Giovanni Biscuolo <g@xelera.eu> writes:

[...]

>> but I think this is close to the right track.  Either operating-system
>> should be extended to support things like disk partitioning,

the library for doing this with Guile is guile-parted (packaged in
Guix); it's used by the Guix Installer:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/installer/parted.scm

AFAIU this (parted.scm above) is the starting point (the Guix library)
that can be used to develop a program that automates the disk
partitioning and filesystem creation based on a gexp (disk-layout.scm ?)
declaration.

>> and effect those changes at reconfigure time (with suitable
>> safeguards to avoid wrecking existing installs),
>
> I would prefer not, such "reconfigurations" should be done "out of band"
> and not "in band", IMHO

Side note: there is a recent discussion on a "Resize Filesystem Service"
at this thread
id:ZR0P278MB0268910B4FE39A48112CE740C186A@ZR0P278MB0268.CHEP278.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM
[1]

[...]

Happy hacking! Gio'



[1] https://yhetil.org/guix/ZR0P278MB0268910B4FE39A48112CE740C186A@ZR0P278MB0268.CHEP278.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM/

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures