Help with a basic GuixSD installation

[Evan Rowley <rowley.evan@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I have not been successful attempting to install GuixSD. I am not well
versed in partitioning, GRUB, and Guix itself. Could someone help me
with the basics necessary to complete this installation? Also, does
anyone have advice on what to do when GuixSD is booting, has issues,
and then drops into a scheme@(guile-user)> prompt? I'm at a loss.

I've used this command to produce a partition table file:
---
parted -ms /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD20EURS-63SPKY0_WD-WMC300539593 print
---

Here is the layout, given by the output of the parted command shown above:

----
BYT;
/dev/sdg:2000GB:scsi:512:4096:gpt:ATA WDC WD20EURS-63S:;
1:1049kB:11.5MB:10.5MB:::bios_grub;
2:11.5MB:53.7GB:53.7GB:linux-swap(v1)::;
3:53.7GB:2000GB:1947GB:ext4::;
----

First this shows a 10 MB BIOS GRUB partition, which unless I'm
mistaken, is the preferred way to setup GRUB on a GPT disk on a system
that's Legacy-BIOS-Only / non-(U)EFI. Second there is a 50 GB swap
partition. It's labelled "swap". Yes, I know that seems like a lot,
but this machine I'm installing on is a server capable of housing lots
of RAM. I don't imagine it would be practical sifting through 50GB of
core dump to fix a bug, but the entire disk is 1.8 TB, so why not?
Third / finally is the ext4 root partition. It's labelled "root" and
takes up the rest of the 1.8 TB disk.

This machine itself houses 8 disks. I felt like using /dev/disk/by-id/
made more sense. Here is my config.scm that I ran guix system init
with:

----
(use-modules (gnu))
(use-service-modules networking ssh)
(use-package-modules admin)

(operating-system
  (host-name "experiment0")
  (timezone "America/New_York")
  (locale "en_US.UTF-8")Also

  ;; Assuming /dev/sdX is the target hard disk, and "root" is
  ;; the label of the target root file system.
  (bootloader (grub-configuration (device
"/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD20EURS-63SPKY0_WD-WMC300539593")))
  (file-systems (cons (file-system
                        (device
"/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD20EURS-63SPKY0_WD-WMC300539593-part3")
                        (title "root")
                        (mount-point "/")
                        (type "ext4"))
                      %base-file-systems))
  (swap-devices
'("/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD20EURS-63SPKY0_WD-WMC300539593-part2"))

  (users (list (user-account
                (name "ejr")
                (comment "Evan Johannes Rowley")
                (group "users")

                (supplementary-groups '("wheel"))
                (home-directory "/home/ejr"))))

  (packages (cons tcpdump %base-packages))

  (services (cons* (dhcp-client-service)
                   (lsh-service #:port-number 22)
                   %base-services)))
---

Also in case it's relevant here, this is the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file:
---
function load_video {
  insmod vbe
  insmod vga
  insmod video_bochs
  insmod video_cirrus
}

# Set 'root' to the partition that contains /gnu/store.
search --file --set
/gnu/store/9qa0c1ax5zl20cn91bq5ng3l7s514dfb-grub-2.00/share/grub/unicode.pf2

if loadfont /gnu/store/9qa0c1ax5zl20cn91bq5ng3l7s514dfb-grub-2.00/share/grub/unicode.pf2;
then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
  terminal_output gfxterm
fi

insmod png
if background_image
/gnu/store/hiwhqz749xgdgvg5cfg4i17mczp1n48l-grub-image.resized.png;
then
  set color_normal=light-gray/black
  set color_highlight=yellow/black
else
  set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
  set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
fi

set default=0
set timeout=5
menuentry "GNU with Linux-Libre 4.0.2 (alpha)" {
  # Set 'root' to the partition that contains the kernel.
  search --file --set
/gnu/store/j9xlnmb2xvw22pb1fyjw3am6lhljn4pc-linux-libre-4.0.2/bzImage


  linux /gnu/store/j9xlnmb2xvw22pb1fyjw3am6lhljn4pc-linux-libre-4.0.2/bzImage
--root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD20EURS-63SPKY0_WD-WMC300539593-part3
--system=/gnu/store/xp866fxdv1lyz9yip88v4rk6anqsp3lr-system
--load=/gnu/store/xp866fxdv1lyz9yip88v4rk6anqsp3lr-system/boot
  initrd /gnu/store/xp866fxdv1lyz9yip88v4rk6anqsp3lr-system/initrd
}

submenu "GNU system, old configurations..." {
menuentry "GNU with Linux-Libre 4.0.2 (alpha) (#1, 2015-05-14 01:11)" {
  # Set 'root' to the partition that contains the kernel.
  search --file --set
/gnu/store/j9xlnmb2xvw22pb1fyjw3am6lhljn4pc-linux-libre-4.0.2/bzImage


  linux /gnu/store/j9xlnmb2xvw22pb1fyjw3am6lhljn4pc-linux-libre-4.0.2/bzImage
--root=gnu-disk-image --system=/var/guix/profiles/system-1-link
--load=/var/guix/profiles/system-1-link/boot
  initrd /var/guix/profiles/system-1-link/initrd
}
}
---

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm the same user who started the "Show example for GuixSD config.scm"
thread in guix-bug@gnu.org - I read in the System Installation guide
in the GuixSD manual that the guix-devel@gnu.org list was preferred.




-- 
 - EJR