Enjoying GuixSD

Enjoying GuixSD

[Brian Woodcox]

I have been playing around with guix on the guixSD system.

I think Ludovic showed an example of doing this with petsc, so I thought I would give it a go with Haskell.  It worked out great!

So, I decided to pull down the Haskell ghc source code from master on github and compile it in an environment.

Set up the environment with —> guix environment ghc —ad-hoc ghc@8.4.3

I had to install a few packages:

guix package -i libgmp
guix package -i ncurses
etc..


I had to unset GHC_PACKAGE_PATH
PATH=“$HOME/.cabal/bin:$PATH”  ## Needed otherwise cabal complains about the wrong version of happy.  I probably should have used a sandbox for the cabal stuff or possibly a container.

cabal install alex happy

python3 boot

./configure —with-gmp-includes=/gnu/store/rilw7541pgdz10sabki897961ymin625-profile/include —with-gmp-libraries=/gnu/store/rilw7541pgdz10sabki897961ymin625-profile/lib —with-curses-libraries=/gnu/store/rilw7541pgdz10sabki897961ymin625-profile/lib

./configure
make

So after a while building this, I end up with ghc-stage2 and other executables in my inplace/bin folder.

I run ./ghc-stage2 —interactive

and I get

GHCi, version 8.7.20181108: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/  :? for help

Big success.  I love the fact that I can setup an environment and do this sort of thing.

I might try this with a container next and then move on to guile and try building and compiling packages the guix way.

P.S.  If anyone feels energetic and has the time, it would be nice to have a recipe to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions into GuixSD.  Then I can get copy and paste to work. :)

Re: Enjoying GuixSD

[Brett Gilio]

Brian Woodcox writes:
> P.S.  If anyone feels energetic and has the time, it would be nice to
> have a recipe to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions into GuixSD.
> Then I can get copy and paste to work. :)

I am thrilled you are having as good of a time with GuixSD as I am. It
is a truly tremendous system, and I have found virtually no limitations.

Somebody may have to correct me on this, but I believe VirtualBox's
Guest Additions have a freedom issue, so you will be unlikely to find a
recipe to get it packaged for installation. I apologize on that front,
however I do recommend you use QEMU instead if possible in KVM, that way
you can use the fully free VirtIO bundle for acceleration and achieving
full screen with proper resolution and so on.

Best,
Brett Gilio

Re: Enjoying GuixSD

[Björn Höfling]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1505 bytes --]

On Fri, 09 Nov 2018 15:18:00 -0600
Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> wrote:

> Brian Woodcox writes:
> > P.S.  If anyone feels energetic and has the time, it would be nice
> > to have a recipe to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions into
> > GuixSD. Then I can get copy and paste to work. :)  
> 
> I am thrilled you are having as good of a time with GuixSD as I am. It
> is a truly tremendous system, and I have found virtually no
> limitations.
> 
> Somebody may have to correct me on this, but I believe VirtualBox's
> Guest Additions have a freedom issue, so you will be unlikely to find
> a recipe to get it packaged for installation. I apologize on that
> front, however I do recommend you use QEMU instead if possible in
> KVM, that way you can use the fully free VirtIO bundle for
> acceleration and achieving full screen with proper resolution and so

I don't know exactly. But I also have that feeling that there was some
freedom issue with the guest additions. 

I'm working over SSH for that purpose: What I'm doing is adding an SSH
service to my GuixSD-VM-config, having the SSH port being
opened/redirected, setting up an SSH-key and having an alias in my
~/.ssh/config:

Host g64
        HostName localhost
        Port 3333
        User bjoern

In that way I can quickly, passwordless login via "ssh g64" into my
GuixSD x86_64 machine and have the usual copy/paste from my host system.
For files/longer pastes I can use "scp local-file g64:~".

Björn

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 181 bytes --]

Re: Enjoying GuixSD

[Brett Gilio]

Björn Höfling writes:


> I don't know exactly. But I also have that feeling that there was some
> freedom issue with the guest additions. 

On this front, I checked the FSDG distribution, Parabola, for their list
of freedom issues and it seems to be that they have blacklisted all
virtualbox-guest-*. So, I will extend a double emphasis to OP that
Virtual Box will likely not get support here.

Bjorn thank you for your input here.

running GuixSD on a VM (was Re: Enjoying GuixSD)

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1606 bytes --]

Ciao,

Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> writes:

> Brian Woodcox writes:
>> P.S.  If anyone feels energetic and has the time, it would be nice to
>> have a recipe to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions into GuixSD.
>> Then I can get copy and paste to work. :)

[...]

> Somebody may have to correct me on this, but I believe VirtualBox's
> Guest Additions have a freedom issue

yes, confirmed 100%: AFAIK VirtualBox Guest Additions are part of the
binary Extension Pack, distributed with the non-free VirtualBox Personal
Use and Evaluation License (PUEL) [1]

see Debian for details
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/virtualbox-guest-additions-iso
(guest additions is in the non-free section)

> so you will be unlikely to find a
> recipe to get it packaged for installation. I apologize on that front,

Oracle should apologize :-)

> however I do recommend you use QEMU instead if possible in KVM, that way
> you can use the fully free VirtIO bundle for acceleration and achieving
> full screen with proper resolution and so on.

confirmed: QEMU/KVM it the right solution for our VM needs

GuixSD manual have instructions for this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Installing-GuixSD-in-a-VM.html#Installing-GuixSD-in-a-VM

if users are not comfortable with CLI interfaces (e.g. virsh) to manage
virtualization, they can install virt-manager https://virt-manager.org/
and enjoy it's GUI and installation wizards 



Ciao
Giovanni


[1] https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox_PUEL

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 832 bytes --]

Re: Enjoying GuixSD

[Brian Woodcox]

Thanks for the info everyone.

Sorry for the late reply.  I wan’t receiving replies back from the mailing list for this post for some reason.