Re: Guix for Embedded, Hardware, Documentation, and Data

[Peter Polidoro <peter@polidoro.io>]

Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> writes:

> I would say actually
> running Guix on any of this small hardware is outside of the 
> scope of
> Guix.

Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen@cnrs.fr> writes:

> Guix the software distribution: it depends. I doubt you would 
> have much
> success with submitting a pull request for adding video clips, 
> for
> example.

These are good points, thanks. I was not thinking of trying to run 
Guix on embedded hardware without the GNU operation system, 
though, or of trying to add large media files to Guix proper.

I was mostly curious about using Guix as a universal package 
manager for organizing and distributing code and data, especially 
for reproducible science, and I was wondering for which cases it 
would not make sense to use Guix.

For example, after a researcher publishes a paper, years later 
someone may want exact versions of the experimental data, analysis 
software, and documentation referenced in the paper. They may also 
want the exact version of the experimental rig used to collect the 
data, the software, hardware, and firmware, and the exact version 
of the development environments used to create each one. Guix 
seems ideal for this, especially if the code and data are in text 
files rather than large binaries.

The packages you all told me about, like the sicp book, give me 
clues about how I might try packaging something like circuit board 
files. I will give it a try, thanks!

> For a nice example of using Guix for something else than 
> software, see
> this blog post:
>
>   https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2021/reproducible-data-processing-pipelines/

The guix.gnu.org site appears to be down right now, but I look 
forward to reading this when it is available again.