From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: =?utf-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= Subject: Re: New VM image Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:29:16 +0200 Message-ID: <87h8aklwsz.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87d0m1stsc.fsf@inria.fr> <20190409204810.GA26383@jasmine.lan> <87d0ll43pl.fsf@gmail.com> <87zhoekpbc.fsf_-_@gnu.org> <87tvelkxbl.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:54829) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hK0un-00062O-B7 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Apr 2019 09:29:22 -0400 In-Reply-To: <87tvelkxbl.fsf@gmail.com> (Chris Marusich's message of "Fri, 26 Apr 2019 01:03:26 -0700") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Chris Marusich Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Hello Chris, Chris Marusich skribis: > Ludovic Court=C3=A8s writes: [...] >> I think it would fill the need of those who want to see what Guix is >> like, and also the need of developers who want to test their software on >> Guix without installing it (I=E2=80=99d argue that installing Guix on to= p of >> their distro is simpler, but some people will use the VM image for that >> purpose anyway.) >> >> What do people think? > > I like it! Is it intended to replace gnu/system/examples/vm-image.tmpl? Yes. I=E2=80=99ve just committed it (538b99f31fb3eb41f90d6eb0e658e26e72123= 553) before seeing your message, but I=E2=80=99m of course happy to take your feedback into account. > The phrase "live image" suggests a live USB stick that can be booted as > a live system. To avoid confusion, would it be better to just call it a > "VM image"? I don't feel that strongly about it. Yes, definitely, sorry for the confusion. I do not plan to change the =E2=80=9CVM=E2=80=9D terminology in the manual and on the download page. >> (define this-file >> (local-file "./vm-live.tmpl" "config.scm")) > > Cute! But FYI, I tried building this and it failed at first, since I > renamed the file and forgot about this reference. I then re-ran the > command from the same directory as the file, which of course worked. Yeah, we could maybe extract the actual file name from (current-source-location). > When I booted into the system, I noticed some things: > > - There are many folders on the desktop. For example, there is one for > "/sys/fs/cgroup/memory". A minor blemish, but rather odd. Yeah, that=E2=80=99s a longstanding issue with GLib/GIO: that library has c= ode to find out which mount points are =E2=80=9Csystem=E2=80=9D mount points (t= hings that should not be shown in the UI), but for some reason, it doesn=E2=80=99t work correctly for us: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2017-11/msg00087.html Any help to fix or work around the issue would be welcome! > - The "guest" user cannot run "sudo". However, after you invoke > "passwd" and change the password to something, you can invoke sudo. I > guess this is a side effect of using an empty password. Would it be > hard to arrange for the "guest" user to be allowed passwordless sudo? > I guess I should have listened to your comment in the config file and > given root/guest a password from the start! What would it take to allow for password-less sudo? We could do that. > - "sudo herd status" reports that term-auto and user-homes is stopped, > which I think might be intended, but I'm not sure. I also see > possibly unnecessary services: wpa-supplicant, upower-daemon. The VM > probably doesn't need wpa-supplicant, but maybe it needs > upower-daemon? Not sure. True, the VM currently uses NM + wpa_supplicant, which we could certainly replace with the DHCP client. > - There is a "Web Browser" link at the bottom of the screen. It begs to > be clicked. But when you click it, the system asks you to choose a > default web browser, and there are no options. Hmm. Yeah, you first need to install one. > - "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm" failed because "error: > missing field initializers (home-directory)". That error will vanish when we update =E2=80=98guix=E2=80=99 i guess. > I then ran "guix pull" > and tried again with "sudo -E guix system reconfigure > /etc/config.scm", since I remembered that the proper way to do this > using my freshly pulled Guix would be to use -E. I got a new error: > "error: device '/dev/vda' not found: No such file or directory", which > occurred because the VM has /dev/sda but not /dev/vda. Maybe we can > modify the config file to use sda instead? It all depends on how you start QEMU: the device would be /dev/vda if you use virtio, and /dev/hda otherwise. In the manual, we should probably give the incantation that leads it to use virtio: -device virtio-blk,drive=3Dmyhd -drive if=3Dnone,file=3D/tmp/t.img,id=3Dm= yhd The obvious downside is that it=E2=80=99s more verbose than just =E2=80=9C-= hda=E2=80=9D. The upside is that it=E2=80=99ll perform better. Thoughts? Thanks, Ludo=E2=80=99.