Re: GC hints

[Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>]

Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:

> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>
>> Hi Ludovic,
>>
>> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>>
>>> Actually, I was also wondering whether we should provide a configurable
>>> mechanism that would, by default, automatically delete old GC roots and
>>> maybe even run the GC automatically when needed—similar to what Git
>>> does.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> I think it's reasonable to automatically run GC by default, but I would
>> strongly advise against deleting GC roots automatically by default
>> without the user's knowledge and consent.
>
> Just to be clear, I agree with you, Mark.  Guix shouldn't delete GC
> roots automatically by default.  I think we were just saying that it
> might be nice if a user could configure Guix to automatically delete GC
> roots according to some policy (e.g., retain the last 2, and delete any
> others older than 1 month).  Guix would only delete the GC roots
> according to the policy that the user has set, and if no policy has been
> set, the default would be not to delete any of the GC roots.

As long as it's not the default behavior, I think this would be a nice
feature to have.

       Thanks!
         Mark