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 03:59:24PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skribis:
> > If possible, I would appreciate if the release included a QEMU image
> > that we could offer to VPS hosters like serveraptor.com, as discussed in
> > this thread:
> >
> > If the maintainers want to try for this, I'm happy to help prepare a
> > system declaration and test it.

I'll work on the system declaration shortly. I think it should take some
parts from installation-os from (gnu system install), but the
file-systems can be simplified, and the packages reduced.

> The main “difficulty” would be to adjust the “Download” page on the web
> site, the instructions in the manual, “make release”, and to come up
> with a clear file name for the new image.

I think the name should be "guixsd-vm-image-VERSION", since this follows
the convention established with `guix system vm-image`.

I've attached some rough patches for guix.git and guix-artwork.git.

I'm confused about `make release`. The for-loop that builds the disk
images doesn't seem to set up offloading or actually build the images
for the different values of $SUPPORTED_SYSTEMS [0]. Am I missing this
somewhere?

For the web-site, I'm struggling to set up a development environment
where I can run (export-web-site) and test my changes.

[0]
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/Makefile.am?id=e0b2e93005188ab4d6c7413a27832ba2fb7388e8#n608

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From 6ae03aa362b3542590e12c0ab2b65af127bdb00d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>
Date: Sat, 13 May 2017 20:44:36 -0400
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] doc: Mention the pre-built VM image.

* doc/guix.texi (Running GuixSD in a VM): Mention the pre-built VM image.
---
 doc/guix.texi | 22 +++++++++++++---------
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
index 844f0d74f..7b8a4fea0 100644
--- a/doc/guix.texi
+++ b/doc/guix.texi
@@ -15649,17 +15649,21 @@ example graph.
 @subsection Running GuixSD in a Virtual Machine
 
 @cindex virtual machine
-One way to run GuixSD in a virtual machine (VM) is to build a GuixSD
-virtual machine image using @command{guix system vm-image}
-(@pxref{Invoking guix system}).  The returned image is in qcow2 format,
-which the @uref{http://qemu.org/, QEMU emulator} can efficiently use.
+To run GuixSD in a virtual machine (VM), one can either use the
+pre-built GuixSD VM image distributed at
+@indicateurl{ftp://alpha.gnu.org/guix/guixsd-vm-image-@value{VERSION}.@var{system}.tar.xz}
+, or build their own virtual machine image using @command{guix system
+vm-image} (@pxref{Invoking guix system}).  The returned image is in
+qcow2 format, which the @uref{http://qemu.org/, QEMU emulator} can
+efficiently use.
 
 @cindex QEMU
-To run the image in QEMU, copy it out of the store (@pxref{The Store})
-and give yourself permission to write to the copy.  When invoking QEMU,
-you must choose a system emulator that is suitable for your hardware
-platform.  Here is a minimal QEMU invocation that will boot the result
-of @command{guix system vm-image} on x86_64 hardware:
+If you built your image image, you must copy it out of the store
+(@pxref{The Store}) and give yourself permission to write to the copy
+before you can use it.  When invoking QEMU, you must choose a system
+emulator that is suitable for your hardware platform.  Here is a minimal
+QEMU invocation that will boot the result of @command{guix system
+vm-image} on x86_64 hardware:
 
 @example
 $ qemu-system-x86_64 \
-- 
2.13.0


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From 30effa15369a1707755d134e37e63e2df135422e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>
Date: Sat, 13 May 2017 18:07:01 -0400
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] maint: The 'release' target builds a VM image.

