First installation - Questions

First installation - Questions

[Sohom Bhattacharjee]

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Hello Guix!

First timer here!

I recently attempted to install GUIX SD on my laptop. After about 5
initial iterations I was finally able to get GUIX SD on my laptop so
that it just worked. I used the basic config for my first try and I kept
on modifying that config for the subsequent 'init's. Here is my current
config: https://gitlab.com/83bytes/guix/blob/master/myConfig.scm


1. Is there any way to remove all desktop services and run it in a
do-it-yourself mode (much like with Arch Linux) i.e. login into terminal
and startx to start the Xorg ?

2. From reading the docs I figure that we are supposed to write
config.scm for everything including web servers. This also means doing a
`guix system reconfigure` after every change (even the trivial ones like
setting up another virtual host etc). Is there any way I can *not* do
this and run certain services like Apache or cron without declaring them
in the config ?

3. If i do not declare a service in the config and i go on using it
traditionally (assuming we can do that); then does it mean that this
undeclared service will get lost upon a `guix system reconfigure` ?

4. How do I modify elogind settings ? ( i want to disable power button
and lid button controls )

5. When i do a `guix size <package>` the sizes are generally huge (1.3Gb
for icecat in my system). Why is it so ?

6. Is there a list of which packages are available as rebuilt
"substitutes" ( is this correct ?? ) and which ones need to be built
locally ?


Thank You,

Sohom


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Re: First installation - Questions

[Arun Isaac]

Sohom Bhattacharjee writes:

> 5. When i do a `guix size <package>` the sizes are generally huge (1.3Gb
> for icecat in my system). Why is it so ?

`guix size <package>' reports the size of the entire dependency tree,
not just the one package you specify. Notice that `guix size <package1>'
and `guix size <package2>' add up to more than `guix size <package1>
<package2>'. This is because <package1> and <package2> share parts of
their dependency trees.

> 6. Is there a list of which packages are available as rebuilt
> "substitutes" ( is this correct ?? ) and which ones need to be built
> locally ?

Perhaps, this thread is what you're looking for?

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2017-06/msg00253.html

Re: First installation - Questions

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello Sohom,

Sohom Bhattacharjee <soham.bhattacharjee15@gmail.com> skribis:

> I recently attempted to install GUIX SD on my laptop. After about 5
> initial iterations I was finally able to get GUIX SD on my laptop so
> that it just worked. I used the basic config for my first try and I kept
> on modifying that config for the subsequent 'init's. Here is my current
> config: https://gitlab.com/83bytes/guix/blob/master/myConfig.scm
>
>
> 1. Is there any way to remove all desktop services and run it in a
> do-it-yourself mode (much like with Arch Linux) i.e. login into terminal
> and startx to start the Xorg ?

I think we don’t have a way to get ‘startx’ yet (help welcome!), so for
now, the most DIY-mode we have is shown in the “lightweight-desktop”
example with ratpoison & co.:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Using-the-Configuration-System.html#System-Services

> 2. From reading the docs I figure that we are supposed to write
> config.scm for everything including web servers. This also means doing a
> `guix system reconfigure` after every change (even the trivial ones like
> setting up another virtual host etc). Is there any way I can *not* do
> this and run certain services like Apache or cron without declaring them
> in the config ?

You can always run them “by hand”, but then you don’t get the advantages
of using GuixSD.

What makes you wary of running “guix system reconfigure”?

> 3. If i do not declare a service in the config and i go on using it
> traditionally (assuming we can do that); then does it mean that this
> undeclared service will get lost upon a `guix system reconfigure` ?

If you run it with custom scripts and the likes, “guix system” will not
know about it so it won’t get lost.

However, things like user accounts manually added will get lost on the
next reboot.

> 4. How do I modify elogind settings ? ( i want to disable power button
> and lid button controls )

elogind has a wealth of settings:

  https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Desktop-Services.html#index-elogind_002dservice

You can modify them using ‘modify-services’, as in:

  (operating-system
    ;; …
    (services (modify-services %desktop-services
                (elogind-service-type config =>
                                      (elogind-configuration
                                        (inherit config)
                                        (handle-power-key 'suspend))))))

> 5. When i do a `guix size <package>` the sizes are generally huge (1.3Gb
> for icecat in my system). Why is it so ?

Arun explained this, hope that clarifies a bit.

> 6. Is there a list of which packages are available as rebuilt
> "substitutes" ( is this correct ?? ) and which ones need to be built
> locally ?

To complement Arun’s answer, “guix build PKG --dry-run” shows you what
would be built and what would be downloaded as pre-built binaries.

HTH!

Ludo’.

