Is there something similar to nix overlays in guix?

Is there something similar to nix overlays in guix?

[Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira]

For reference:

* https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Overlays
* https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/#chap-overrides
* https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/#chap-overlays

Use case:

You don't want to be a slave to upstream developers' decisions and
want to apply out-of-tree patches that automatically propagate to the
rest of the packages ecosystem.


-- 
Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira
https://vinipsmaker.github.io/

Re: Is there something similar to nix overlays in guix?

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira via]

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Em 05/03/2021 16:20, Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira escreveu:
> You don't want to be a slave to upstream developers' decisions and
> want to apply out-of-tree patches that automatically propagate to the
> rest of the packages ecosystem.

I don't know the specifics of the non-free software Nix, but by experience I think that one of those might suit your case:

a) the (package (source (origin (patches …) …) …) …) definition, where stuff is applied right after being unpacked/extracted, before configuring and building. If you are dealing with GNU FSDG issues or things which will be upstreamed, this would be the perfect place for the patch since you wouldn't be forcing the source package to use Guix's store paths or Guix-specific changes. It also means that people who do guix build -S will receive the source with patches applied;

b) an invocation of GNU patch from (package (arguments (modify-phases …) …) …), allowing you to do as (a) but for Guix-specific changes;

c) use of (package (replacement …) …) to your own package definitions to provide grafts (see `info guix "Security Updates" ` for the requirements and caveats), but note that, since I don't use this option, I don't know much about how to implement it;

d) invoking guix build — or those with support for its transformation options — with --with-patches=PACKAGE=FILE, to do it like (a);

e) same as (d), but with --with-grafts=PACKAGE=REPLACEMENT, to do it like (c);

f) same as (d), but with --with-latest=PACKAGE, to force a given build/install/upgrade to use the latest known version of PACKAGE instead of the one from the built package's definition. This of course comes at a price, as can be read on `info guix "Package Transformation Options" `


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Re: Is there something similar to nix overlays in guix?

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

Hi!

On 2021-03-11 12:05, Adonay Felipe Nogueira via wrote:
> I don't know the specifics of the non-free software Nix

Nix is completely Free software, released under the Lesser GNU General 
Public Licence version 2.1.  So is nixpkgs, its official MIT-licenced 
collection of package definitions.  (Guix combines both concepts into 
one repository.)

You might be confusing 'non-free' with 'does not follow GNU's Free 
Software Distribution Guidelines' (FSDG), a much stricter set of 
additional rules that dictate what every single installable package is 
allowed to be and do.

Nix/nixpkgs/NixOS have not opted to follow these unrelated rules; GNU 
Guix have.  Both projects are Free software.

Both must therefore grant you the freedom to run non-free software; Nix 
makes this more convenient.

Kind regards,

T G-R

Sent from a Web browser. Excuse or enjoy my brevity.