Re: wishlist: “repack” generations history of profile

[Giovanni Biscuolo <g@xelera.eu>]

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Hi Simon and developers,

what about a flag - e.g. --backup - and a related funcion for "guix
package -d generations" and "guix gc -d generations" (other?) that saves
"channels-generation-<N>.scm" and "manifest-generation-<N> for each
deleted generation?

This way we can keep the current deletion of generations and status
logic while giving users a utility to automaticcaly keep old
channels.scm and manifest.scm files, of course the responsibility to
store the backups (where, how, why) is on the users shoulders

Sorry I'm not able to help with such implementation, it's just an idea
for an alternative one.

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

> Therefore, you want to roll-back to the first generation and see… Bah
> you cannot because it is many months old and the sysadmin runs “guix gc
> -d 3m” to save some space.

I'm a sysadmin, please understand the ungrateful job to administer a
machine in a "shared servers context" in which users have the power to
administer their software profiles.... except they are not willing to do
it properly. Each and every user is /also/ a little sysadmin ;-)

"guix gc -d 3m" by sysadmins for their users is "hard delegation"

"guix package -d <generations>" by users and "guix gc -C" by sysadmins
is "soft delegation" and more fair IMHO

[...]

> However, we are often saying: do not worry, you can always travel back
> in time (implicitly assuming Guix have the information :-)).

If this is the case, IMHO we should patch the manual: what part of the
manual do you have in mind?

> And this assumption is often missed which leads to uncomfortable
> situations, not to say maybe some scientists are sometime blaming
> sysadmin and/or Guix promoter. :-)

I know: when a system does not work as expected is always someone else
resposibility, usually sysadmins :-O

> Somehow my point is: The time scale of a project is often very different
> to the time scale of GC on a machine.  Most of the time, the old

Somehow my point is: sysadmins and users should peacefully agree on a
Guix package and profile management policy, documenting it for the
organization

[...]

Happy Guixing! :-D  Gio'

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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