Generating System Definitions

Generating System Definitions

[cdelia]

Hi,

There is a standard way to generate an exportable installer.scm from a 
specific generation?

I installed guix a couple a weeks ago and I'm looking forward to replace 
my distro with guixSD.

To do so, I'm slowly replacing the software that I use with those found 
on guix.
The ones that aren't there will have to wait for someone (maybe myself) 
to add them.

When I'm only using the base distro to boot, I'll switch, but for that I 
guess it would be cool to simple "export" the state of my machine to the 
new installation, with the proper 'merging' taking place. With merging I 
mean that the exported configuration will be a subset of the final full 
guixSD distro.

It should not be a heavy task to do it by hand, but just in case; maybe 
somebody has it figure out.

Thanks!

Re: Generating System Definitions

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi cdelia,

> There is a standard way to generate an exportable installer.scm from a
> specific generation?

There is not.  We only go from description to state, never from state
back to the description.

Ideally, your system configuration includes a complete description of
the desired state of your machine, so you needn’t “export” anything but
simply instantiate the configuration on the target machine.

> When I'm only using the base distro to boot, I'll switch, but for that
> I guess it would be cool to simple "export" the state of my machine to
> the new installation, with the proper 'merging' taking place. With
> merging I mean that the exported configuration will be a subset of the
> final full guixSD distro.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “merging” in this context.
Could you give an example of state that would be affected by a merge
like that?

--
Ricardo