Inconsistency between "guix system" and "guix package"

Inconsistency between "guix system" and "guix package"

[Hartmut Goebel]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 707 bytes --]

Hi,

I just stepped into problems listing the generations of "system". Then I
found out:

"guix system" uses sub-commands

    guix system list-generations
    guix system roll-back
    guix system switch-generation


Contrary to this "guix package" uses options:

    guix package --list-generations
    guix package --switch-generation
    guix package --roll-back
    guix package --delete-generations

Please also note there is no "guix system delete-generations"!

This difference is confusing. Should I report this as a bug?

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |


[-- Attachment #2: 0xBF773B65.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-keys, Size: 14855 bytes --]

Re: Inconsistency between "guix system" and "guix package"

[Oleg Pykhalov]

Hello Hartmut,

Hartmut Goebel <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I just stepped into problems listing the generations of "system". Then I
> found out:
>
> "guix system" uses sub-commands
>
>     guix system list-generations
>     guix system roll-back
>     guix system switch-generation
>
>
> Contrary to this "guix package" uses options:
>
>     guix package --list-generations
>     guix package --switch-generation
>     guix package --roll-back
>     guix package --delete-generations

As I understand you mean ‘--’.  I guess it's required, because with
‘system’ you could do additional ACTIONS as ‘guix system --help’ says.
ACTIONS includes more OPTIONS.  It will be a mess to include all not
related OPTIONS from ACTIONS (really long ‘--help’).

> Please also note there is no "guix system delete-generations"!

Yes, as I remember there is no command to clean up system generations.
At least I didn't find one.  So I wrote a script to remove system
generations older than 14 days (second line) and remove guile packages
older than 2 weeks (third line).

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
#!/bin/sh
exec find /var/guix/profiles/* -maxdepth 0 -mtime +14 -not -name per-user -exec sudo unlink {} \;
exec guix package --delete-generations=2w
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

> This difference is confusing. Should I report this as a bug?

Probably no, because it's not a bug.  Just a discussion about
improvement, which guix-devel mailing list is enough.

Re: Inconsistency between "guix system" and "guix package"

[Alex Kost]

Hartmut Goebel (2017-09-22 14:13 +0200) wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just stepped into problems listing the generations of "system". Then I
> found out:
>
> "guix system" uses sub-commands
>
>     guix system list-generations
>     guix system roll-back
>     guix system switch-generation
>
> Contrary to this "guix package" uses options:
>
>     guix package --list-generations
>     guix package --switch-generation
>     guix package --roll-back
>     guix package --delete-generations
>
> Please also note there is no "guix system delete-generations"!
>
> This difference is confusing. Should I report this as a bug?

I think it's not a bug, just some inconsistency that was accumulated
with time.  I also asked about it 2 years ago:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2015-10/msg00960.html

My understanding is that people would agree on unified actions/options
for "package" and "system" commands.  The problem is that no one has
worked in this direction :-)

-- 
Alex

Re: Inconsistency between "guix system" and "guix package"

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hey hey!

Alex Kost <alezost@gmail.com> skribis:

> Hartmut Goebel (2017-09-22 14:13 +0200) wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just stepped into problems listing the generations of "system". Then I
>> found out:
>>
>> "guix system" uses sub-commands
>>
>>     guix system list-generations
>>     guix system roll-back
>>     guix system switch-generation
>>
>> Contrary to this "guix package" uses options:
>>
>>     guix package --list-generations
>>     guix package --switch-generation
>>     guix package --roll-back
>>     guix package --delete-generations
>>
>> Please also note there is no "guix system delete-generations"!
>>
>> This difference is confusing. Should I report this as a bug?
>
> I think it's not a bug, just some inconsistency that was accumulated
> with time.  I also asked about it 2 years ago:
>
>   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2015-10/msg00960.html
>
> My understanding is that people would agree on unified actions/options
> for "package" and "system" commands.  The problem is that no one has
> worked in this direction :-)

That’s a good summary.  :-)

There’s also the problem that ‘guix package’ needs to support multiple
actions on the same line, for transactions, as in:

  guix package -i guile -r python

So we cannot just have “guix package install” or “guix package remove”.

Thoughts?

It’s one of these simple problems that appear to lack a simple solution.
:-)

Ludo’.

Re: Inconsistency between "guix system" and "guix package"

[Hartmut Goebel]

Am 02.10.2017 um 16:43 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:
> So we cannot just have “guix package install” or “guix package remove”.
>
> Thoughts?

use the dashes in "guix system", too:

guix system --roll-back

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |