Run .deb or .rpm packages

Run .deb or .rpm packages

[André A. Gomes]

Hi Guix,

I'm wondering if it's possible to install .deb or .rpm packages on the
Guix system.

For context, my government only provides me these solutions to install a
authentication plugin that I use with my ID (smart) card.

Thanks.


-- 
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Gary Johnson]

André A. Gomes <andremegafone@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Guix,
>
> I'm wondering if it's possible to install .deb or .rpm packages on the
> Guix system.
>
> For context, my government only provides me these solutions to install a
> authentication plugin that I use with my ID (smart) card.
>
> Thanks.

Hi André,

You can install the `dpkg` package with `guix package -i dpkg`. Hope
that helps.

Good luck,
  Gary

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Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[André A. Gomes]

Gary Johnson <lambdatronic@disroot.org> writes:

> André A. Gomes <andremegafone@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi Guix,
>>
>> I'm wondering if it's possible to install .deb or .rpm packages on the
>> Guix system.
>>
>> For context, my government only provides me these solutions to install a
>> authentication plugin that I use with my ID (smart) card.
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> Hi André,
>
> You can install the `dpkg` package with `guix package -i dpkg`. Hope
> that helps.

Indeed.  I should have said that I did that, and then encountered the
following issue:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ sudo dpkg -i foo-package.deb 
dpkg: error: unable to access the dpkg database directory /gnu/store/902w5i1j38r33l6p871dyhng19zj1phk-dpkg-1.20.9/var/lib/dpkg: Read-only file system
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Any ideas?  I don't know much about .deb or .rpm.

Thank you Gary.


-- 
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Julien Lepiller]

I don't think it's a good idea to use a .deb or .rpm with guix, as they contain precompiled software. Even considering free software, they are compiled with a giver system (probably ubuntu and fedora, respectively) that make them incompatible with guix. Even if you successfuly installed them, I'm afraid you'd get a confusing "file not found" anyway.

You should ask your government for the source code, and compile it for the guix system. Sorry that this is my best answer, it's probably not what you wanted to hear :/ 

Le 8 décembre 2021 14:46:24 GMT-05:00, "André A. Gomes" <andremegafone@gmail.com> a écrit :
>Gary Johnson <lambdatronic@disroot.org> writes:
>
>> André A. Gomes <andremegafone@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Hi Guix,
>>>
>>> I'm wondering if it's possible to install .deb or .rpm packages on the
>>> Guix system.
>>>
>>> For context, my government only provides me these solutions to install a
>>> authentication plugin that I use with my ID (smart) card.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>
>> Hi André,
>>
>> You can install the `dpkg` package with `guix package -i dpkg`. Hope
>> that helps.
>
>Indeed.  I should have said that I did that, and then encountered the
>following issue:
>
>--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>$ sudo dpkg -i foo-package.deb 
>dpkg: error: unable to access the dpkg database directory /gnu/store/902w5i1j38r33l6p871dyhng19zj1phk-dpkg-1.20.9/var/lib/dpkg: Read-only file system
>--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
>Any ideas?  I don't know much about .deb or .rpm.
>
>Thank you Gary.
>
>
>-- 
>André A. Gomes
>"Free Thought, Free World"
>

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[André A. Gomes]

Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu> writes:

> I don't think it's a good idea to use a .deb or .rpm with guix, as
> they contain precompiled software. Even considering free software,
> they are compiled with a giver system (probably ubuntu and fedora,
> respectively) that make them incompatible with guix. Even if you
> successfuly installed them, I'm afraid you'd get a confusing "file not
> found" anyway.
>
> You should ask your government for the source code, and compile it for
> the guix system. Sorry that this is my best answer, it's probably not
> what you wanted to hear :/

I totally agree with you.  I actually made that request, but I was told
that I have no right to access the sources :)

I was wondering if it was technically possible, though.  But I
understand your comment that I'd get a "file not found" anyway.

From a freedom perspective, what are my options?  Running a virtual
machine with ubuntu/fedora for this sole purpose?  Thank you Julien.


-- 
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Remco]

2021/12/08 20:10, André A. Gomes:

> From a freedom perspective, what are my options?  Running a virtual
> machine with ubuntu/fedora for this sole purpose?

I've had some success running debian packages from a chroot environment
on my guix installation.  There's a debootstrap package which allows you
to create a chroot environment.

Something like:

  guix shell debootstrap -- debootstrap --arch=amd64 bullseye my-bullseye-install

and then:

  mount -t proc proc my-bullseye-install/proc
  mount -t devpts devpts my-bullseye-install/dev/pts
  chroot my-bullseye-install /bin/bash --login

You'll probably need to run all these as root.

Remco

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[André A. Gomes]

Remco <me@rwv.io> writes:

> 2021/12/08 20:10, André A. Gomes:
>
>> From a freedom perspective, what are my options?  Running a virtual
>> machine with ubuntu/fedora for this sole purpose?
>
> I've had some success running debian packages from a chroot environment
> on my guix installation.  There's a debootstrap package which allows you
> to create a chroot environment.
>
> Something like:
>
>   guix shell debootstrap -- debootstrap --arch=amd64 bullseye my-bullseye-install
>
> and then:
>
>   mount -t proc proc my-bullseye-install/proc
>   mount -t devpts devpts my-bullseye-install/dev/pts
>   chroot my-bullseye-install /bin/bash --login
>
> You'll probably need to run all these as root.

