Plan for 0.9.0

Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

It’s time to talk about the next release, 0.9.0 (I think the service
rewrite is one good reason to bump the middle number.)

In addition to the nice stuff we already have, it’d be nice to add:

  • wip-container, I think we’re almoooost there;

  • finalize multiple-server support in ‘guix substitute’;

  • maybe merge wip-loogson2f or help generalize the issues identified
    in that branch? doable?

  • low-hanging fruits in the Freedesktop side (adding a udisk service,
    fixing D-Bus service activation, for instance; what else?)

  • add the ‘guix install’ alias discussed a while back;

  • /etc/environment and pam_env, as was suggested;

  • bug fixes, lots.

The goal would be to be done within a few weeks.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Daniel Pimentel]

What do you think about add alias "clean" to "gc"?

For example:
"guix clean" as alias to "guix gc"


-- 
Daniel Pimentel (d4n1 3:)

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Daniel Pimentel <d4n1@openmailbox.org> skribis:

> What do you think about add alias "clean" to "gc"?
>
> For example:
> "guix clean" as alias to "guix gc"

I’m not very enthusiastic.  ;-)  Ideally, we’d provide a generic alias
mechanism so that everyone can add their favorite names.

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Alex Vong]

Regarding gc, I remember I accidentally ran "guix gc" and removed all
the build dependencies like bash, glibc... Then, I realized the proper
way to run gc is to run "guix gc -d <DIRECTORY>". Perhaps we should
change the command for garbage collecting everything from "guix gc" to
"guix gc -a" and "guix gc --all". Does this sound reasonable?

On 13/10/2015, Daniel Pimentel <d4n1@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> What do you think about add alias "clean" to "gc"?
>
> For example:
> "guix clean" as alias to "guix gc"
>
>
> --
> Daniel Pimentel (d4n1 3:)
>
>

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> writes:

> Regarding gc, I remember I accidentally ran "guix gc" and removed all
> the build dependencies like bash, glibc... Then, I realized the proper
> way to run gc is to run "guix gc -d <DIRECTORY>". Perhaps we should
> change the command for garbage collecting everything from "guix gc" to
> "guix gc -a" and "guix gc --all". Does this sound reasonable?

I think this is not a bad idea.  It would also make “guix gc” behave
more like the other sub-commands (i.e. require an argument).

It’s not a command that’s used so often that the additional argument
would hurt much, in my opinion.

~~ Ricardo

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de> writes:

> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Regarding gc, I remember I accidentally ran "guix gc" and removed all
>> the build dependencies like bash, glibc... Then, I realized the proper
>> way to run gc is to run "guix gc -d <DIRECTORY>". Perhaps we should
>> change the command for garbage collecting everything from "guix gc" to
>> "guix gc -a" and "guix gc --all". Does this sound reasonable?
>
> I think this is not a bad idea.  It would also make “guix gc” behave
> more like the other sub-commands (i.e. require an argument).
>
> It’s not a command that’s used so often that the additional argument
> would hurt much, in my opinion.

This makes sense to me too.

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Taylan Ulrich Bayırlı/Kammer]

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> writes:

> Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de> writes:
>
>> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Regarding gc, I remember I accidentally ran "guix gc" and removed all
>>> the build dependencies like bash, glibc... Then, I realized the proper
>>> way to run gc is to run "guix gc -d <DIRECTORY>". Perhaps we should
>>> change the command for garbage collecting everything from "guix gc" to
>>> "guix gc -a" and "guix gc --all". Does this sound reasonable?
>>
>> I think this is not a bad idea.  It would also make “guix gc” behave
>> more like the other sub-commands (i.e. require an argument).
>>
>> It’s not a command that’s used so often that the additional argument
>> would hurt much, in my opinion.
>
> This makes sense to me too.

+1 from me too, since accidentally GC'ing things can be annoying,
although the flags --gc-keep-outputs --gc-keep-derivations to
guix-daemon help in that regard.

Taylan

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:

> Regarding gc, I remember I accidentally ran "guix gc" and removed all
> the build dependencies like bash, glibc... Then, I realized the proper
> way to run gc is to run "guix gc -d <DIRECTORY>".

I wouldn’t call it “the proper way.”  Most of the time, I simply want to
free space on my disk, so I run either, say, ‘guix gc -C500M’ if I’m in
a hurry, or ‘guix gc’.  The ‘-d’ switch is really for specific cases.

But as Taylan notes, you should run guix-daemon with --gc-keep-outputs
--gc-keep-derivations to avoid losing the build time dependencies.

