Re: guixsd offline installation media

[Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il>]

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On Fri, 18 Dec 2015 10:19:14 +0100
Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> wrote:

> If you are on a slow connection (and 90% of the world IS on a slow
> connection) downloads are a problem. I am in Africa now. Guix
> pull is one problem - I accidentily did that and now I can't do
> anything because it wants to fetch a complete rebuilt Guix. But also 
> installing by package is problematic, though I appreciate that
> Guix does not load things twice (well, actually it does when a
> transaction gets interrupted or fails - we could avoid that by caching
> intermediate source tar balls and binary downloads, really no reason
> not to since they have hashes too).
> 
> Similar to the minimal tar-ball release we could provide a bare-bones,
> desktop, desktop for developers, and 'sumo' release quite easily and
> seed those with torrents. I think. It would also make sense to sell
> DVD's or USB's with Guix installed. Maybe a little side-business for
> the FSF?
> 
> Pretty much what Debian does.
> 
> Even though Guix is a rolling update distribution, tar-ball installs
> make sense.
> 
> Pj.
> 
I was going to make jokes about apt-cd and the years of issues that's caused
people with fresh debian installs, but all we should need to do is
populate /gnu/store with either/both precompiled binaries/source files.
If/when substitutes fails, the files are already there.

As an aside, I don't think targeting DVD size is a good idea, but maybe
4GB/8GB for usb sticks shouldn't be bad. Also if we had a torrent it would be
easier to not rely directly on hydra for starting up. Also its an easy way to
donate bandwidth without setting up a hydra clone.

-- 
Efraim Flashner   <efraim@flashner.co.il>   אפרים פלשנר
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