How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[George myglc2 Clemmer]

I tried to use 'guix environment' to check out znc this way ...

guix environment --ad-hoc znc -- emacs -nw

I was disappointed when it produced an environment in which znc is not
shown as installed and the znc man is unavailable ...

g1@g1 ~ [env]$ which znc
/gnu/store/9g32caq0zi10m3mnydq76mkizpn7r2vd-profile/bin/znc
g1@g1 ~ [env]$ guix package -I | grep znc
g1@g1 ~ [env]$ man znc
No manual entry for znc
g1@g1 ~ [env]$

Is this how it works?

Is there a way to try out a package w/o installing it?

TIA - George

Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[Arun Isaac]

George myglc2 Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> writes:

> I tried to use 'guix environment' to check out znc this way ...
>
> guix environment --ad-hoc znc -- emacs -nw
>
> the znc man is unavailable ...

I have been wondering the same. It would be nice if at least the man and
info documentation was available somehow. What needs to be done in this
regard?

Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[Thompson, David]

On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 2:20 PM, Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net> wrote:
> George myglc2 Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I tried to use 'guix environment' to check out znc this way ...
>>
>> guix environment --ad-hoc znc -- emacs -nw
>>
>> the znc man is unavailable ...
>
> I have been wondering the same. It would be nice if at least the man and
> info documentation was available somehow. What needs to be done in this
> regard?

If you want to use 'man', include the man-db package in your
environment. If you want to use 'info', include the info-reader
package (I think).

To be more general, there isn't any "magic" here.  The znc package
includes man pages in its output directory, but 'man' won't know about
it unless it's on $MANPATH.  In order to make Guix set the proper
MANPATH, you need to include man-db because that package is the one
that defines the native search path for MANPATH.  Check out the man-db
package recipe in gnu/packages/man.scm to see how we encode these
details.

Hope this helps,

- Dave

Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[myglc2]

On 01/29/2018 at 15:46 Thompson, David writes:

> On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 2:20 PM, Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net> wrote:
>> George myglc2 Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> I tried to use 'guix environment' to check out znc this way ...
>>>
>>> guix environment --ad-hoc znc -- emacs -nw
>>>
>>> the znc man is unavailable ...
>>
>> I have been wondering the same. It would be nice if at least the man and
>> info documentation was available somehow. What needs to be done in this
>> regard?
>
> If you want to use 'man', include the man-db package in your
> environment. If you want to use 'info', include the info-reader
> package (I think).
>
> To be more general, there isn't any "magic" here.  The znc package
> includes man pages in its output directory, but 'man' won't know about
> it unless it's on $MANPATH.  In order to make Guix set the proper
> MANPATH, you need to include man-db because that package is the one
> that defines the native search path for MANPATH.  Check out the man-db
> package recipe in gnu/packages/man.scm to see how we encode these
> details.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> - Dave

Thank you Dave! That does help ;-)

So 'guix package -i znc' implicitly adds man-db and info-reader.

Maybe 'guix environment --add-hoc znc' should do that too?

Does this merit submission to bug-guix or guix-devel?

TIA - George

Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[Thompson, David]

On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 7:47 PM,  <myglc2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So 'guix package -i znc' implicitly adds man-db and info-reader.
>
> Maybe 'guix environment --add-hoc znc' should do that too?

Sorry, that's not quite right.  Running 'guix package -i znc' will
install znc and *nothing* else. Only by additionally installing man-db
to your profile will you have MANPATH configured properly.  'guix
package' and 'guix environment' are consistent with each other since
they both use the same underlying profile management code.

Hope this clears things up further,

- Dave

Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[George myglc2 Clemmer]

On 01/30/2018 at 01:16 Thompson writes:

> On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 7:47 PM,  <myglc2@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So 'guix package -i znc' implicitly adds man-db and info-reader.
>>
>> Maybe 'guix environment --add-hoc znc' should do that too?
>
> Sorry, that's not quite right.  Running 'guix package -i znc' will
> install znc and *nothing* else. Only by additionally installing man-db
> to your profile will you have MANPATH configured properly.  'guix
> package' and 'guix environment' are consistent with each other since
> they both use the same underlying profile management code.
>
> Hope this clears things up further,
>
> - Dave

Gee, that's not what I see here.  I did 'guix package -i znc' and 'man
znc' become immediately available in all my sessions and man-db is not
in my profile ...

g1@g1 ~$ guix package -I | grep man-db
g1@g1 ~$ guix --version
guix (GNU Guix) 0.14.0.1050-2cdf1

BTW, I'm running GuixSD.

Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[Oleg Pykhalov]

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Hello George,

George myglc2 Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> writes:

> On 01/30/2018 at 01:16 Thompson writes:

[...]

> Gee, that's not what I see here.  I did 'guix package -i znc' and 'man
> znc' become immediately available in all my sessions and man-db is not
> in my profile ...

[...]

> BTW, I'm running GuixSD.

man-db should be in your system's profile, which you could see with

    guix gc --references /run/current-system/profile | grep man-db


Oleg.

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Re: How do I check out a package w/o installing it?

[Arun Isaac]

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> writes:

> On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 2:20 PM, Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net> wrote:
>> George myglc2 Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> I tried to use 'guix environment' to check out znc this way ...
>>>
>>> guix environment --ad-hoc znc -- emacs -nw
>>>
>>> the znc man is unavailable ...
>>
>> I have been wondering the same. It would be nice if at least the man and
>> info documentation was available somehow. What needs to be done in this
>> regard?
>
> If you want to use 'man', include the man-db package in your
> environment. If you want to use 'info', include the info-reader
> package (I think).
>
> To be more general, there isn't any "magic" here.  The znc package
> includes man pages in its output directory, but 'man' won't know about
> it unless it's on $MANPATH.  In order to make Guix set the proper
> MANPATH, you need to include man-db because that package is the one
> that defines the native search path for MANPATH.

This makes sense. I also verified it, and it works for me. Thanks!