Re: thesis: guixsd should provide /usr/bin/env

[Christopher Allan Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org>]

Ludovic Courtès writes:

> Andy Wingo <wingo@igalia.com> skribis:
>
>> On Thu 19 Nov 2015 16:07, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> Alternately, I am not sure if this would work but we could make a form
>>>> of "guix environment" which populates a profile that is mounted at /usr
>>>> in a container.  That would allow many more non-Guix tools to run.
>>>
>>> Technically ‘guix environment --container’ could create /usr, just like
>>> it creates /bin/sh.  Not sure if it’s a good idea, though.
>>
>> I think it is definitely interesting.  The reason being, you might hack
>> on something or have to deploy something and it's not part of Guix --
>> you don't want to rewrite the shebang lines for files in git that aren't
>> build products.  Being able to make a just-FHS-enough environment inside
>> a container sounds to me like a useful tool to have for shimming Guix
>> and the outside world, while also benefitting from Guix's reproducible
>> environments, rollbacks, isolation, and so on.
>
> Yeah, makes sense.
>
> One can already do:
>
>   guix environment --container --ad-hoc coreutils \
>     --expose=$(which env)=/usr/bin/env
>
> Should we add a --fhs or --/usr/bin/env option to simplify this?
>
> Thanks,
> Ludo’.

Would this possibly screw us up on Hurd, where container support I don't
think exists?