Newbie: Why executing "guix home reconfigure" requires an Internet connection?

Newbie: Why executing "guix home reconfigure" requires an Internet connection?

[Rodrigo Morales]

Table of Contents
_________________

1. The context
2. The questions


1 The context
=============

  Currently, the only way I know how to make my laptop connect to the
  Internet is via Ethernet, because the Wi-fi card of my laptop requires
  nonfree firmware.

  Today, I had to use my laptop without Ethernet (i.e. no connection to
  the Internet). While I was using it, I decided to run `guix home
  reconfigure' because I thought that in contrast to installing a
  package, `guix home reconfigure' seems to only act in local
  files. However, it threw an error and it seemed it tried to connect to
  the Internet. The following code block shows the error message.

  ,----
  | guix home reconfigure ~/my-config/home-configuration.scm
  `----

  ,----
  | substitute: updating substitutes from 'https://ci.guix.gnu.org'...
0.0%guix substitute: warning: ci.guix.gnu.org: host not found: Name or
service not known
  | substitute:
  | substitute: updating substitutes from 'https://bordeaux.guix.gnu.org'...
  0.0%guix substitute: warning: bordeaux.guix.gnu.org: host not found: Name
or service not known
  | substitute:
  | The following derivation will be built:
  |   /gnu/store/dgl98ixssr28nzy1l5vndigb78d9b5gv-guix-1.4.0-4.01fd830.drv
  |
  | 18.8 MB will be downloaded
  | substitute: updating substitutes from 'https://ci.guix.gnu.org'...
0.0%
  | substitute: updating substitutes from 'https://bordeaux.guix.gnu.org'...
  0.0%
  | retrying download of '/gnu/store/mzfkrxd4w8vqrmyrx169wj8wyw7r8i37-bash'
with other substitute URLs...
  | guix substitute: warning: bordeaux.guix.gnu.org: host not found: Name
or service not known
  | guix substitute: error: failed to find alternative substitute for
'/gnu/store/mzfkrxd4w8vqrmyrx169wj8wyw7r8i37-bash'
  | substitution of /gnu/store/mzfkrxd4w8vqrmyrx169wj8wyw7r8i37-bash failed
  | guix home: error: corrupt input while restoring archive from #<closed:
file 7f578b419c40>
  `----

  ,----
  | echo $?
  `----

  ,----
  | 1
  `----

  The following code block shows the content of the file that is passed
  to `guix home reonfigure' (i.e. `~/my-config/home-configuration.scm')

  ,----
  | cat ~/my-config/home-configuration.scm
  `----

  ,----
  | ;; This "home-environment" file can be passed to 'guix home reconfigure'
  | ;; to reproduce the content of your profile.  This is "symbolic": it
only
  | ;; specifies package names.  To reproduce the exact same profile, you
also
  | ;; need to capture the channels being used, as returned by "guix
describe".
  | ;; See the "Replicating Guix" section in the manual.
  |
  | (use-modules (gnu home)
  |              (gnu packages)
  |              (gnu services)
  |              (guix gexp)
  |              (gnu home services)
  |              (gnu home services shells)
  |              (gnu home services ssh))
  |
  | (home-environment
  |  ;; Below is the list of packages that will show up in your
  |  ;; Home profile, under ~/.guix-home/profile.
  |  (packages (specifications->packages (list)))
  |  ;; Below is the list of Home services.  To search for available
  |  ;; services, run 'guix home search KEYWORD' in a terminal.
  |  (services
  |   (list
  |    (service
  |     home-bash-service-type
  |     (home-bash-configuration
  |      (aliases
  |       '(("grep" . "grep --color=auto")
  |         ("ll" . "ls -l")
  |         ("ls" . "ls -p --color=auto")
  |         ("d" . "cd ~/Downloads"))))))))
  `----


2 The questions
===============

  Currently, I'm a new Guix user, so I have some questions

  + Is this normal behavior?
  + What's the reasoning behind `guix home reconfigure' trying to
    connect to the Internet when it only seems to create symlinks
    between files that exist locally?
  + If i don't have an Internet connection, does it mean that I can't
    run `guix home reonfigure'? If it is possible, how to do it? I want
    to symlink my dotfiles even when I don't have an Internet
    connection.

Re: Newbie: Why executing "guix home reconfigure" requires an Internet connection?

[Saku Laesvuori]

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On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 11:49:41PM -0500, Rodrigo Morales wrote:
> Table of Contents
> _________________
> 
> 1. The context
> 2. The questions
> 
> 
> 1 The context
> =============
> 
>   Currently, the only way I know how to make my laptop connect to the
>   Internet is via Ethernet, because the Wi-fi card of my laptop requires
>   nonfree firmware.
> 
>   Today, I had to use my laptop without Ethernet (i.e. no connection to
>   the Internet). While I was using it, I decided to run `guix home
>   reconfigure' because I thought that in contrast to installing a
>   package, `guix home reconfigure' seems to only act in local
>   files. However, it threw an error and it seemed it tried to connect to
>   the Internet. The following code block shows the error message.

While `guix home reconfigure` does create local symlinks, it still has
to build the packages it references and building packages requires an
internet connection for fetching substitutes or sources.

If you have not changed the packages referenced in your configuration or
ran `guix pull` after the last `guix home reconfigure`, I'd think it
shouldn't require an internet connection.

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Re: Newbie: Why executing "guix home reconfigure" requires an Internet connection?

[Andreas Enge]

Am Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 08:38:52AM +0200 schrieb Saku Laesvuori:
> If you have not changed the packages referenced in your configuration or
> ran `guix pull` after the last `guix home reconfigure`, I'd think it
> shouldn't require an internet connection.

And then you should be able to add the "--no-substitutes" flag, so that it
does not try to connect to the build farms.

Andreas