Re: guix system init co-existing with other distros

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org> skribis:

> I am using this snippet in (operatating-system) to multi-boot
>
>   (bootloader
>    (grub-configuration
>     (device "/dev/sda")
>     ;; Here is my hack (grub-configuration appends bzImage to `linux')
>     ;; to add a custom entry for debian on /dev/sda3 to the Grub menu
>     ;; On Debian, do:
>     ;;   sudo mkdir -p /boot/latest
>     ;;   sudo ln -s $(ls -t /boot/vmlinuz*|head -1) /boot/latest/bzImage
>     ;;   sudo ln -s $(ls -t /boot/initrd*|head -1) /boot/latest/initrd
>     (menu-entries
>      (list (menu-entry
>             (label "debian")
>             (linux "(hd0,msdos3)/boot/latest")
>             (linux-arguments
>              '("root=UUID=73ede06b-19e0-4d09-bc1e-23fe6c76d77a ro"))
>             (initrd "(hd0,msdos3)/boot/latest/initrd"))))))

Did you run “guix system init config.scm /”?

That’s how I did my first GuixSD install long ago, so I had a safety net
since the other distro was still around.

However, in practice, each distro will want to fiddle with /etc, so it
is inconvenient at best to switch distros if they share the same root
file system.

> how are you all doing this?  Can we/do we want to give almost-GuixSD
> users a better experience?

Good question!  I’m not sure I fully understand your hack but I’d like
to read more about it.  :-)

Ludo’.