From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Taylan Kammer Subject: Better support for single-user systems Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2018 14:51:51 +0100 Message-ID: <87in0cghoo.fsf@gmail.com> Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33796) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gTRE3-0003Ny-Rd for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:51:56 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gTRE3-0001CF-3I for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:51:55 -0500 Received: from mail-wm1-x341.google.com ([2a00:1450:4864:20::341]:52849) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gTRE2-0001Bs-To for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Dec 2018 07:51:55 -0500 Received: by mail-wm1-x341.google.com with SMTP id r11-v6so3082597wmb.2 for ; Sun, 02 Dec 2018 04:51:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from guixsd ([2a02:908:c3a:3900:e133:1cb5:ad13:a319]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id k135sm6430472wmd.42.2018.12.02.04.51.52 for (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 bits=256/256); Sun, 02 Dec 2018 04:51:52 -0800 (PST) List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: guix-devel@gnu.org Most desktop users have single unix account and are also in control of root. These users might not want to differentiate between the current guix version of root and their normal user. They might also not want to differentiate between the packages available to root and the normal user. As such I would propose the following two improvements: - Allow a system-wide guix installation that's updated with a special variant of 'guix pull' executed by root - Allow direct addition of packages to the system profile to obviate the need of running a full 'guix system reconfigure' after adding packages to the system configuration (The latter might show a reminder that if the package isn't also added to the system config, it will be removed again on the next system reconfiguration.) Currently I use a hack to imitate #1 where I have a unix account called 'guix-user' with which I run 'guix pull', and both root and my normal user have symlinks to that user's current guix. For #2 I don't have a workaround; I just re-run 'guix system reconfigure' every time. What do others think? - Taylan