different versions of glibc-locales in the same profile

different versions of glibc-locales in the same profile

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Guix,

on a foreign distribution what is the recommended way to install
different versions of glibc-locales into the same profile?

Since glibc-locales install their files into a versioned directory,
having glibc-locales@2.27 in a profile containing glibc-locales@2.28
does not lead to conflicts.  However, Guix refuses to build a manifest
like this because there are two packages with the same name:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(use-modules (guix inferior) (guix channels)
             (srfi srfi-1))   ;for 'first'

(define inferior-2.27
  (inferior-for-channels
    (list (channel
          (name 'guix)
         (url "https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git")
         (commit
          "b2c8d31ff673ca1714be16968c9ead9a99ae2b7b")))))

(packages->manifest
 (list (first (lookup-inferior-packages inferior-2.27 "glibc-locales"))
       (specification->package "glibc-locales")))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Should we add package definitions for older glibc-locales and give them
new names to work around this?  Should we add a property to
glibc-locales to indicate to “guix package” that this package should be
ignored when trying to predict and prevent conflicts?

--
Ricardo