Re: First installation - Questions

[Sohom Bhattacharjee]

On 07/10/2017 03:14 PM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hello Sohom,
>
> Sohom Bhattacharjee <soham.bhattacharjee15@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> I recently attempted to install GUIX SD on my laptop. After about 5
>> initial iterations I was finally able to get GUIX SD on my laptop so
>> that it just worked. I used the basic config for my first try and I kept
>> on modifying that config for the subsequent 'init's. Here is my current
>> config: https://gitlab.com/83bytes/guix/blob/master/myConfig.scm
>>
>>
>> 1. Is there any way to remove all desktop services and run it in a
>> do-it-yourself mode (much like with Arch Linux) i.e. login into terminal
>> and startx to start the Xorg ?
> I think we don’t have a way to get ‘startx’ yet (help welcome!), so for
> now, the most DIY-mode we have is shown in the “lightweight-desktop”
> example with ratpoison & co.:
>
>   https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Using-the-Configuration-System.html#System-Service
>> 2. From reading the docs I figure that we are supposed to write
>> config.scm for everything including web servers. This also means doing a
>> `guix system reconfigure` after every change (even the trivial ones like
>> setting up another virtual host etc). Is there any way I can *not* do
>> this and run certain services like Apache or cron without declaring them
>> in the config ?
> You can always run them “by hand”, but then you don’t get the advantages
> of using GuixSD.
>
> What makes you wary of running “guix system reconfigure”?
After my second installation of Guix SD i changed a lot stuff in the
config file and reconfigured but somehow that didn't work properly. So i
ended up having to do single edits to the config and then running
reconfigure after every edit.  That worked nicely.

Also I couldn't help but think that in GUIX we would need to have
multiple declarations on the config for multiple virtual-hosts in nginx
and other web servers. Right ?
This means we should run a guix system reconfigure even if we want to
add another virtual-host.

I'm not wary of "guix system reconfigure", it just feels "new".

I guess I will have to ease into it. :-)

>
>> 3. If i do not declare a service in the config and i go on using it
>> traditionally (assuming we can do that); then does it mean that this
>> undeclared service will get lost upon a `guix system reconfigure` ?
> If you run it with custom scripts and the likes, “guix system” will not
> know about it so it won’t get lost.
>
> However, things like user accounts manually added will get lost on the
> next reboot.
That helped a lot! :-)

>> 4. How do I modify elogind settings ? ( i want to disable power button
>> and lid button controls )
> elogind has a wealth of settings:
>
>   https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Desktop-Services.html#index-elogind_002dservice
>
> You can modify them using ‘modify-services’, as in:
>
>   (operating-system
>     ;; …
>     (services (modify-services %desktop-services
>                 (elogind-service-type config =>
>                                       (elogind-configuration
>                                         (inherit config)
>                                         (handle-power-key 'suspend))))))

Wow! Thanks!
>> 5. When i do a `guix size <package>` the sizes are generally huge (1.3Gb
>> for icecat in my system). Why is it so ?
> Arun explained this, hope that clarifies a bit.
>
>> 6. Is there a list of which packages are available as rebuilt
>> "substitutes" ( is this correct ?? ) and which ones need to be built
>> locally ?
> To complement Arun’s answer, “guix build PKG --dry-run” shows you what
> would be built and what would be downloaded as pre-built binaries.
Thanks for this one!

> HTH!
>
> Ludo’.
p.s. apologies for the late reply!

Thank You,
Sohom.

Re: First installation - Questions

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

Sohom Bhattacharjee <soham.bhattacharjee15@gmail.com> skribis:

> On 07/10/2017 03:14 PM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

[...]

>>> 2. From reading the docs I figure that we are supposed to write
>>> config.scm for everything including web servers. This also means doing a
>>> `guix system reconfigure` after every change (even the trivial ones like
>>> setting up another virtual host etc). Is there any way I can *not* do
>>> this and run certain services like Apache or cron without declaring them
>>> in the config ?
>> You can always run them “by hand”, but then you don’t get the advantages
>> of using GuixSD.
>>
>> What makes you wary of running “guix system reconfigure”?
> After my second installation of Guix SD i changed a lot stuff in the
> config file and reconfigured but somehow that didn't work properly. So i
> ended up having to do single edits to the config and then running
> reconfigure after every edit.  That worked nicely.
>
> Also I couldn't help but think that in GUIX we would need to have
> multiple declarations on the config for multiple virtual-hosts in nginx
> and other web servers. Right ?

Yes.

> This means we should run a guix system reconfigure even if we want to
> add another virtual-host.
>
> I'm not wary of "guix system reconfigure", it just feels "new".
>
> I guess I will have to ease into it. :-)

It sure feels different.  :-)  My recommendation would be to test new
configs with ‘guix system vm’ first.  That allows you to figure out
obvious issues with service configs, etc.

Of course hardware-related issues can only be discovered when you boot
the config on the bare metal.

Cheers,
Ludo’.