removal of induces installation of other package

removal of induces installation of other package

[Marco van Hulten]

Hi—

I removed a package, but this resulted in other packages being built:


$ guix package -r evince
The following package will be removed:
   evince	3.28.2	/gnu/store/0453w20ldm1pxhbbginwi35ri2w2b7vi-evince-3.28.2

Building /gnu/store/2gf7ndczpg99kbcy5vap5q1lpg1wf8hm-texinfo-6.5.tar.xz.drv - x86_64-linux /var/log/guix/drvs/2g//f7ndczpg99kbcy5vap5q1lpg1wf8hm-texinfo-6.5.tar.xz.drv.bz2
Built /gnu/store/2gf7ndczpg99kbcy5vap5q1lpg1wf8hm-texinfo-6.5.tar.xz.drv
Building /gnu/store/qqir6r1rnd3ljg1cd583v34klqjqpljb-texinfo-6.5.drv - x86_64-linux /var/log/guix/drvs/qq//ir6r1rnd3ljg1cd583v34klqjqpljb-texinfo-6.5.drv.bz2
starting phase `set-SOURCE-DATE-EPOCH'
phase `set-SOURCE-DATE-EPOCH' succeeded after 0.0 seconds
[...]


It takes a long time.  Why does this happen?

One thing I can imagine is that some installed package depends on either
evince or texinfo.

—Marco

Re: removal of induces installation of other package

[Leo Famulari]

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On Sun, Nov 04, 2018 at 04:09:16PM +0100, Marco van Hulten wrote:
> I removed a package, but this resulted in other packages being built:

[...]

> It takes a long time.  Why does this happen?

When you manage your installed packages with Guix, for example with
`guix package --remove`, you create a new Guix profile [0].

Building profiles requires some software, for example to build the
manpage database.

If you have updated Guix (`guix pull`) since your last profile was
created, the collection of software required to build profiles may have
been updated. So, now you need that software in order to make the new
profile.

It's a bit counterintuitive that removing a package may require
something new, but it's expected behaviour for Guix.

I hope that helps!

[0]
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html#index-profile

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Re: removal of induces installation of other package

[Hartmut Goebel]

Hi,

Am 04.11.2018 um 22:06 schrieb Leo Famulari:
> If you have updated Guix (`guix pull`) since your last profile was
> created, the collection of software required to build profiles may have
> been updated. So, now you need that software in order to make the new
> profile.
>
> It's a bit counterintuitive that removing a package may require
> something new, but it's expected behaviour for Guix.

I experienced an even more irritating behavior:

On a system which I hadn't touched for long, I switched a profile - from
an old one it's predecessor. Even in this case guix started to download
substitutes and build software.

I find this behavior extremely irritating.

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |

Re: removal of induces installation of other package

[Leo Famulari]

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On Sun, Nov 04, 2018 at 11:20:22PM +0100, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
> I experienced an even more irritating behavior:
> 
> On a system which I hadn't touched for long, I switched a profile - from
> an old one it's predecessor. Even in this case guix started to download
> substitutes and build software.

To clarify, `guix package --switch-generation NNN` required something to
be built?

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Re: removal of induces installation of other package

[Hartmut Goebel]

Am 04.11.2018 um 23:34 schrieb Leo Famulari:
> On Sun, Nov 04, 2018 at 11:20:22PM +0100, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
>> I experienced an even more irritating behavior:
>>
>> On a system which I hadn't touched for long, I switched a profile - from
>> an old one it's predecessor. Even in this case guix started to download
>> substitutes and build software.
> To clarify, `guix package --switch-generation NNN` required something to
> be built?

Exactly.

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |