Re: Introducing Guix to HPC at my institution

["Sébastien Lerique" <sl@eauchat.org>]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your answer!

On 15 Mar 2021 at 22:47, zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, if you are French speaker, a two mornings* workshop is in 
> the
> pipe.  The announce should come really soon.  The idea is 
> sharing
> feedback with other users from sysadmin to researcher.
>
> *morning in metropolitan France meaning. :-)

I am French, I'll be very happy to attend if I can! I live in 
Japan now though, so I guess I'll miss parts. Are you planning to 
record the workshop?

Another thought: given Ludo's position, I am imagining that Inria 
Bordeaux runs Guix on some of their infrastructure, is that the 
case? If so, can you share any details about how that came to 
happen?

>> As a first step I would like to discuss with the sysadmins if 
>> they
>> would consider activating user namespaces so users can play
>> around. Aside from [1] and [2], are there any updated 
>> discussions
>> about this topic, e.g. why to do it or why not?
>
> You mean to run "bundles" on computers that do not have Guix 
> installed, right?
> Well, the answer "qui peut le plus peut le moins" is maybe not
> satisfactoring... if you have the choice to do it, you should. 
> Even,
> if you have the choice to install Guix (the package manager), 
> you also
> should.

Yes I meant that. They run CentOS 8, so convincing them to run a 
build daemon will not be as simple as `apt install guix`, but 
we'll see how the conversation goes :)

I'll write back here in a few days once I've thought about how to 
present things to the sysadmins. In the meantime, any feedback on 
past experience is very welcome!


Sébastien