Thank you for this valuable tip, Remco.


-- 
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Timmy Douglas]

André A. Gomes <andremegafone@gmail.com> writes:

> I was wondering if it was technically possible, though.  But I
> understand your comment that I'd get a "file not found" anyway.
>
> From a freedom perspective, what are my options?  Running a virtual
> machine with ubuntu/fedora for this sole purpose?

you might consider containers as another option-- start an ubuntu
docker container and install it in there.

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Hartmut Goebel]

Hi,

Le 8 décembre 2021 14:46:24 GMT-05:00, "André A. Gomes"<andremegafone@gmail.com>  a écrit :

> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> $ sudo dpkg -i foo-package.deb
> dpkg: error: unable to access the dpkg database directory /gnu/store/902w5i1j38r33l6p871dyhng19zj1phk-dpkg-1.20.9/var/lib/dpkg: Read-only file system
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> Any ideas?  I don't know much about .deb or .rpm.

Beside Julien's objections: There might be legitimate use of installing 
.deb or .rpm packages and they might even work. E.g. i one wants to 
install free software provided as a .deb only and at the moment does not 
have the time to create a package definition for it.

So, "dpkg" and "rpm" should at least work :-)

Regarding the error show above: One would need to add 
"--localstatedir=/var" to the config flags (not sure whether this would 
build, then, since most probably "make install" will try to create 
"/var/lib/dpkg" which will fail in the build container.

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

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

Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Efraim Flashner]

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On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 10:30:36AM +0100, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Le 8 décembre 2021 14:46:24 GMT-05:00, "André A. Gomes"<andremegafone@gmail.com>  a écrit :
> 
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> > $ sudo dpkg -i foo-package.deb
> > dpkg: error: unable to access the dpkg database directory /gnu/store/902w5i1j38r33l6p871dyhng19zj1phk-dpkg-1.20.9/var/lib/dpkg: Read-only file system
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> > 
> > Any ideas?  I don't know much about .deb or .rpm.
> 
> Beside Julien's objections: There might be legitimate use of installing .deb
> or .rpm packages and they might even work. E.g. i one wants to install free
> software provided as a .deb only and at the moment does not have the time to
> create a package definition for it.
> 
> So, "dpkg" and "rpm" should at least work :-)
> 
> Regarding the error show above: One would need to add "--localstatedir=/var"
> to the config flags (not sure whether this would build, then, since most
> probably "make install" will try to create "/var/lib/dpkg" which will fail
> in the build container.
> 

When I packaged dpkg I deliberately didn't "fix" the localstatedir or
any other flags since Guix doesn't support installing packages from .deb
archives. Similar to the rpm package it is primarily used for the other
parts of the package.

Vagrant has said in the past though that Guix's dpkg can be used to
install packages on Debian based systems.

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Efraim Flashner   <efraim@flashner.co.il>   רנשלפ םירפא
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Re: Run .deb or .rpm packages

[Vagrant Cascadian]

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On 2021-12-12, Efraim Flashner wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 10:30:36AM +0100, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
>> Le 8 décembre 2021 14:46:24 GMT-05:00, "André A. Gomes"<andremegafone@gmail.com>  a écrit :
>> 
>> > --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> > $ sudo dpkg -i foo-package.deb
>> > dpkg: error: unable to access the dpkg database directory /gnu/store/902w5i1j38r33l6p871dyhng19zj1phk-dpkg-1.20.9/var/lib/dpkg: Read-only file system
>> > --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>> > 
>> > Any ideas?  I don't know much about .deb or .rpm.
>> 
>> Beside Julien's objections: There might be legitimate use of installing .deb
>> or .rpm packages and they might even work. E.g. i one wants to install free
>> software provided as a .deb only and at the moment does not have the time to
>> create a package definition for it.
>> 
>> So, "dpkg" and "rpm" should at least work :-)
>> 
>> Regarding the error show above: One would need to add "--localstatedir=/var"
>> to the config flags (not sure whether this would build, then, since most
>> probably "make install" will try to create "/var/lib/dpkg" which will fail
>> in the build container.
>> 
>
> When I packaged dpkg I deliberately didn't "fix" the localstatedir or
> any other flags since Guix doesn't support installing packages from .deb
> archives. Similar to the rpm package it is primarily used for the other
> parts of the package.
>
> Vagrant has said in the past though that Guix's dpkg can be used to
> install packages on Debian based systems.

I don't think I would recommend trying that! It *might* technically work
with some changes to the guix dpkg package, it seems a bit risky; you'd
probably have a "native" dpkg available and I'm not sure I see the
benefit then.

I mostly found it useful to extract (dpkg-deb --extract PACKAGE.deb,
dpkg-deb --control PACKAGE.ded) and inspect .deb packages from Guix
System.

Whenever I need a Debian environment on Guix System I usually just use
debootstrap to create a chroot and work from there.


Thanks everyone for Debianing your Guixs and Guixing your Debians!


live well,
  vagrant

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