Re: Collect guix profiles in single directory.

[Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at>]

Am Freitag, den 31.01.2020, 14:33 +0100 schrieb Pierre Neidhardt:
> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
> 
> > Hi Pierre,
> > 
> > Am Freitag, den 31.01.2020, 08:59 +0100 schrieb Pierre Neidhardt:
> > > Hi Leo,
> > > 
> > > About ordering:
> > > 
> > > 1. ~/.config/guix/current is special in that it's the channel of
> > > Guix
> > > and it's installed by "guix pull" unlike other channels.  Thus I
> > > don't
> > > think it belongs to GUIX_PROFILE_DIR.  That said, we could
> > > introduce
> > > another environment variable for those who want to move it
> > > somewhere
> > > else.
> > The whole point of this operation was to put everything into one
> > directory, including profiles managed by `guix pull` rather than
> > `guix
> > package` -- see the subject line and the initial post.
> 
> Yes, but I propose to go even more general: Have a configuration knob
> for all files, so that everyone is free to move stuff anywhere they
> want.
What do you mean by that exactly?  One knob for everything as with
config-directory?  Several knobs for several things?  One knob per file
or directory?  Which knob will do what?

> > Conceptually it is a profile like any other.
> 
> But practically I suspect that most users will deal with it
> specially.
> It would be nice to be able to make the distinction between the
> "guix"
> profile and the rest.
But why is it, that most people deal with it specially and to which
extent do they do so?  Personally, I can see two big differences:
1. The usage of a different command to populate it.
2. A different config file style (channels.scm over manifest.scm).
Other than that, you could maybe cite the fact, that you don't want the
guix command installed in any other profile, but that's about it.

Even accepting a distinction, there is nothing inside that distinction,
that would enforce a separation in storage -- at least as far as I see
it.  Before you even get to the point of user profiles, guix system
puts the guix command together with everything else into the system
profile, so it's not even an issue until you try to `guix install guix`
despite commonly shared advice on IRC telling you not to.