Re: guix package -r *downloads* new packages?

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hi,

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Hi Hartmut,
>>
>> Hartmut Goebel <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> skribis:
>>
>>> I tried cleaning up my system. But when I did "guix package -r …", it
>>> started to build derivations and download stuff.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> $ guix package -r guix
>>> warning: failed to install locale: Invalid argument
>>> The following package will be removed:
>>>    guix 0.10.0-0.e901  
>>> /gnu/store/vw26xsn24jmrijn939fjjk50m5i4hfq3-guix-0.10.0-0.e901
>>>
>>> substitute: updating list of substitutes from
>>> 'https://mirror.hydra.gnu.org'... 100.0%
>>> The following derivations will be built:
>>>    /gnu/store/4mdahqlzar6fl9f9cx6i16561x2yclwx-profile.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/2pn3gbhq7hnnh8kzwblihlw8f34irkgg-module-import.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/j46m2a8fnxklnckiqkn7r9id6jhs94s1-module-import-compiled.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/zhdym8ynv7sbr1iiaj917ln1z1ris2zw-gtk-icon-themes.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/plq1855s06gi77x3qbsyp4217ssn635i-info-dir.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/n1kdin8g51m6dd7ds8hiv8pgv20dczki-fonts-dir.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/lcp53c781kk1d6fxr2xm4dhfm1fgv9x1-ca-certificate-bundle.drv
>>>    /gnu/store/19ngbl2rmvag3dgsii8pkfmhzbg3zbx8-xdg-mime-database.drv
>>> The following files will be downloaded:
>>>    /gnu/store/ik15p8lrbk6jfa3fs3x34m78lj2c0ix1-guile-2.0.11
>>>    /gnu/store/1vmfjpapw15nmhdw3hvrkdp8k933j518-module-import-compiled
>>>    /gnu/store/f9m713c1v5db09b0asxd3mifdskllbri-texinfo-6.1
>>
>> This is counter-intuitive but expected.  First of all, the profile is
>> built by running a Guile program, so Guile needs to be available if it’s
>> not already there.
>>
>> Secondly, when the profile is built, a number of “profile hooks” are
>> run.  We can see them above: gtk-icon-themes builds a registry of the
>> installed GTK+ themes (which requires GTK+), info-dir builds the Info
>> documentation directory (which requires Texinfo), and so on.
>
> Do you think we could make this a little more intuitive by hiding the
> derivations for the profile hooks (unless verbosity is increased), or by
> listing them separately?

Good question.

The initial approach was to display the low-level info, i.e.,
derivations to be built (see ‘show-what-to-build’), like Nix does.

Since we have access to higher level info about packages and profiles,
we could choose to only display package/profile-level info (“the
following packages will be installed/removed/upgraded”).  We could also
hide store file names by default.

All this is quite tempting, though it could also be
counter-intuitive—the lists of packages to install would not match the
list of “things” that are built/downloaded.

Something “in-between”, where some derivations would be displayed and
some wouldn’t, would be hard to achieve, I think; we’d need a way to
annotate derivations as “special” or something.

Thoughts?

(In the same vein, someone suggested that we hide build logs as well,
for software that is being built; I think tools like ‘brew’ store build
logs but don’t display them by default.)

Maybe someone should make a mock of the desired output and we could
rethink it from there?

Thanks,
Ludo’.