Installing Guix easily on other distros

Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Hartmut Goebel]

Hi,

today on irc, there was discussion about that Guix should be easily
installable and manageable in other distros being higher priority. This
could attract more users to ry out Guix. So I created a draft .spec-file
for building and installing Guix o RPM-based systems like Fedora.

Maybe someone using Fedora may want to add a package request in their
bug-tracker. I already did for Mageia.

The .spec-file can be found attached to
<https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18203>

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Cyril Roelandt]

On 04/14/2016 03:51 PM, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> today on irc, there was discussion about that Guix should be easily
> installable and manageable in other distros being higher priority. This
> could attract more users to ry out Guix. So I created a draft .spec-file
> for building and installing Guix o RPM-based systems like Fedora.
> 

Someone already did that in copr:
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lantw44/guix/

Maybe you could work with them?

Cyril.

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Thompson, David]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Hartmut Goebel
<h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> today on irc, there was discussion about that Guix should be easily
> installable and manageable in other distros being higher priority. This
> could attract more users to ry out Guix. So I created a draft .spec-file
> for building and installing Guix o RPM-based systems like Fedora.
>
> Maybe someone using Fedora may want to add a package request in their
> bug-tracker. I already did for Mageia.

This has come up several times, and I agree that we should provide
packages for popular GNU/Linux distributions.  However, Guix *cannot*
be made available in many distros official repositories (most notably
Debian and Fedora) because Guix violates their policies, such as:

- Software must conform to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
(violation: Guix introduces the /gnu directory)
- Software must be bootstrapped from source (violation: Guix requires
a set of bootstrap binaries that *cannot* be replaced by the distro
without changing the hashes of every package, effectively preventing
them from receiving binaries from hydra.gnu.org)

Guix is at odds with other distros because it is a distro itself.  So,
I think what would be best is for users of these distros to host Guix
packages in popular places for third-party packages, like Arch's AUR
or Fedora's COPR:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/guix/
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lantw44/guix/

What would be even better is if people *told us* when they made a
package.  I learned about these indirectly, long after they were
originally available.

Hope this helps,

- Dave

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Thompson, David <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:

> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Hartmut Goebel
> <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> today on irc, there was discussion about that Guix should be easily
>> installable and manageable in other distros being higher priority. This
>> could attract more users to ry out Guix. So I created a draft .spec-file
>> for building and installing Guix o RPM-based systems like Fedora.
>>
>> Maybe someone using Fedora may want to add a package request in their
>> bug-tracker. I already did for Mageia.
>
> This has come up several times, and I agree that we should provide
> packages for popular GNU/Linux distributions.  However, Guix *cannot*
> be made available in many distros official repositories (most notably
> Debian and Fedora) because Guix violates their policies, such as:
>
> - Software must conform to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
> (violation: Guix introduces the /gnu directory)
> - Software must be bootstrapped from source (violation: Guix requires
> a set of bootstrap binaries that *cannot* be replaced by the distro
> without changing the hashes of every package, effectively preventing
> them from receiving binaries from hydra.gnu.org)
>
> Guix is at odds with other distros because it is a distro itself.  So,
> I think what would be best is for users of these distros to host Guix
> packages in popular places for third-party packages, like Arch's AUR
> or Fedora's COPR:
>
> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/guix/
> https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lantw44/guix/
>
> What would be even better is if people *told us* when they made a
> package.  I learned about these indirectly, long after they were
> originally available.

Could we add the .spec, PKGBUILD, and debian files to the Guix
repository?  I know of many projects that include the package manifests
to simplify building packages for major distributions.

An advantage would be that we knew about these files and users wouldn’t
have to search around for the latest package sources.

