From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Amirouche Boubekki Subject: Re: Overlays Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 12:56:15 +0200 Message-ID: References: <87vc2o4qwc.fsf@gnu.org> <87eh9c9sb8.fsf@gnu.org> <20130830160948.GB5927@kubera.inria.fr> <87bo4f3ric.fsf_-_@gnu.org> <87hae6nc50.fsf@karetnikov.org> <878uzi27tw.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38499) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VFir8-00009d-0L for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 31 Aug 2013 06:56:39 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VFir6-0001LN-UA for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 31 Aug 2013 06:56:37 -0400 In-Reply-To: <878uzi27tw.fsf@gnu.org> List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: =?UTF-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org 2013/8/30 Ludovic Court=C3=A8s > > Nikita Karetnikov skribis: > > >> So I think Guix nearly supports overlays, no? :-) > > > > What do NixOS people mean by =E2=80=9Coverlay=E2=80=9D? > > Well, I don=E2=80=99t think that wiki page has much authority. ;-) > > =E2=80=9COverlay=E2=80=9D is not a term that is used in NixOS circles. M= y guess is that > the Ruby and Haskell overlays mentioned at > are used > by a single person, and I=E2=80=99m not sure what they do. I don't recall how I heard about those overlay. > > > Is it a remote collection of recipes? Does NixOS allow to use them > > without copying to the local storage (like =E2=80=98gnu/packages=E2=80= =99)? > > > > I believe that the question was about these issues. > > I=E2=80=99m not sure what the issues are. The issue I see is that some one wants to distribute recipes but doesn't want to contribute them in the guix repository. One way to do that is to fork the guix repository and merge once in a while and then ask the users to install packages using the command used during development from the forked repository. Otherwise, if overlays were supported users would just have to install overlays somewhat like apt sources and use the same command as with guix distribution recipes. I see they are quite useful in Gentoo for forked distributions. > > In Guix, third parties could distribute their own Guile modules that > define packages. Guix would need a way to nicely deal with them at the > command line, but otherwise it=E2=80=99s just Guile modules. IIRC in nixos one just has to use the command =C2=ABnix-env -i path/to/nix/package=C2=BB to install a recipe out of nixpkg tree, I'm not sure it's supported by guix. Anyway, the reason I raised now this feature is because: - I find it a useful feature, but the features you proposed for 0.4 are way more interesting for the time being - One user complained on IRC that overlays could *streamline* recipes contributions that said contributing packages is not difficult using the guix repository So what I propose is to put this feature request in a TODO to avoid future loosly backed request like mine (except if someone wants to work on this) and focus on the 0.4 roadmap :)