Guix as remote dev machine

[t@fullmeta.me]

Hi Guix.

I'm trying to come up with a reasonable way to use my Guix machine sitting in the attic as my remote development server. This presents several challenges. Locally I would typically follow these steps:
1. Create a project dir with guix.scm describing (possibly empty) package
2. `guix shell` or start a container, with entire system if I need to e.g. run a db
3. start emacs from that shell or container forwarding to my main DISPLAY

When attempting to do something similar remotely, you very quickly run into issues. X forwarding to a Linux machine kinda works, but sadly on OSX, which I have to use as a client, XQuartz X server implementation can't deal with hi DPI and the end result is miserable. Then there're potential rendering issues when your remote server doesn't even have a graphics card. We're sadly left with ssh + terminal Emacs. However, just ssh and then follow the above steps won't be enough. When your ssh session goes down, it'll take everything with it.

I hear you say `tmux`. I thought so too, but fresh `guix package -i tmux` gives me `Incorrect locale LC_all, LC_CTYPE or LANG` when I try to run it. Weird, seeing how this is attempted on Guix SD. No matter. Lets just go with `screen`, which seems to work. Then follow the above steps.

This sort of works and how I would imagine most people attempting this would end up with. It leaves me itchy though. I mean, do I even need that `screen` there when `emacs --daemon=name` exist? Latter will happily detach itself from your tty and persist across ssh sessions. Problem of course is the 2nd step above, which assumes we spawn a shell (possibly run a container, maybe even the entire system). I wonder if there's a way to avoid the intermediate `screen` or `tmux` completely. Way I understand it, `guix shell`, `guix shell -c` and `guix system --container` are Unix processes. Could they be detached or put under some group or smth? I mean, screen works ok, but I wonder.

Thanks