> Perhaps we should change the command for garbage collecting everything
> from "guix gc" to "guix gc -a" and "guix gc --all". Does this sound
> reasonable?

Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.  :-)

What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.  :-)
>
> What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?

Show --help and exit(0)?  ;)

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.  :-)
>>
>> What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?
>
> Show --help and exit(0)?  ;)

Sure we could do that, but I’m not convinced it’s an improvement.  WDYT?

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Eric Bavier]

On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 23:44:39 +0200
ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:

> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:
> 
> > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
> >
> >> Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.  :-)
> >>
> >> What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?
> >
> > Show --help and exit(0)?  ;)
> 
> Sure we could do that, but I’m not convinced it’s an improvement.  WDYT?

FWIW, I'm not convinced either.

`~Eric

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Eric Bavier <ericbavier@openmailbox.org> writes:

> On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 23:44:39 +0200
> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:
>
>> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>> 
>> > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>> >
>> >> Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.  :-)
>> >>
>> >> What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?
>> >
>> > Show --help and exit(0)?  ;)
>> 
>> Sure we could do that, but I’m not convinced it’s an improvement.  WDYT?
>
> FWIW, I'm not convinced either.

I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
a lot of substitutes again.  So maybe we can keep ‘guix gc’ as it is but
make it interactive by listing what is going to be deleted and ask for
confirmation with a [Y/n] prompt.  This solution will also require
somekind of a ‘--force’ option for scripting purposes.

Does it sound better?

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Thompson, David]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 8:28 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> Eric Bavier <ericbavier@openmailbox.org> writes:
>
>> On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 23:44:39 +0200
>> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:
>>
>>> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>>>
>>> > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>> >
>>> >> Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.  :-)
>>> >>
>>> >> What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?
>>> >
>>> > Show --help and exit(0)?  ;)
>>>
>>> Sure we could do that, but I’m not convinced it’s an improvement.  WDYT?
>>
>> FWIW, I'm not convinced either.
>
> I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
> shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
> a lot of substitutes again.  So maybe we can keep ‘guix gc’ as it is but
> make it interactive by listing what is going to be deleted and ask for
> confirmation with a [Y/n] prompt.  This solution will also require
> somekind of a ‘--force’ option for scripting purposes.
>
> Does it sound better?

In general, I do not like interactive CLIs.  I'm fine with 'guix gc'
working as-is.  The re-downloading lots of substitutes issue is not an
issue about the CLI, but rather about not making store items that you
want to hang around GC roots.

- Dave

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:

> On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 8:28 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> wrote:
[...]
>> I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
>> shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
>> a lot of substitutes again.  So maybe we can keep ‘guix gc’ as it is but
>> make it interactive by listing what is going to be deleted and ask for
>> confirmation with a [Y/n] prompt.  This solution will also require
>> somekind of a ‘--force’ option for scripting purposes.
>>
>> Does it sound better?
>
> In general, I do not like interactive CLIs.  I'm fine with 'guix gc'
> working as-is.  The re-downloading lots of substitutes issue is not an
> issue about the CLI, but rather about not making store items that you
> want to hang around GC roots.

You mean a problem between the keyboard and the chair, or a problem with
the GC being too greedy?

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Thompson, David]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 8:51 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 8:28 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> [...]
>>> I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
>>> shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
>>> a lot of substitutes again.  So maybe we can keep ‘guix gc’ as it is but
>>> make it interactive by listing what is going to be deleted and ask for
>>> confirmation with a [Y/n] prompt.  This solution will also require
>>> somekind of a ‘--force’ option for scripting purposes.
>>>
>>> Does it sound better?
>>
>> In general, I do not like interactive CLIs.  I'm fine with 'guix gc'
>> working as-is.  The re-downloading lots of substitutes issue is not an
>> issue about the CLI, but rather about not making store items that you
>> want to hang around GC roots.
>
> You mean a problem between the keyboard and the chair, or a problem with
> the GC being too greedy?

The GC is not too greedy.  It's doing exactly what it should.  The
issue is that we need more tools to let people protect things from the
GC that they want protected.  One example that is that 'guix
environment' will eventually generate profiles that are registered as
GC roots, which will protect development environments from the GC.

- Dave

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Daniel Pimentel]

> The GC is not too greedy.  It's doing exactly what it should.  The
> issue is that we need more tools to let people protect things from the
> GC that they want protected.  One example that is that 'guix
> environment' will eventually generate profiles that are registered as
> GC roots, which will protect development environments from the GC.

Good tip.

I'm sorry for this discussion :(

-- 
Daniel Pimentel (d4n1 3:)

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:

> On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 8:51 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> wrote:
>> "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:
>>> In general, I do not like interactive CLIs.  I'm fine with 'guix gc'
>>> working as-is.  The re-downloading lots of substitutes issue is not an
>>> issue about the CLI, but rather about not making store items that you
>>> want to hang around GC roots.
>>
>> You mean a problem between the keyboard and the chair, or a problem with
>> the GC being too greedy?
>
> The GC is not too greedy.  It's doing exactly what it should.  The
> issue is that we need more tools to let people protect things from the
> GC that they want protected.  One example that is that 'guix
> environment' will eventually generate profiles that are registered as
> GC roots, which will protect development environments from the GC.

Indeed, It would be nice to have such option.

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Christopher Allan Webber]

Daniel Pimentel writes:

>> The GC is not too greedy.  It's doing exactly what it should.  The
>> issue is that we need more tools to let people protect things from the
>> GC that they want protected.  One example that is that 'guix
>> environment' will eventually generate profiles that are registered as
>> GC roots, which will protect development environments from the GC.
>
> Good tip.
>
> I'm sorry for this discussion :(

There's no need to be sorry.  This was a useful conversation.  I think
it's worth recognizing the pain points users are hitting.  Even though
Dave's solution keeps "guix gc" as needed, it's helping highlighting how
much we need such solutions in order for things to be useful to users.

Which means, happy continued hacking, I guess! :)

 - Chris

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:

> I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
> shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
> a lot of substitutes again.

But, but… you could always hit C-c when that happens, no?

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Christopher Allan Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> skribis:

> There's no need to be sorry.  This was a useful conversation.  I think
> it's worth recognizing the pain points users are hitting.  Even though
> Dave's solution keeps "guix gc" as needed, it's helping highlighting how
> much we need such solutions in order for things to be useful to users.

Definitely.  There are some things that us long-time Guix folks are no
longer able to spot; we need fresh user comments to make progress.

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>
>> I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
>> shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
>> a lot of substitutes again.
>
> But, but… you could always hit C-c when that happens, no?

For sure.

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Taylan Ulrich Bayırlı/Kammer]

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:

> [...]  I'm fine with 'guix gc' working as-is.  The re-downloading lots
> of substitutes issue is not an issue about the CLI, but rather about
> not making store items that you want to hang around GC roots.

Hmm, good point.  Rather than making it harder to do what 'guix gc'
does, we should probably just make it do the right thing. :-)

(By making more things become GC roots that is.)

I take back my previous +1 in favor of the 'guix environment' related
solution you mentioned, and maybe others.


I seem to remember 'guix gc' even removing things that are actually
necessary for building a profile, which is a ubiquitous operation of
course.  Does anyone know if that's been fixed on the meanwhile, or
would it be fixed via the 'guix environment' fix?

Taylan

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

taylanbayirli@gmail.com (Taylan Ulrich "Bayırlı/Kammer") skribis:

> I seem to remember 'guix gc' even removing things that are actually
> necessary for building a profile, which is a ubiquitous operation of
> course.  Does anyone know if that's been fixed on the meanwhile,

I think it hasn’t.  :-)

Basically to build a profile, all you need is Guile.  In practice, it is
very likely to already be in the store (on GuixSD, I would say it’s even
difficult to get rid of it.)

Now, that’s another situation where running --gc-keep-outputs
--gc-keep-derivations should help.  These are the only GC knobs that we
have.

It could be that we need other knobs, but I’m not sure what that could be.

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Alex Vong]

On 15/10/2015, Thompson, David <dthompson2@worcester.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 8:28 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org>
> wrote:
>> Eric Bavier <ericbavier@openmailbox.org> writes:
>>
>>> On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 23:44:39 +0200
>>> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>>>>
>>>> > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Dunno, I admit I’m not as enthusiastic as the other people here.
>>>> >> :-)
>>>> >>
>>>> >> What would ‘guix gc’ (without any option) do?
>>>> >
>>>> > Show --help and exit(0)?  ;)
>>>>
>>>> Sure we could do that, but I’m not convinced it’s an improvement.
>>>> WDYT?
>>>
>>> FWIW, I'm not convinced either.
>>
>> I think the enthusiasm for changing ‘guix gc’ was induced by somekind of
>> shared experience of typing it loosely and ending up having to download
>> a lot of substitutes again.  So maybe we can keep ‘guix gc’ as it is but
>> make it interactive by listing what is going to be deleted and ask for
>> confirmation with a [Y/n] prompt.  This solution will also require
>> somekind of a ‘--force’ option for scripting purposes.
>>
>> Does it sound better?
>
> In general, I do not like interactive CLIs.  I'm fine with 'guix gc'
> working as-is.  The re-downloading lots of substitutes issue is not an
> issue about the CLI, but rather about not making store items that you
> want to hang around GC roots.
>
Wow, the discussion is long...

Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
say it is sometimes useful. For example, in git clean, there is an
`-i' switch, which can help if you don't want to mess with your
.gitignore file. So perhaps making something GC roots is like putting
it in .gitignore in git, but we should still provide a way for
interacting GC-ing.

I also have an opinions on some other things, but I need to recap it first.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> writes:

> Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
> especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
> plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
> say it is sometimes useful.

Isn't ‘apt-get upgrade’ interactive ?

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Registering GC roots

[Ludovic Courtès]

Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:

> Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
> especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
> plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
> say it is sometimes useful. For example, in git clean, there is an
> `-i' switch, which can help if you don't want to mess with your
> .gitignore file. So perhaps making something GC roots is like putting
> it in .gitignore in git, but we should still provide a way for
> interacting GC-ing.

Currently there are two documented ways to add GC roots from the command
line: creating a profile with ‘guix package’, and using the -r option of
‘guix build.’

What David suggests is to add a similar -r option to ‘guix environment’,
which sounds good to me.

The GC process itself will not be interactive.  Who would want to hit
‘y’ or ‘n’ for each one of the thousands of files considered?  :-)

Ludo’.

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Alex Vong]

On 16/10/2015, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@openmailbox.org> wrote:
> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
>> especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
>> plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
>> say it is sometimes useful.
>
> Isn't ‘apt-get upgrade’ interactive ?
>
You are right. :) But you can add -y to bypass the question.
So it seems there are really 3 ways to do it.

1. no interaction at all (Do what I say!)
2. ask a "big" yes/no question (like interactive `apt-get')
3. ask for every directories (like interactive `rm')

Cheers,
Alex

Re: Registering GC roots

[Alex Vong]

On 16/10/2015, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
>> especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
>> plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
>> say it is sometimes useful. For example, in git clean, there is an
>> `-i' switch, which can help if you don't want to mess with your
>> .gitignore file. So perhaps making something GC roots is like putting
>> it in .gitignore in git, but we should still provide a way for
>> interacting GC-ing.
>
> Currently there are two documented ways to add GC roots from the command
> line: creating a profile with ‘guix package’, and using the -r option of
> ‘guix build.’
>
> What David suggests is to add a similar -r option to ‘guix environment’,
> which sounds good to me.
>
I see. So currently there is no way to make an environment GC root and
David is proposing using -r to achieve it. Am I right?

> The GC process itself will not be interactive.  Who would want to hit
> ‘y’ or ‘n’ for each one of the thousands of files considered?  :-)
>
Indeed, option 3 [3. ask for every directories (like interactive
`rm')] looks silly. What is your opinions on a big yes/no? Perhaps it
is useful for beginners who may not know the "power" of GC?

> Ludo’.
>

Re: Registering GC roots

[Ludovic Courtès]

Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:

> On 16/10/2015, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:
>>
>>> Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
>>> especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
>>> plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
>>> say it is sometimes useful. For example, in git clean, there is an
>>> `-i' switch, which can help if you don't want to mess with your
>>> .gitignore file. So perhaps making something GC roots is like putting
>>> it in .gitignore in git, but we should still provide a way for
>>> interacting GC-ing.
>>
>> Currently there are two documented ways to add GC roots from the command
>> line: creating a profile with ‘guix package’, and using the -r option of
>> ‘guix build.’
>>
>> What David suggests is to add a similar -r option to ‘guix environment’,
>> which sounds good to me.
>>
> I see. So currently there is no way to make an environment GC root and
> David is proposing using -r to achieve it. Am I right?

Exactly.

>> The GC process itself will not be interactive.  Who would want to hit
>> ‘y’ or ‘n’ for each one of the thousands of files considered?  :-)
>>
> Indeed, option 3 [3. ask for every directories (like interactive
> `rm')] looks silly. What is your opinions on a big yes/no? Perhaps it
> is useful for beginners who may not know the "power" of GC?

Like having ‘guix gc’ ask “Are you sure you want to collect garbage?”,
with the option to bypass it with, say, ‘guix gc -f’?

With my biased old-timer’s viewpoint ;-), I would tend to believe that
the documentation is clear about what it means to collect garbage, and
that the user knows what they’re doing when they press Enter.

What do others think?

Ludo’.

Re: Registering GC roots

[Alex Vong]

On 16/10/2015, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> On 16/10/2015, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>>> Alex Vong <alexvong1995@gmail.com> skribis:
>>>
>>>> Talking about interactive CLIs, in general I am not a fan of it too,
>>>> especially after you get used to the program. That's why I am using
>>>> plain apt-get instead of aptitude which uses ncurses. However, I will
>>>> say it is sometimes useful. For example, in git clean, there is an
>>>> `-i' switch, which can help if you don't want to mess with your
>>>> .gitignore file. So perhaps making something GC roots is like putting
>>>> it in .gitignore in git, but we should still provide a way for
>>>> interacting GC-ing.
>>>
>>> Currently there are two documented ways to add GC roots from the command
>>> line: creating a profile with ‘guix package’, and using the -r option of
>>> ‘guix build.’
>>>
>>> What David suggests is to add a similar -r option to ‘guix environment’,
>>> which sounds good to me.
>>>
>> I see. So currently there is no way to make an environment GC root and
>> David is proposing using -r to achieve it. Am I right?
>
> Exactly.
>
>>> The GC process itself will not be interactive.  Who would want to hit
>>> ‘y’ or ‘n’ for each one of the thousands of files considered?  :-)
>>>
>> Indeed, option 3 [3. ask for every directories (like interactive
>> `rm')] looks silly. What is your opinions on a big yes/no? Perhaps it
>> is useful for beginners who may not know the "power" of GC?
>
> Like having ‘guix gc’ ask “Are you sure you want to collect garbage?”,
> with the option to bypass it with, say, ‘guix gc -f’?
>
Perhaps also showing what are being GC-ed, in the form of
    PKG-NAME[VERSION] ...

or something like that since a plain question is not so useful.

My initial though is that it should be similar to running
    $ apt-get autoremove --purge

Ideally, the output should not be too verbose to hurt your eyes but
verbose enough to stop from GC-ing things you don't want to GC. What
do you guys think?

> With my biased old-timer’s viewpoint ;-), I would tend to believe that
> the documentation is clear about what it means to collect garbage, and
> that the user knows what they’re doing when they press Enter.
>
> What do others think?
>
> Ludo’.
>

Re: Registering GC roots

[Mathieu Lirzin]

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Like having ‘guix gc’ ask “Are you sure you want to collect garbage?”,
> with the option to bypass it with, say, ‘guix gc -f’?
>
> With my biased old-timer’s viewpoint ;-), I would tend to believe that
> the documentation is clear about what it means to collect garbage, and
> that the user knows what they’re doing when they press Enter.
>
> What do others think?

Maybe, My proposal of “interactive” CLI for ‘guix gc’ wasn't clear.  But
Since it was exactly what you have summarized hear, I think the idea has
already been dismissed.

--
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Registering GC roots

[Andreas Enge]

Hello,

I am not in favour of being asked questions when using the guix commands.


Andreas

Re: Plan for 0.9.0

[Ludovic Courtès]

Status update:

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:

> In addition to the nice stuff we already have, it’d be nice to add:
>
>   • wip-container, I think we’re almoooost there;

Done (a couple of small testing issues need to be solved.)

>   • finalize multiple-server support in ‘guix substitute’;

Done.

>   • maybe merge wip-loogson2f or help generalize the issues identified
>     in that branch? doable?

Half-done.  Will finish for the next release.

>   • low-hanging fruits in the Freedesktop side (adding a udisk service,
>     fixing D-Bus service activation, for instance; what else?)

Done.

>   • add the ‘guix install’ alias discussed a while back;

Postponed.

>   • /etc/environment and pam_env, as was suggested;

Probably postponed.

>   • bug fixes, lots.

I’ll go through the list again.

I would like to work on the release this Wednesday, Nov. 4th, with the
announcement going out sometime between Wednesday and Friday.

I’ll post a GuixSD installation image for testing hopefully later today.

In the meantime, please see what you can do to fix these:

  http://hydra.gnu.org/eval/107728#tabs-still-fail
  http://bugs.gnu.org/guix

TIA!  :-)

Ludo’.