Re: Guix Docker image inflation

[Stephen Scheck <singularsyntax@gmail.com>]

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 2:44 PM zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 20:37, Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 08:21:08PM +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
> > > Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
> > > > --branch and --commit would be passed to `guix pull`, and then you'd
> run
> > > > `guix system docker-image` based on that.
> > >
> > > There is also 'guix time-machine --commit=abc123 -- system
> docker-image'.
> >
> > Right, that's probably more efficient than creating lots of `guix pull`
> > generations.
>
> Yes, but it is hard to apriori know the forward commit.
>

Yes, and also, does a Docker image created by `guix pull` followed by `guix
system docker-image [...]` in fact really inherit the
Guix snapshot from the system that creates it?

Here's what I get on a freshly minted image made that way:

root@guix /# guix pull --list-generations
guix pull: error: profile '/var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix'
does not exist
root@guix /# guix describe
guix describe: error: failed to determine origin
hint: Perhaps this `guix' command was not obtained with `guix pull'? Its
version string is 1.1.0-4.bdc801e.

root@guix /# guix package --list-generations
guix package: error: profile
'/var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/guix-profile' does not exist

But here's `guix describe` output from the parent system:

root@localhost /# guix describe
Generation 13 May 29 2020 19:28:11 (current)
  guix 41a2d6a
    repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git
    branch: master
    commit: 41a2d6a8b9294a6eb8e97aaefd569e755f5f461e

Until a fresh `guix pull` is run on the new image, it isn't functional and
there's no apparent way to confirm its actual commit hash,
so I don't really see what advantage it offers over the incremental method
I'm using (and it's unfeasibly slow, about 10-15 minutes
for an incremental pull compared to over an hour to finish `guix system
docker-image`).