~~ Ricardo

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Thompson, David]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Ricardo Wurmus
<ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de> wrote:
>
> Thompson, David <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:
>
>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Hartmut Goebel
>> <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> today on irc, there was discussion about that Guix should be easily
>>> installable and manageable in other distros being higher priority. This
>>> could attract more users to ry out Guix. So I created a draft .spec-file
>>> for building and installing Guix o RPM-based systems like Fedora.
>>>
>>> Maybe someone using Fedora may want to add a package request in their
>>> bug-tracker. I already did for Mageia.
>>
>> This has come up several times, and I agree that we should provide
>> packages for popular GNU/Linux distributions.  However, Guix *cannot*
>> be made available in many distros official repositories (most notably
>> Debian and Fedora) because Guix violates their policies, such as:
>>
>> - Software must conform to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
>> (violation: Guix introduces the /gnu directory)
>> - Software must be bootstrapped from source (violation: Guix requires
>> a set of bootstrap binaries that *cannot* be replaced by the distro
>> without changing the hashes of every package, effectively preventing
>> them from receiving binaries from hydra.gnu.org)
>>
>> Guix is at odds with other distros because it is a distro itself.  So,
>> I think what would be best is for users of these distros to host Guix
>> packages in popular places for third-party packages, like Arch's AUR
>> or Fedora's COPR:
>>
>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/guix/
>> https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lantw44/guix/
>>
>> What would be even better is if people *told us* when they made a
>> package.  I learned about these indirectly, long after they were
>> originally available.
>
> Could we add the .spec, PKGBUILD, and debian files to the Guix
> repository?  I know of many projects that include the package manifests
> to simplify building packages for major distributions.
>
> An advantage would be that we knew about these files and users wouldn’t
> have to search around for the latest package sources.

That sounds like a good idea.  I would welcome patches for such things.

- Dave

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Ludovic Courtès]

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Ricardo Wurmus
> <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de> wrote:
>>
>> Thompson, David <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:
>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Hartmut Goebel
>>> <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> today on irc, there was discussion about that Guix should be easily
>>>> installable and manageable in other distros being higher priority. This
>>>> could attract more users to ry out Guix. So I created a draft .spec-file
>>>> for building and installing Guix o RPM-based systems like Fedora.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe someone using Fedora may want to add a package request in their
>>>> bug-tracker. I already did for Mageia.
>>>
>>> This has come up several times, and I agree that we should provide
>>> packages for popular GNU/Linux distributions.  However, Guix *cannot*
>>> be made available in many distros official repositories (most notably
>>> Debian and Fedora) because Guix violates their policies, such as:
>>>
>>> - Software must conform to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
>>> (violation: Guix introduces the /gnu directory)
>>> - Software must be bootstrapped from source (violation: Guix requires
>>> a set of bootstrap binaries that *cannot* be replaced by the distro
>>> without changing the hashes of every package, effectively preventing
>>> them from receiving binaries from hydra.gnu.org)
>>>
>>> Guix is at odds with other distros because it is a distro itself.  So,
>>> I think what would be best is for users of these distros to host Guix
>>> packages in popular places for third-party packages, like Arch's AUR
>>> or Fedora's COPR:
>>>
>>> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/guix/
>>> https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lantw44/guix/
>>>
>>> What would be even better is if people *told us* when they made a
>>> package.  I learned about these indirectly, long after they were
>>> originally available.
>>
>> Could we add the .spec, PKGBUILD, and debian files to the Guix
>> repository?  I know of many projects that include the package manifests
>> to simplify building packages for major distributions.
>>
>> An advantage would be that we knew about these files and users wouldn’t
>> have to search around for the latest package sources.
>
> That sounds like a good idea.  I would welcome patches for such things.

Seconded (as long as it’s one or two files per distro.)

Ludo’.

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de> writes:

> Could we add the .spec, PKGBUILD, and debian files to the Guix
> repository?  I know of many projects that include the package manifests
> to simplify building packages for major distributions.
>
> An advantage would be that we knew about these files and users wouldn’t
> have to search around for the latest package sources.

If we are able to generate deb and rpm files from the Guix package
definition without too much burden, I think it is a good idea.  However
having a "debian" directory + a spec file + ....  will require
additional maintenance efforts and an extra layer of “noise” in the
repository that seems undesirable to me.

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Installing Guix easily on other distros

[Hartmut Goebel]

Am 14.04.2016 um 19:00 schrieb Mathieu Lirzin:
> If we are able to generate deb and rpm files from the Guix package
> definition without too much burden, I think it is a good idea.  However
> having a "debian" directory + a spec file + ....  will require
> additional maintenance efforts and an extra layer of “noise” in the
> repository that seems undesirable to me.

Perhaps it's enough to point to other builds in the manual or some wiki?

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |