From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Michael Zucchi Subject: practicality of custom config Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2019 09:59:43 +1030 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:46323) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1im4Tv-00049K-Ki for help-guix@gnu.org; Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:29:52 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1im4Tu-00058J-61 for help-guix@gnu.org; Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:29:51 -0500 Received: from mail-pj1-x1029.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4864:20::1029]:40686) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1im4Tt-000539-S9 for help-guix@gnu.org; Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:29:50 -0500 Received: by mail-pj1-x1029.google.com with SMTP id bg7so437344pjb.5 for ; Mon, 30 Dec 2019 15:29:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from ?IPv6:2001:44b8:203:1200:be5f:f4ff:fef7:7bdc? (2001-44b8-0203-1200-be5f-f4ff-fef7-7bdc.static.ipv6.internode.on.net. [2001:44b8:203:1200:be5f:f4ff:fef7:7bdc]) by smtp.googlemail.com with ESMTPSA id d3sm12692431pfn.113.2019.12.30.15.29.46 for (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Mon, 30 Dec 2019 15:29:47 -0800 (PST) Content-Language: en-AU List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-guix-bounces+gcggh-help-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Help-Guix" To: help-guix Morning, From the manual: "It is also /customizable/: users can /derive/ specialized package definitions from existing ones, including from the command line (see Package Transformation Options ). " But in reality how practical would it be to create a system which for example doesn't include pulseaudio?  I'm using slackware 64and it provides this option so ideally I don't want guix dragging it back in. Looking through the package definitions it looks like considerable effort: either editing or using code to edit (aka deriving) every package that uses it.  For deriving changes it would require internal knowledge of the source package definition and would thus be rather fragile and difficult to maintain. This is one example but there may be other system-wide options that one might want to customise in a similar way to services, is there a mechanism for this?  Z