guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[Gottfried]

As I understood I should do a "guix pull" every week.

But what is with "guix package -u"
When I did it two days ago it took 6 hours. I couldn't swich off my 
laptop. So I can do it only when having a lot of time.
Normally it took approx. 30 min
If I don't need always the latest version, I can do it once a month or 
once in two month
Is that okay?

Do I have to do a "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm" always 
after the "guix package -u"?
Can I do it every month or every second month? when I don't need the 
latest version of packages?

Gottfried

Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[raingloom]

On Thu,  7 Apr 2022 20:40:07 +0000
Gottfried <gottfried@posteo.de> wrote:

> As I understood I should do a "guix pull" every week.
> 
> But what is with "guix package -u"
> When I did it two days ago it took 6 hours. I couldn't swich off my 
> laptop. So I can do it only when having a lot of time.
> Normally it took approx. 30 min
> If I don't need always the latest version, I can do it once a month
> or once in two month
> Is that okay?

I'd recommend just skipping the few packages that take too long to
build.
Before upgrading, run guix package --upgrade --dry-run, and see what
would be downloaded and what would be built locally.
If there is something too large there, use the --do-not-upgrade flag.
It can be given multiple times.

Also sometimes the reason something is built locally is because its
derivation failed on the substitute server, and I think it kinda sucks
that the user doesn't get warned about that, because building half of
Firefox just to see it fail with the same error message as it did on
the server is a huge waste of electricity, and also my time.

> Do I have to do a "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm"
> always after the "guix package -u"?
> Can I do it every month or every second month? when I don't need the 
> latest version of packages?
> 
> Gottfried
> 

I solve the latter by having a very lean system profile, only the bare
essentials are installed for the whole system, things like the window
manager are only in my user profile.

Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[Cássio Tavares]

If your window manager is only in your profile, then it won't be available
for the display manager's login. Is there a workaround for that?
Cássio
-----
Faculdade de Letras - UFG
*“*
*Ou a gente se Raôni, ou a gente se Sting**”*


On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 2:40 AM raingloom <raingloom@riseup.net> wrote:

> On Thu,  7 Apr 2022 20:40:07 +0000
> Gottfried <gottfried@posteo.de> wrote:
>
> > As I understood I should do a "guix pull" every week.
> >
> > But what is with "guix package -u"
> > When I did it two days ago it took 6 hours. I couldn't swich off my
> > laptop. So I can do it only when having a lot of time.
> > Normally it took approx. 30 min
> > If I don't need always the latest version, I can do it once a month
> > or once in two month
> > Is that okay?
>
> I'd recommend just skipping the few packages that take too long to
> build.
> Before upgrading, run guix package --upgrade --dry-run, and see what
> would be downloaded and what would be built locally.
> If there is something too large there, use the --do-not-upgrade flag.
> It can be given multiple times.
>
> Also sometimes the reason something is built locally is because its
> derivation failed on the substitute server, and I think it kinda sucks
> that the user doesn't get warned about that, because building half of
> Firefox just to see it fail with the same error message as it did on
> the server is a huge waste of electricity, and also my time.
>
> > Do I have to do a "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm"
> > always after the "guix package -u"?
> > Can I do it every month or every second month? when I don't need the
> > latest version of packages?
> >
> > Gottfried
> >
>
> I solve the latter by having a very lean system profile, only the bare
> essentials are installed for the whole system, things like the window
> manager are only in my user profile.
>
>

Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[raingloom]

(reply is at bottom)

On Wed, 27 Apr 2022 21:29:54 +0000
Cássio Tavares <cassio.ufg@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 2:40 AM raingloom <raingloom@riseup.net> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu,  7 Apr 2022 20:40:07 +0000
> > Gottfried <gottfried@posteo.de> wrote:
> >  
> > > As I understood I should do a "guix pull" every week.
> > >
> > > But what is with "guix package -u"
> > > When I did it two days ago it took 6 hours. I couldn't swich off
> > > my laptop. So I can do it only when having a lot of time.
> > > Normally it took approx. 30 min
> > > If I don't need always the latest version, I can do it once a
> > > month or once in two month
> > > Is that okay?  
> >
> > I'd recommend just skipping the few packages that take too long to
> > build.
> > Before upgrading, run guix package --upgrade --dry-run, and see what
> > would be downloaded and what would be built locally.
> > If there is something too large there, use the --do-not-upgrade
> > flag. It can be given multiple times.
> >
> > Also sometimes the reason something is built locally is because its
> > derivation failed on the substitute server, and I think it kinda
> > sucks that the user doesn't get warned about that, because building
> > half of Firefox just to see it fail with the same error message as
> > it did on the server is a huge waste of electricity, and also my
> > time. 
> > > Do I have to do a "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm"
> > > always after the "guix package -u"?
> > > Can I do it every month or every second month? when I don't need
> > > the latest version of packages?
> > >
> > > Gottfried
> > >  
> >
> > I solve the latter by having a very lean system profile, only the
> > bare essentials are installed for the whole system, things like the
> > window manager are only in my user profile.
> >
> >  
> If your window manager is only in your profile, then it won't be
> available for the display manager's login. Is there a workaround for
> that? Cássio
> -----
> Faculdade de Letras - UFG
> *“*
> *Ou a gente se Raôni, ou a gente se Sting**”*
> 
> 

Possibly. This might be a good starting point:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Display_manager#Session_configuration
That requires a modification to /usr, which seems like a bad idea.
Maybe someone else can figure out the details, I don't have time to do
a deep dive right now.


Sorry for editing your reply, but as the old joke goes:

Because it's messing up the reading order.
>Why?
>>Please stop top-posting.

Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[David Lecompte via]

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Hallo Gottfried,

Le jeudi 07 avril 2022 à 20:40 +0000, Gottfried a écrit :
> But what is with "guix package -u"
> When I did it two days ago it took 6 hours. I couldn't swich off my
> laptop. So I can do it only when having a lot of time.
> Normally it took approx. 30 min

I use guix on Trisquel but perhaps it is the same situation, more or
less.

If it takes 6h instead of 30 minutes, it may be because there is no
subtitute available for some package, so your computer is compiling the
source, which takes time (on my laptop, it can be more than 2 days for
ungoogled-chromium alone, of course I only did it once).

To avoid that, after "guix pull", I run "guix weather `guix package --
list-installed | cut -f1`". If it says 100% substitutes are available,
I run "guix package -u", otherwise, I wait a few days and do "guix
pull" and "guix weather `guix package --list-installed | cut -f1`"
again.

Also, I added bordeaux.guix.gnu.org as a substitutes server, as it
often has more substitutes available than ci.guix.gnu.org. You can
check the manual to do that.

I have never used profiles but I guess this is a way to split packages
so that you can upgrade only a subset of packages, for which hopefully
substitutes are available (you can use "guix weather" to check).

> If I don't need always the latest version, I can do it once a month
> or once in two month
> Is that okay?

That is a question I am unable to answer, but if anyone has some
insight, I'd be highly interested.

David.


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Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[EuAndreh]

> When I did it two days ago it took 6 hours. I couldn't swich off my 
> laptop.

You can switch your laptop.  Whatever was fully compiled or downloaded before
stopping the upgrade will be kept, and running it again will pick it up from
there.

Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[Gottfried]

  Do I have to do a "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm"
  always after the "guix package -u"?
  Can I do it every month or every second month? when I don't need the
  latest version of packages?

  Gottfried


> I solve the latter by having a very lean system profile, only the bare
> essentials are installed for the whole system, things like the window
> manager are only in my user profile. raingloom@riseup.net

How did you do that? to create a "very lean system profile"?
I am not a hacker but a normal Linux user right now.

Gottfried

Re: guix pull; guix package -u; sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

[raingloom]

On Sun, 10 Apr 2022 10:01:59 +0000
Gottfried <gottfried@posteo.de> wrote:

>   Do I have to do a "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm"
>   always after the "guix package -u"?
>   Can I do it every month or every second month? when I don't need the
>   latest version of packages?
> 
>   Gottfried
> 
> 
> > I solve the latter by having a very lean system profile, only the
> > bare essentials are installed for the whole system, things like the
> > window manager are only in my user profile. raingloom@riseup.net  
> 
> How did you do that? to create a "very lean system profile"?
> I am not a hacker but a normal Linux user right now.
> 
> Gottfried
> 
> 

Don't add big packages like gnome to the operating-system's packages
field. If you based your system on the desktop template, then it's
probably a part of it.
That's pretty much it, really. GNOME was the biggest problem for me.
Sometimes GDM would cause issues too, so I got rid of that as well.
This might be overkill for your use case.

I can't really write a proper tutorial right now, so here are some
starting points:
* the `filter` function in Guile Scheme
* combine with service-kind to remove services you don't need
* the %desktop-services definition in the Guix source code, or just
  eval it from a Guile REPL and see what's in it

In general, don't put anything in the `packages` field, unless you need
it for system rescue and administration. So, putting rsync there is
fine, you might need it for restoring from a backup. But GNOME is not
fine, it has a lot of dependencies that you probably won't even use and
any one of them could slow down or break your system build.

Caveat emptor: it might not be possible to use GNOME with a display
manager (like GDM, it's the graphical thingy you log in with) unless
it's installed in your system profile. You might have to launch it
manually with something like `dbus-run-session gnome`, this is also how
you would launch Sway.