Re: question re. packaging, build, init and shepherd

[Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>]

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Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> writes:

> The GUIX documentation is great when it comes to installing GUIX, and
> then installing packaged software.
>
> It's not so clear on how do install software that isn't in the package
> repository - whether by creating a package, or via the classic
> ./configure;make;make install, or if there are tools that can bring
> classically installed software under package management (e.g., the
> Debian alien tool).

I can't really think of a situation where creating a package would be a
bad approach, and the manual does describe this. There's also the
packaging tutorial blog post [1]

1: https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2018/a-packaging-tutorial-for-guix/

I think there could indeed be a lack of guidance about where do perhaps
deviate from the instructions or common steps for installing software.

Taking the shepherd as an example, the INSTALL file distributed with the
source contains the common: './configure && make && make install'

With a Guix System, that would probably work, at least initially. But
you'd be missing out on some of the advantages Guix packages offer, and
would possibly run in to problems with garbage collection.

As Guix doesn't really have binary packages like Debian, there isn't
really the possibility of a Alien like tool. The dependencies between
the "binary" package forms are very strict, using exact store paths,
which would make generating a package to slot in to a system difficult.

> And then there's the question of init systems:  Until systemd came
> along, ./configure;make;make install generally just works - leaving
> init files in the right places, starting up daemons, etc.
>
> Which leads to the question of, if I want to install something
> complicated in GUIX - say the Sympa list manager (to pick a non-random
> example), which comes with standard sysvinit scripts - can I just
> ./configure;make;make install?  Does Shepherd do the right thing with
> sysvinit scripts?  Can I invoke them through Shepherd (e.g, after a
> config change)?  Can I still edit & invoke the init scripts in the
> classic ways (vi, /etc/init.d/<foo> restart).

The configuration of the shepherd is normally entirely managed through
your Guix operating-system definition. The configuration is generated in
te store, and shepherd looks at that.

This is important as it allows you to boot in to previous generations of
your system, which is useful for recovering the system if things go
wrong.

So, whereas I think things like systemd are aware of sysvinit scripts in
the usual place, the shepherd is completely unaware.

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