From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Doron Behar Subject: Help with preparing to move from Arch Linux to Guix Date: Fri, 10 May 2019 23:44:34 +0300 Message-ID: <20190510204434.qeyqoftn27t2igga@NUC.doronbehar.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:40618) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hPCOR-000502-M1 for help-guix@gnu.org; Fri, 10 May 2019 16:45:24 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hPCOP-0002ua-NP for help-guix@gnu.org; Fri, 10 May 2019 16:45:23 -0400 Received: from mail-wm1-x330.google.com ([2a00:1450:4864:20::330]:39484) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hPCOO-0002pw-1G for help-guix@gnu.org; Fri, 10 May 2019 16:45:21 -0400 Received: by mail-wm1-x330.google.com with SMTP id n25so8611934wmk.4 for ; Fri, 10 May 2019 13:45:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (bzq-79-180-236-30.red.bezeqint.net. [79.180.236.30]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id c20sm9428185wre.28.2019.05.10.13.45.17 for (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 bits=256/256); Fri, 10 May 2019 13:45:17 -0700 (PDT) Content-Disposition: inline List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-guix-bounces+gcggh-help-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Help-Guix" To: help-guix@gnu.org Hello Guix community, I'm very excited ever since I've discovered Guix. I have been using Arch Linux user for years and everything I've found annoying with Arch Linux (especially as a maintainer of a few AUR packages), finally has an elegant and robust solution. I haven't done the transition yet. There are still around 100 packages I use on my Arch installation which are not available on Guix and I guess I'll need to contribute their Guile definitions my self. My main question though, regards general system configuration. I have a Guix 1.0.0 image burned on a USB which I boot to every once in a while to prepare my self for the transition. I must say that while I've inspected the filesystem of the installation media, I was astounded by the genius design of it! I can see how it all works (notably the symlinks) and I can see how it wonderfully enables the reproducibility and rollback features of Guix. Anyway, to come to the bottom of it, I've searched the documentation and couldn't find an answer regarding what-so-ever configurations in `/etc/`. Pretty much everything that makes Arch Linux impressive, is it's documentation on the aspect of everything that is needed to be put in every file in `/etc/` so the system can be tweaked exactly the way one wishes. I noticed that in Guix, all the files in /etc/ are read only. I understand why - `guix system` is responsible for reading a Scheme file that will create an etc store that will be used for the configuration of the whole system and I'm not supposed to touch anything in /etc/ manually.. But, I couldn't find how to generally do stuff there. I have dozens of very personal configurations I've done in my current Arch system's /etc/ which I have no clue how to port them all and make sure all of them are picked in the transition. Here are just a few examples: - tinc (VPN software): This one expects to find cryptographic key files to in `/etc/tinc/`. - samba: Where do I define my shares? - pam: gnome keyring daemon autostart on login (Arch documents how to achieve this without a login manager, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/Keyring#PAM_method). - vconsole.conf: just another example for a file I've put some stuff in. I noticed that there is a section in the manual called: Services (#8.8) and it shows the built-in support of Guix to many common services such as printing for example. Printing is a good example where I don't understand how it's supposed to actually work at the end. When one adds a printer using the Web UI in http://localhost:631 , files in `/etc/cups/` are modified and this is not tracked by `/etc/config.scm` I suppose.. Most importantly, one cannot predict the contents of these files after a printer is added. Not to mention that `/etc/` is all readonly! And there is so much more.. Additionally, some files in my current /etc/, have passwords written in them and I wonder whether it's considered safe to put these strings right away in `/etc/config.scm`.. Anyway, I hope this email is not too long and I could get some pointers to places I missed in the documentation.. Thanks, Doron.