On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 02:56:23PM +0100, Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote:
> Chris Marusich writes:
> 
> > +Substitutes from Hydra are enabled by default when using the Guix System
> > +Distribution (@pxref{GNU Distribution}).  However, substitutes are
> > +disabled by default when using Guix on a foreign distribution
> > +(@pxref{Installation}).
> 
> It's great to have this clarified, however I wonder about the rationale
> of this decision?

Copied from my previous message [0]:

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I don't know if there is a design choice here, but the steps required to
authorize substitutes for Guix on another distro require root. So, we
can't make it "just work" without the user elevating their privileges.
It's not the only part of our installation guide that requires root,
however.

On GuixSD, we can control the entire system during installation, so we
enable substitutes by default.
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[0]
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2017-11/msg00048.html