Self-contained GuixSD Installer

Self-contained GuixSD Installer

[Gurjeet Singh]

Does a self-contained GuixSD installer exist? I tried running GuixSD
in a VM (in VBox, on macOS), and for that I downloaded the ISO image.
The ISO image, after a few prompts, then tries to install everything
from the internet.

If everything is being downloaded and installed from the internet, why
does the image have to be so huge (~500MB
guix-system-install-1.2.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz)?

Is it possible to deliver the /gnu/store on the ISO so that a minimal
system can be installed and started, without having to connect to the
Internet? The user is free to install and upgrade packages from the
internet, but they should be able to run GuixSD without the Internet
being a hard requirement.

Best regards,
--
Gurjeet Singh http://gurjeet.singh.im/

Re: Self-contained GuixSD Installer

[raingloom]

On Sun, 21 Mar 2021 18:56:05 -0700
Gurjeet Singh <gurjeet@singh.im> wrote:

> Does a self-contained GuixSD installer exist? I tried running GuixSD
> in a VM (in VBox, on macOS), and for that I downloaded the ISO image.
> The ISO image, after a few prompts, then tries to install everything
> from the internet.
> 
> If everything is being downloaded and installed from the internet, why
> does the image have to be so huge (~500MB
> guix-system-install-1.2.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz)?
> 
> Is it possible to deliver the /gnu/store on the ISO so that a minimal
> system can be installed and started, without having to connect to the
> Internet? The user is free to install and upgrade packages from the
> internet, but they should be able to run GuixSD without the Internet
> being a hard requirement.
> 
> Best regards,
> --
> Gurjeet Singh http://gurjeet.singh.im/
> 

I think the installer does a `guix pull` before running `guix system
init`, so it has to download fresh packages.
I haven't used the graphical installer, but at leat that's how the old
school CLI install worked, at least as far as I remember.

You could just not guix pull, or if you did, you could pull the
specific commit that was used to build the system.

At least in theory.

Re: Self-contained GuixSD Installer

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Gurjeet Singh <gurjeet@singh.im> skribis:

> Does a self-contained GuixSD installer exist? I tried running GuixSD
> in a VM (in VBox, on macOS), and for that I downloaded the ISO image.
> The ISO image, after a few prompts, then tries to install everything
> from the internet.

The Guix System (formerly known as “GuixSD”) installer cannot be
entirely self-contained because there are many different choices users
can make from there: desktop environments, network services, etc.

However, if you choose a bare-bones, non-graphical kind of system
installation, most if not all of it is already in the ISO.

> If everything is being downloaded and installed from the internet, why
> does the image have to be so huge (~500MB
> guix-system-install-1.2.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz)?

Good question.

> Is it possible to deliver the /gnu/store on the ISO so that a minimal
> system can be installed and started, without having to connect to the
> Internet?

That should be the case.  We have installation tests in VMs that are all
made without network access:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/tests/install.scm

We cheat a little bit to make sure that absolutely nothing is
downloaded, but like I wrote, a regular install for a non-graphical
system should have little to nothing to download.

HTH,
Ludo’.

Re: Self-contained GuixSD Installer

[Joshua Branson]

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Gurjeet Singh <gurjeet@singh.im> skribis:
>
>> Does a self-contained GuixSD installer exist? I tried running GuixSD
>> in a VM (in VBox, on macOS), and for that I downloaded the ISO image.
>> The ISO image, after a few prompts, then tries to install everything
>> from the internet.
>
> The Guix System (formerly known as “GuixSD”) installer cannot be
> entirely self-contained because there are many different choices users
> can make from there: desktop environments, network services, etc.
>
> However, if you choose a bare-bones, non-graphical kind of system
> installation, most if not all of it is already in the ISO.

That's personally how I install guix system.  I find it's easier to
install the bare-bones.scm...Then after rebooting I switch my config to
my actual config file.

--
Joshua Branson (joshuaBPMan in #guix)
Sent from Emacs and Gnus
  https://gnucode.me
  https://video.hardlimit.com/accounts/joshua_branson/video-channels
  https://propernaming.org
  "You can have whatever you want, as long as you help
enough other people get what they want." - Zig Ziglar