Zelphir Kaltstahl <zelphirkaltstahl@posteo.de> writes:

> Hi Guix Users!
>
> I would like to repair or reinstall my Guix package manager
> installation, because it seems broken and nothing I tried fixes the problem.
>
> The problem:
>
> ~~~~
> xiaolong@xlx200:~/Downloads$ guix pull
> Migrating profile generations to '/var/guix/profiles/per-user/xiaolong'...
> guix pull: error: symlink: File exists: "/var/guix/profiles/per-user/xiaolong/current-guix"
> ~~~~
>
> It started appearing, when I once ran `guix pull` and `guix package -u`
> as `root` user, to update my locales in the root profile.

This can happen if you become root by any other method than 'sudo -i' or
'su -', because the root shell will otherwise inherit variables such as
$HOME, leading to this problem.

[...]

> ~~~~
> xiaolong@xlx200:~/Downloads$ guix pull
> Migrating profile generations to '/var/guix/profiles/per-user/xiaolong'...
> Updating channel 'guix' from Git repository at 'https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git'...
> guix pull: error: Git error: failed open - '/home/xiaolong/.cache/guix/checkouts/pjmkglp4t7znuugeurpurzikxq3tnlaywmisyr27shj7apsnalwq/.git/FETCH_HEAD' is locked: Permission denied
> ~~~~

You can fix this by either deleting the directory, or

   sudo chown -R xiaolong:xiaolong /home/xiaolong/.cache/guix/checkouts/pjmkglp4t7znuugeurpurzikxq3tnlaywmisyr27shj7apsnalwq

Similarly, chowning or deleting /var/guix-profiles/per-user/xiaolong is
the only way to fix the permissions issue on the profile.

[...]

> So I a basically giving up now and want to reinstall. I downloaded the
> install script `guix-install.sh` from the website and ran it:
>
> ~~~~
> xiaolong@xlx200:~/Downloads$ sudo bash guix-install.sh 
>
> (... big GUIX logo here ...)
>
> This script installs GNU Guix on your system
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/
> Press return to continue...
> [1593338927.330]: Starting installation (So 28. Jun 12:08:47 CEST 2020)
> [1593338927.333]: [ PASS ] verification of required commands completed
> [1593338927.364]: [ INFO ] init system is: systemd
> [1593338927.368]: [ INFO ] system is x86_64-linux
> [1593338928.075]: [ PASS ] Release for your system: guix-binary-1.1.0.x86_64-linux
> [1593338928.077]: [ INFO ] Downloading Guix release archive
> guix-binary-1.1.0.x86_64 100%[==================================>]  70,14M  4,27MB/s    in 21s     
> guix-binary-1.1.0.x86_64 100%[==================================>]     833  --.-KB/s    in 0s      
> [1593338949.457]: [ PASS ] download completed.
> [1593338950.341]: [ PASS ] Signature is valid.
> [1593338959.807]: [ PASS ] unpacked archive
> [1593338959.808]: [ FAIL ] A previous Guix installation was found.  Refusing to overwrite.
> ~~~~
>
> "OK OK! I'll uninstall the previous one!"
>
> But how do I do it exactly? Or is there a flag or anything I can give to
> make it overwrite the previous installation?

Reinstalling still won't fix the permissions on your
~/.cache/guix/checkouts.  But to eradicate Guix and let the script do
its thing you should 'sudo rm -rf /var/guix /gnu'.

Hope this helps!