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

[raingloom <raingloom@riseup.net>]

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.