The Guix Build Coordinator in 2021

[Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>]

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Hey!

Near the beginning of 2020, things changed such that I suddenly had some
time, and some of that time I spend putting idea's I'd had for a while
around building derivations, including across multiple machines, in to
practice [1].

1: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-04/msg00323.html

Looking back now from 2021, I think it's been pretty successful.

In terms of building things for substitutes, the guix.cbaines.net [2]
site I setup for testing has generally had higher substitute
availability than ci.guix.gnu.org, at least for x86_64-linux, and this
is with far less compute resources.

2: http://guix.cbaines.net/

It's also allowed for massive leaps forward towards being able to
meaningfully test patches. Affected packages and system tests are now
being built, and the results of those builds are being sent to the
relevant Guix Data Service instance.

Up until recently, I've been trying to add more features. I've still got
more features in mind, but I also want to neaten up some things and pay
back some of the technical debt that's been accrued.

I've added a Roadmap section to the README file [3] if you're interested
in the specifics.

3: https://git.cbaines.net/guix/build-coordinator/about/#outline-container-orge5f01b3

Also, given that the Guix Build Coordinator is capably doing what it was
designed to do, there are problems that are now in a good position to
tackle. Things like trying to optimise substitute delivery over HTTP [4]
or otherwise, and making user interface improvements around
patchwork.cbaines.net [5] so that it's better at getting the right
information to the right people.

4: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-02/msg00104.html
5: https://patchwork.cbaines.net/

If you have any comments, questions, or are interested in getting
involved, please let me know!

Thanks,

Chris

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