Package Install Question for New User

Package Install Question for New User

[Brian Woodcox]

So I now have GuixSD installed and operational.  Well sort of, I would like to install some packages.

I am seeing a lot of information on the web (including videos) and old information about installing packages and the .guix-profile.

Let’s say I’m logged in as user noobie.

I then trying to install a package from the terminal.  How about icecat.  So I issue the command to install that.

All of a sudden the system is downloading and compiling a pile of packages that were already installed as root.

Is there a way to have guix use the packages that were installed in the root account instead of downloading and rebuilding gcc, etc?

Or does the shared package only work between users and not users and root?

Re: Package Install Question for New User

[Thorsten Wilms]

On 05/11/2018 17.33, Brian Woodcox wrote:
> I then trying to install a package from the terminal.  How about
> icecat.  So I issue the command to install that.
> 
> All of a sudden the system is downloading and compiling a pile of
> packages that were already installed as root.

There is a single system-wide store for derivations at /gnu/store. The 
derivations are installed packages plus dependencies and removed 
packages that haven't been garbage-collected, yet.

If a package is already in the store, installing it for a specific user 
should only require symlinks to be added, as far as I understand. Unless 
a dependency is missing.

For example, I have "gimp" in my profile, pointing to an item in the store:

---
~: which gimp
/home/thorwil/.guix-profile/bin/gimp
~: ls -l /home/thorwil/.guix-profile/bin/gimp
lrwxrwxrwx 2 root root 64 Jan  1  1970 
/home/thorwil/.guix-profile/bin/gimp -> 
/gnu/store/wzp4ci2myckcg9qjqgm84rzv23snyz4d-gimp-2.10.6/bin/gimp
---

Thus it seems you misinterpreted some output (or there is a bug).

The results of guix working through the entire dependency chain for 
build, installation and runtime of a package can be rather surprising.


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/

Re: Package Install Question for New User

[Björn Höfling]

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On Mon, 5 Nov 2018 09:33:22 -0700
Brian Woodcox <bw@inskydata.com> wrote:

> All of a sudden the system is downloading and compiling a pile of
> packages that were already installed as root.
> 
> Is there a way to have guix use the packages that were installed in
> the root account instead of downloading and rebuilding gcc, etc?

Hi Brian,

store item will be reused. But only if they are really the same.

I guess that users root and noobie have two different states of "guix
pull": For example noobie did the pull two days later and there was
some commit to gcc or one of its dependencies. Then it is no longer the
"same" gcc (even if the version number is the same) and will be
redownloaded/rebuilt.

To cope with that, first pull for the first user, say root. Then use
"guix --version" or better "guix describe" to see the commit on which
you are on.

Then with the second user, use "guix pull
--commit=<commit-from-above>". Then both users are "in sync" and if you
install the same packages it is just a matter of updating the user's
profile.

Björn

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