Re: Guix package manager installed

[Steve George <steve@futurile.net>]

Hi,

The key concept to understand is that Guix runs a build daemon and 
package database (/gnu/store) on the machine which multiple 'normal' 
users can use. You can see it with:

   sudo systemctl status guix-daemon.service

The manual is trying to explain that you use the root user to update the 
guix daemon itself. So you do this:

   sudo -i pull guix
   sudo systemctl restart guix-daemon.service

The second step is that for each of your normal users, you then use 
guix. For example, to update guix for my main user and to install a package:

   # open a normal terminal
   $ guix pull
   $ guix upgrade
   $ guix install tmux

If you inspect the guix-daemon service the log will show your user 
connecting to the service and the guix-daemon handling the actions (e.g. 
download the software):

   sudo systemctl status guix-daemon.service

If you had multiple users then each individual user would do guix pull 
to update their definitions of what applications/versions are available. 
Each user has their own record (called a profile) of which applications 
they've installed.

The advantage of using the single daemon, is that if multiple users 
installed a program (e.g. tmux) then it would only be downloaded once.

Unless you use your root user regularly you don't need to install 
applications as the root user. I personally only run a small number of 
commands as root so I don't install any Guix software as root.

Hope that makes it easier to understand!


On 29/10/2022 21:57, Gottfried wrote:
> Hi Guixers,
> 
> I am very thankful for all the Guixers who worked and are working for 
> Guix, also for the manual...
> 
> because against all hope I was able to install the Guix package manager 
> on another laptop on top of Trisquel on the basis of the manual.
> 
> I am wondering myself that I was able to understand the manual and step 
> by step I did what it said.
> Even sometimes there were messages of failures but at the end everything 
> worked. (I had to look up for solutions  on the web several times, but 
> at the end it was successful)
> 
> 1.  As far as I understand it I have to do
> 
> guix pull
> 
> and a
> 
> guix package -u
> 
> but no
> 
> sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm
> 
> because there is no /etc/config.scm file
> 
> Is that right?
> 
> 
> Where is the relevant file for the guix package manager I installed?
> 
> 
> 2.  Do I regularly have to do a "sudo guix pull" for root?
> 
> or is it enough that I did it once for setting up guix?
> 
> 
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Gottfried
>