Remove Package from Gnome Meta-Package

Remove Package from Gnome Meta-Package

[Lee Thompson]

Hi All,

Is there an analogue in Guix for NixOS's `excludePackage`? Under NixOS I
had something like the following in my system config:
> environment.gnome.excludePackages = with pkgs.gnome; [
>     cheese
>     epiphany
>     gnome-music
>   ];
Which allowed me to use a mostly OOTB Gnome install minus some packages
I really don't care about. I've seen some old 2018–2019 posts describing
ways in Guix to make a custom Gnome package minus the bits I don't want,
but I've had no luck so far with this.

I was really hoping there'd be a canonical, obvious and modern way of
achieving this, and if there is in the manual I've had no luck finding
it. Obviously this isn't a deal-breaker for me using Guix, but I think
it would be neat to have.

Any assistance appreciated.

Re: Remove Package from Gnome Meta-Package

[宋文武]

Lee Thompson <lee.p.thomp@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi All,
>
> Is there an analogue in Guix for NixOS's `excludePackage`? Under NixOS I
> had something like the following in my system config:
>> environment.gnome.excludePackages = with pkgs.gnome; [
>>     cheese
>>     epiphany
>>     gnome-music
>>   ];

I think it can be done with:
```
(define (exclude-some-packages lst)
  (filter (lambda (pkg)
            (not (memq pkg (list
                            gnome-terminal
                            gnome-user-docs
                            gnome-maps))))
          lst))


(service gnome-desktop-service-type
  (let ((cfg (gnome-desktop-configuration)))
   (gnome-desktop-configuration
    (core-services
     (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-core-services cfg)))
    (shell
     (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-shell cfg)))
    (utilities
     (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-utilities cfg)))
    (extra-packages
     (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-utilities cfg))))))
```

From the its code, we can see that gnome-desktop-configuration use 4
lists for meta packages, which can be customized.

Hope it helps.

Re: Remove Package from Gnome Meta-Package

[Lee Thompson]

宋文武 <iyzsong@envs.net> writes:

> ```
> (define (exclude-some-packages lst)
>   (filter (lambda (pkg)
>             (not (memq pkg (list
>                             gnome-terminal
>                             gnome-user-docs
>                             gnome-maps))))
>           lst))
>
>
> (service gnome-desktop-service-type
>   (let ((cfg (gnome-desktop-configuration)))
>    (gnome-desktop-configuration
>     (core-services
>      (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-core-services cfg)))
>     (shell
>      (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-shell cfg)))
>     (utilities
>      (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-utilities cfg)))
>     (extra-packages
>      (exclude-some-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-utilities cfg))))))
> ```
Thank you this has been very helpful, in the end I adapted your code
like so:
```scheme
(define (gnome-exclude-packages cfg . exclude)
  (let ((exclude-packages (λ (pkgs)
                            (remove (λ (pkg)
                                      (memq pkg exclude))
                                    pkgs))))
    (gnome-desktop-configuration
     (core-services
      (exclude-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-core-services cfg)))
     (shell
      (exclude-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-shell cfg)))
     (utilities
      (exclude-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-utilities cfg)))
     (extra-packages
      (exclude-packages (gnome-desktop-configuration-extra-packages cfg))))))

; ...

(service gnome-desktop-service-type
                          (gnome-exclude-packages
                           (gnome-desktop-configuration)
                           gnome-music epiphany cheese))
```

I wonder if this is the best or most elegant way of achieving this. I'm
interested to see what others think.

> Hope it helps.
Very much, it was a good opportunity to play around in the REPL and see
the data structures for myself which I must admit I was apprehensive
about. Many thanks.