Re: New VM image

[Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com>]

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Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> The attached config file can be used to produce a 2.9G QCOW image
> (uncompressed) that internally appears to have a 20G file system:

Nice!

> I think it would fill the need of those who want to see what Guix is
> like, and also the need of developers who want to test their software on
> Guix without installing it (I’d argue that installing Guix on top of
> their distro is simpler, but some people will use the VM image for that
> purpose anyway.)
>
> What do people think?

I like it!  Is it intended to replace gnu/system/examples/vm-image.tmpl?

The phrase "live image" suggests a live USB stick that can be booted as
a live system.  To avoid confusion, would it be better to just call it a
"VM image"?  I don't feel that strongly about it.

> (define this-file
>   (local-file "./vm-live.tmpl" "config.scm"))

Cute!  But FYI, I tried building this and it failed at first, since I
renamed the file and forgot about this reference.  I then re-ran the
command from the same directory as the file, which of course worked.

I built it, booted with 1 CPU and 1024 MB of RAM, logged in, and
successfully built GNU Hello.  I confirmed that changes persist across
reboots, and that the file system appears to have about 16 GB of space
left.

When I booted into the system, I noticed some things:

- There are many folders on the desktop.  For example, there is one for
  "/sys/fs/cgroup/memory".  A minor blemish, but rather odd.

- The "guest" user cannot run "sudo".  However, after you invoke
  "passwd" and change the password to something, you can invoke sudo.  I
  guess this is a side effect of using an empty password.  Would it be
  hard to arrange for the "guest" user to be allowed passwordless sudo?
  I guess I should have listened to your comment in the config file and
  given root/guest a password from the start!

- "sudo herd status" reports that term-auto and user-homes is stopped,
  which I think might be intended, but I'm not sure.  I also see
  possibly unnecessary services: wpa-supplicant, upower-daemon.  The VM
  probably doesn't need wpa-supplicant, but maybe it needs
  upower-daemon?  Not sure.

- There is a "Web Browser" link at the bottom of the screen.  It begs to
  be clicked.  But when you click it, the system asks you to choose a
  default web browser, and there are no options.  Hmm.

- "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm" failed because "error:
  missing field initializers (home-directory)".  I then ran "guix pull"
  and tried again with "sudo -E guix system reconfigure
  /etc/config.scm", since I remembered that the proper way to do this
  using my freshly pulled Guix would be to use -E.  I got a new error:
  "error: device '/dev/vda' not found: No such file or directory", which
  occurred because the VM has /dev/sda but not /dev/vda.  Maybe we can
  modify the config file to use sda instead?

I hope that helps.  I think it's better to provide a VM image than none
at all.  Even though it's a little bumpy, it's still a decent way to try
out Guix if you don't want to install it on your existing distro.

-- 
Chris

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