Re: Help with preparing to move from Arch Linux to Guix

[znavko@disroot.org]

Hello! While you haven't get the answer by some hackers I offer you to read znavko's blog where links to manuals are collected:
http://live-znavko.pantheonsite.io (http://live-znavko.pantheonsite.io/)

The limitation of saving files into '/etc/' directory does not exist, as I know. You may put your own files there, but only configuration files will be modified there by running `guix system reconfigure confis.scm`.
Now I have there old files dhcpd.conf and sddm.conf from my previous generations where I had these services. And even after removing those generation and garbage collection they remain there. So, there are no such limitation for '/etc/'.

Yes, Arch has awesome docs, I've been using it for configure touchpad tap for slim configuration in Guix System's config.
Sometimes it is difficult to understand how to use strings and types in config.scm, what is G-expression, why to use twice '(xorg-configuration (xorg-configuration ...))' and other quirks.

All the configurations should be passed to your system config file config.scm that is using in `guix system reconfigure config.scm`. All the services accept configurations only from there. I think it is not proper way to edit those files in '/etc/' after `guix system reconfigure ..`.

Cannot say about configs for samba, vpn, may be you'll get info reading package definitions here http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages/samba.scm (http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages/samba.scm)

znavko.

May 10, 2019 9:50 PM, "Doron Behar" <doron.behar@gmail.com (mailto:doron.behar@gmail.com)> wrote:

 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 (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 (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.