Re: The way to promote GUIX package manager

[Yasuaki Kudo <yasu@yasuaki.com>]

Does Guix really run out of the box in Debian?

I have never tried it but my friend Debian expert friend keeps telling me that:

* Just apt-get installing Guix doesn't work

* and his really big complaint is evidently he creates "virtual environments" (short of full-on VMware, I imagine it is an assortment of Linux native tricks that are wrapped by tools like Docker) for every OS he tries but 
* Evidently the same tricks don't work with Guix

* He does not want to try full blown Guix OS without first testing it in above ways

* He is very comfortable with Debian - doesn't see any benefit that Guix brings

I cannot comment much because the whole point of my using Guix is precisely because I know very little if Linux and its surrounding toolset so I want to abstract it, paper it over with Guix 😄

-Yasu


> On Jan 27, 2022, at 06:43, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Sławomir Lach <slawek@lach.art.pl> writes:
> 
>> Solution is simple:
>> 1. Keep older packages in GUIX repo, so developers could request older version 
>> in scripts
> 
> Unforunately, it’s really not that simply to keep older packages around.
> I’m maintaining packages for a bunch of bioinformatics tools, for
> example, which are stuck in the past.  Building them becomes more and
> more difficult as time passes and the rest of the world moves on.  It is
> not feasible to maintain an ever-growing collection of outdated software
> and their toolchains.
> 
> But: Guix supports channels, so people who absolutely must use GCC 3 to
> build their abandoned tools to build their old source code that’s stuck
> in the past can totally do that.
> 
>> Minus: possible security hell.
> 
> :)
> 
> -- 
> Ricardo
>