Re: New Install

[Andy Wingo <wingo@igalia.com>]

Hi!

On Thu 17 Sep 2015 14:06, Richard <r_j_humphreys@yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> - It is feasible/straightforward to install guixsd to a spare partition
> without affecting the existing OS (slackware) on my machine? (My other
> machine is burdened with Windows and dual-booting that is a challenge
> which might follow later...)?

It is, if you want to share /home but not not /etc, /var, and so on.
So if your slackware install is on sda1, your home is sda2, and you
install GuixSD to sda3 -- that can work.  Don't install over sda1
though.

> - If so, is it feasible to install guixsd while keeping my existing
> extlinux-based boot system or am I obliged to move to grub?

In practice you'd be obliged to move to grub.

Are you running Guix already?  If not, I would suggest trying Guix as a
user first.  As a user you get most of what GuixSD offers, without
perturbing your system.  The only downside is when you expect to
e.g. see package foo from Guix but you had it installed via slackware
and there's something wrong with your Guix setup so you aren't picking
up the Guix copy but you don't know why -- this sort of thing is only
possible to ultimately clear up if you have nothing in /usr.  But it can
be worked around and when everything is set up right you won't have this
problem.

Andy