Graphical GuixSD Installer

Graphical GuixSD Installer

[John Darrington]

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There is a new branch called "wip-installer" providing a graphical
installer for GuixSD.  A screenshot of it in action is attached.

We want GuixSD to be accessible to as many people as possible,
including people who may not (yet) be comfortable using bash and/or
guile.

Testers and hackers are wanted!

To try out the installer run:

 guix system installer

It uses guile-ncurses so that will have to be installed and be
in your load path.


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Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Hi John,

John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> writes:

> There is a new branch called "wip-installer" providing a graphical
> installer for GuixSD.  A screenshot of it in action is attached.
>
> We want GuixSD to be accessible to as many people as possible,
> including people who may not (yet) be comfortable using bash and/or
> guile.

Amazing work! I really appreciate that this initiative lowers the
technical knowledge required for having a GuixSD system.

> It uses guile-ncurses so that will have to be installed and be
> in your load path.

Would it make sense to add a check for it at configure time and
conditionally compile and install the modules only if 'guile-ncurses' is
found, like what is done for 'guile-json'?

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[David Craven]

> Would it make sense to add a check for it at configure time and
> conditionally compile and install the modules only if 'guile-ncurses' is
> found, like what is done for 'guile-json'?

Doesn't this just complicate things? How about decoupling things
instead? Put the installer in a separate repo and make it a regular
guix package? Or keep it in the same repo and make it a guix package.
Then if someone wants to use guix-install they can say guix package -i
guix-install. I'd suggest the same for guix refresh since people are
against adding a json dependency. We could even go as far as making
each guix command a package. Then we can be a little more galant with
dependencies and if someone only wants to use guix-build and
guix-package they only have to install those.

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[John Darrington]

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On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 01:08:16PM +0100, David Craven wrote:
     
     Put the installer in a separate repo and make it a regular
     guix package?  Or keep it in the same repo and make it a guix package.
     Then if someone wants to use guix-install they can say guix package -i
     guix-install. 

Err ... How would they manage to do that before anything has been installed?



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Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[David Craven]

> Err ... How would they manage to do that before anything has been installed?

guix-install would be a package added to the installation-os
derivation in gnu/system/install.scm, no?

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[David Craven]

I assume that the main reason for people not wanting to add
dependencies is because it complicates bootstrapping guix for new
platforms (which I don't understand well enough yet). I don't think
that you can build a gnu system that doesn't rely on ncurses or an
alternative implementation. guile-ncurses (0.7MB) and guile-json
(0.1MB) are hardly large enough to warrant a fuss otherwise :)

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[David Craven]

Well anyway, I've stated my opinion. I'll withdraw from further
discussion on this topic. If someone has a solution to the guix
refresh problem from
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-12/msg00638.html,
let me know.

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[Ludovic Courtès]

Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> skribis:

> John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> writes:
>
>> There is a new branch called "wip-installer" providing a graphical
>> installer for GuixSD.  A screenshot of it in action is attached.
>>
>> We want GuixSD to be accessible to as many people as possible,
>> including people who may not (yet) be comfortable using bash and/or
>> guile.
>
> Amazing work! I really appreciate that this initiative lowers the
> technical knowledge required for having a GuixSD system.
>
>> It uses guile-ncurses so that will have to be installed and be
>> in your load path.
>
> Would it make sense to add a check for it at configure time and
> conditionally compile and install the modules only if 'guile-ncurses' is
> found, like what is done for 'guile-json'?

I agree (though that can be done further down the road).

Ludo’.

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[Christopher Allan Webber]

John Darrington writes:

> There is a new branch called "wip-installer" providing a graphical
> installer for GuixSD.  A screenshot of it in action is attached.
>
> We want GuixSD to be accessible to as many people as possible,
> including people who may not (yet) be comfortable using bash and/or
> guile.
>
> Testers and hackers are wanted!
>
> To try out the installer run:
>
>  guix system installer
>
> It uses guile-ncurses so that will have to be installed and be
> in your load path.

Wowee!  I'm so excited this is moving forward!

Re: Graphical GuixSD Installer

[Luis Felipe López Acevedo]

On 2016-12-16 06:08, John Darrington wrote:
> There is a new branch called "wip-installer" providing a graphical
> installer for GuixSD.  A screenshot of it in action is attached.
> 
> We want GuixSD to be accessible to as many people as possible,
> including people who may not (yet) be comfortable using bash and/or
> guile.
> 
> Testers and hackers are wanted!
> 
> To try out the installer run:
> 
>  guix system installer
> 
> It uses guile-ncurses so that will have to be installed and be
> in your load path.

Great! I sure want to test this. Thanks, John :)


-- 
Luis Felipe López Acevedo
http://sirgazil.bitbucket.org/