Re: Status of ZFS support on Guix

[Ian Eure <ian@retrospec.tv>]

Hi Kaelyn, Morgan,

Kaelyn <kaelyn.alexi@protonmail.com> writes:

> On Tuesday, October 1st, 2024 at 1:23 PM, Morgan Arnold 
> <morgan.arnold@proton.me> wrote:
>
> I'd love to know where any opposition may be at as well. At this 
> point
> I have a private channel which actually replaces much of the
> bootloader and initrd functionality (in part to support ZFS in 
> the
> initrd using https://issues.guix.gnu.org/55231). In the past 
> year, I
> actually took advantage of having basically replicated much of 
> the
> initrd functionality in my channel to create a simple bootloader 
> based
> on the Linux kernel (with the EFI stubloader) and a custom 
> initrd that
> uses kexec to boot the actual system. It still needs a lot of 
> polish,
> but has been good enough that combined with a few other small 
> hacks
> and workarounds, I have several systems now booting with ZFS 
> roots
> (some unencrypted, some using native encryption). I have done 
> little
> to upstream most of it, or even to share what I've done, because 
> of
> the seeming resistance to ZFS.
>

I don’t think there’s resistance to ZFS.  I do think there are 
some legitimate open questions around licensing[1], but the main 
issue seems to be that the contributor of #45692 chose to express 
their frustration with the slow pace of Guix patch review[2] in 
counterproductive and borderline abusive ways[3][4].

Personally, I’d very much like to see improved support for ZFS in 
Guix.  I have one machine with a cobbled-together Guix ZFS setup, 
but proper support is a blocker for moving my primary ZFS-using 
system off Debian.

Thanks,

  — Ian

[1]: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/45692#75
[2]: Which I *extremely* sympathize with.
[3]: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/45692#72
[4]: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/45692#78