From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>
Subject: Re: guix gc,
	any way to delete only packages that aren't required to build
	anything?
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 06:15:46 +0100
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To: Matthew Brooks <matthewfbrooks@mailbox.org>
Cc: "help-guix@gnu.org" <help-guix@gnu.org>


Hi Matthew,

> Is there any recommended way to have guix gc only delete packages that
> aren't required to build anything?

This requirement is a little vague.  Do you mean to only delete leaf
packages?  Or do you just want to keep a version of GCC?

You could create an environment containing all dependencies for a
package of interest and register it as a GC root, so it won=E2=80=99t be
collected.  For example:

    guix environment --root=3D$HOME/.dev-env guile

Then you can run =E2=80=9Cguix gc=E2=80=9D with reckless abandon and be sur=
e that at
least the dependencies of the =E2=80=9Cguile=E2=80=9D package (at that part=
icular
version of Guix) will not be collected.

There is also a daemon option, which might be of interest to you, though
it may keep more (or less) than what you want:

    --gc-keep-derivations[=3Dyes/no]
                tell whether the GC must keep derivations
                corresponding to live outputs

Hope this helps!

--
Ricardo