On Fri, 16 Mar 2018 21:54:24 +0100
Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> wrote:

> 2018-03-16 21:38 GMT+01:00 Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com>:
> 
> > Catonano <catonano@gmail.com> writes:
> >  
> > > ~$ guix system vm ~/configs/vm-config-desktop.scm \  
> > >>    --image-size=10GB \
> > >>    --share=$HOME/transit=/transit  
> > > guix system: error: build failed: error parsing derivation
> > > `/gnu/store/dp8ywhh22n8ixikqdvsb6w6qbn4iw899-environment.drv':
> > > expected string `Derive(['  
> >
> > This is very odd.  Can you paste the output of:
> >
> > cat /gnu/store/dp8ywhh22n8ixikqdvsb6w6qbn4iw899-environment.drv ?
> >
> > Does it make any difference if you drop --image-size (which is now
> > autodetected) and/or --share?
> >  
> 
> 
> catonano@xps ~/projects/guix$ cat
> /gnu/store/dp8ywhh22n8ixikqdvsb6w6qbn4iw899-environment.drv
> catonano@xps ~/projects/guix$
> 
> also
> 
> catonano@xps ~/projects/guix$ ls -lha
> /gnu/store/dp8ywhh22n8ixikqdvsb6w6qbn4iw899-environment.drv
> -r--r--r-- 2 root root 0  1 gen  1970
> 
> catonano@xps ~/projects/guix$
> 
> 
> it's an empty file !

Just a blind guess, not sure if that thing is alive or dead:

Can you try:

guix gc -d /gnu/store/dp8ywhh22n8ixikqdvsb6w6qbn4iw899-environment.drv

And then start again with your `guix system vm ...` 


Björn