* Makefile.am (GUIXSD_VM_SYSTEMS, GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_BASE,
GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_SIZE): New variables.
(release): Add logic to build a VM image.
---
 Makefile.am | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 4b5a29a72..8663de3ba 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -571,12 +571,21 @@ BINARY_TARBALLS =							\
 # Systems supported by GuixSD.
 GUIXSD_SUPPORTED_SYSTEMS ?= x86_64-linux i686-linux
 
+# Systems for which we build GuixSD VMs.
+GUIXSD_VM_SYSTEMS ?= x86_64-linux
+
 # Prefix of the GuixSD installation image file name.
 GUIXSD_IMAGE_BASE = guixsd-usb-install-$(PACKAGE_VERSION)
 
+# Prefix of the GuixSD VM image file name.
+GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_BASE = guixsd-vm-image-$(PACKAGE_VERSION)
+
 # Size of the installation image (for x86_64 typically).
 GUIXSD_INSTALLATION_IMAGE_SIZE ?= 950MiB
 
+# Size of the VM image (for x86_64 typically).
+GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_SIZE ?= 2GiB
+
 # The release process works in several phases:
 #
 #   0. We assume the developer created a 'vX.Y' tag.
@@ -627,6 +636,19 @@ release: distcheck
 	  mv "$(releasedir)/$(GUIXSD_IMAGE_BASE).$$system.xz.tmp"			\
 	     "$(releasedir)/$(GUIXSD_IMAGE_BASE).$$system.xz" ;				\
 	done
+	for system in $(GUIXSD_VM_SYSTEMS) ; do						\
+	  image=`$(top_builddir)/pre-inst-env						\
+	    guix system vm-image							\
+	    --image-size=$(GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_SIZE)					\
+	    gnu/system/install.scm` ;							\
+	  if [ ! -f "$$image" ] ; then							\
+	    echo "failed to produced GuixSD VM image for $$system" >&2 ;		\
+	    exit 1 ;									\
+	  fi ;										\
+	  xz < "$$image" > "$(releasedir)/$(GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_BASE).$$system.xz.tmp" ;	\
+	  mv "$(releasedir)/$(GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_BASE).$$system.xz.tmp"			\
+	     "$(releasedir)/$(GUIXSD_VM_IMAGE_BASE).$$system.xz" ;			\
+	done
 	@echo
 	@echo "Congratulations!  All the release files are now in $(releasedir)."
 	@echo
-- 
2.13.0


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From 584a9dfb224de28dc40692d2957d2301952378c2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>
Date: Sun, 14 May 2017 15:03:57 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] website: downloads: Mention the VM image.

* website/www/download.scm (%vm-image-description, %vm-image-manual,
%vm-image-image): New variables.
(guixsd-vm-image-files): New procedure.
(download-page): Use guixsd-vm-image-files.
---
 website/www/download.scm | 22 +++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/website/www/download.scm b/website/www/download.scm
index 887c6db..98f03ee 100644
--- a/website/www/download.scm
+++ b/website/www/download.scm
@@ -62,6 +62,15 @@ dependencies.")
 (define %guix-src-image
   "src-package.png")
 
+(define %vm-image-description
+  "Virtual machine (QEMU) image of GuixSD.")
+
+(define %vm-image-manual
+  "manual/html_node/Running-GuixSD-in-a-VM.html")
+
+(define %vm-image-image
+  "GuixSD-package.png")
+
 (define (ftp-url file)
   (string-append "ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/" file))
 
@@ -75,6 +84,12 @@ dependencies.")
                                             "-linux.xz"))))
        archs))
 
+(define (guixsd-vm-image-files archs)
+  (map (lambda (arch)
+         (cons arch (https-url (string-append "guixsd-vm-image-"
+                                              (latest-guix-version) "." arch
+                                              "-linux.xz"))))))
+
 (define (guix-files archs)
   (map (lambda (arch)
          (cons arch (https-url (string-append "guix-binary-" (latest-guix-version)
@@ -150,7 +165,12 @@ Linux-based system.")
                             #:files (guix-source-files '("tarball"))
                             #:description %source-tarball-description
                             #:manual %source-tarball-manual
-                            #:image %guix-src-image))
+                            #:image %guix-src-image)
+             ,(download-box (string-append "GuixSD " (latest-guix-version))
+                            #:files (guixsd-vm-image-files '("x86_64"))
+                            #:description %vm-image-description
+                            #:manual %vm-image-manual
+                            #:image %guixsd-vm-image))
 
 		(p "Source code for the Guix System Distribution USB
 installation images as well as GNU Guix can be found on the GNU ftp server for "
-- 
2.13.0


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