Zile and minimal systems

Zile and minimal systems

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi!

Commit da40d07066096a3b5a852041ea01fbb32240deda updates Zile, but this
new version seems to have little in common with previous ones.  In
particular, it has more dependencies and a larger footprint:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ guix size zile | tail -1                  # before
total: 85.7 MiB
$ ./pre-inst-env guix size zile | tail -1   # after
total: 126.2 MiB
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Should we provide another Emacs clone in the installation image and in
‘%base-packages’?

‘zile-on-guile’ is tempting but currently unmaintained.  ‘mg’ could work too.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.

Re: Zile and minimal systems

[Taylan Kammer]

On 08.07.2021 23:52, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Commit da40d07066096a3b5a852041ea01fbb32240deda updates Zile, but this
> new version seems to have little in common with previous ones.  In
> particular, it has more dependencies and a larger footprint:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> $ guix size zile | tail -1                  # before
> total: 85.7 MiB
> $ ./pre-inst-env guix size zile | tail -1   # after
> total: 126.2 MiB
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> Should we provide another Emacs clone in the installation image and in
> ‘%base-packages’?
> 
> ‘zile-on-guile’ is tempting but currently unmaintained.  ‘mg’ could work too.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Ludo’.
> 

I like mg.  It's basically my vi/nano when I do sysadmin-ish work.
One of the first things I install on a server I'll be working on.

Starts up instantly, supports multiple buffers, regexp search,
multiple panes (C-x 2), and a few other nifty Emacs things, even
a tiny Dired-like mode.  Yet it's absolutely tiny at 200K with a
single binary.

Obviously no comparison to the real beast that is Emacs. :-)

Never used Zile so can't say how it compares.

-- 
Taylan

Re: Zile and minimal systems

[Mathieu Othacehe]

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Hey,

> ‘zile-on-guile’ is tempting but currently unmaintained.  ‘mg’ could work too.

mg seems to work fine. I'm currently testing the attached patch. Any
objections?

Thanks,

Mathieu

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
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[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2617 bytes --]

From 0cff5b30711a8987bc0457c23a73982888ec802e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe@gnu.org>
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2021 10:20:39 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] system: Provide mg instead of zile.

Since the update to the 2.6.2 release, the closure size of zile has
increased. Switch to mg which is lighter.

* gnu/system.scm (%base-packages-interactive): Replace zile by mg.
* doc/guix.texi (Proceeding with the Installation,
Using the Configuration System): Adapt those sections.
---
 doc/guix.texi  | 4 ++--
 gnu/system.scm | 3 ++-
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
index 18bc600440..46cec73d11 100644
--- a/doc/guix.texi
+++ b/doc/guix.texi
@@ -2543,7 +2543,7 @@ provide the declaration of the operating system to be installed.  To
 that end, the installation system comes with three text editors.  We
 recommend GNU nano (@pxref{Top,,, nano, GNU nano Manual}), which
 supports syntax highlighting and parentheses matching; other editors
-include GNU Zile (an Emacs clone), and
+include mg (an Emacs clone), and
 nvi (a clone of the original BSD @command{vi} editor).
 We strongly recommend storing that file on the target root file system, say,
 as @file{/mnt/etc/config.scm}.  Failing to do that, you will have lost your
@@ -13485,7 +13485,7 @@ environment variable---in addition to the per-user profiles
 (@pxref{Invoking guix package}).  The @code{%base-packages} variable
 provides all the tools one would expect for basic user and administrator
 tasks---including the GNU Core Utilities, the GNU Networking Utilities,
-the GNU Zile lightweight text editor, @command{find}, @command{grep},
+the @command{mg} lightweight text editor, @command{find}, @command{grep},
 etc.  The example above adds GNU@tie{}Screen to those,
 taken from the @code{(gnu packages screen)}
 module (@pxref{Package Modules}).  The
diff --git a/gnu/system.scm b/gnu/system.scm
index 8a3ae27d04..3951a6806f 100644
--- a/gnu/system.scm
+++ b/gnu/system.scm
@@ -63,6 +63,7 @@
   #:use-module (gnu packages package-management)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pciutils)
   #:use-module (gnu packages texinfo)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages text-editors)
   #:use-module (gnu packages wget)
   #:use-module (gnu packages zile)
   #:use-module (gnu services)
@@ -775,7 +776,7 @@ of PROVENANCE-SERVICE-TYPE to its services."
 
 (define %base-packages-interactive
   ;; Default set of common interactive packages.
-  (list less zile nano
+  (list less mg nano
         nvi
         man-db
         info-reader                     ;the standalone Info reader (no Perl)
-- 
2.32.0

Re: Zile and minimal systems

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe@gnu.org> writes:

> Hey,
>
>> ‘zile-on-guile’ is tempting but currently unmaintained.  ‘mg’ 
>> could work too.
>
> mg seems to work fine. I'm currently testing the attached 
> patch. Any
> objections?

No objections, but one comment:

> diff --git a/gnu/system.scm b/gnu/system.scm
> index 8a3ae27d04..3951a6806f 100644
> --- a/gnu/system.scm
> +++ b/gnu/system.scm
> @@ -63,6 +63,7 @@
>    #:use-module (gnu packages package-management)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages pciutils)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages texinfo)
> +  #:use-module (gnu packages text-editors)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages wget)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages zile)

I suppose this line could be removed now.

-- 
Ricardo

Re: Zile and minimal systems

[Mathieu Othacehe]

Hey,

> I suppose this line could be removed now.

Pushed, thanks for having a look.

Mathieu