Re: Tiny Guix (and containers)

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Dave Love <fx@gnu.org> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>
>>> It looks to me as if it would often help significantly, e.g. when a
>>> pkg-config file, or something else sucks in a load of stuff that's
>>> irrelevant for running the package.  (Separating :lib and needing that
>>> for building means you need to know something about the packaging rather
>>> than just using "devel", say.)
>>
>> Right, good point.
>>
>> The nice thing with “lib” and “doc” is that it has a direct mapping to
>> the GNU directory classification (libdir, docdir, etc.)
>
> Sure, though there's typically a distinction between lib and, say,
> lib64,

I’m talking about the classification, not about specific choices like
lib vs. lib64.

>> Now, we could depart from it and go with “devel”, for the reasons you
>> give.  Let’s experiment and see how it goes!
>
> Good to hear as an experimentalist!

:-)

> I wonder how much practical experience people have with conventional
> packaging and the resulting trades-off, e.g. as Debian, Fedora,
> etc. maintainers.  I think it helps to understand that reasonably well.
> I'm happy to explain to the extent I can if it helps.  I'm more familiar
> with Fedora, but then Debian is usually easier.

I think your expertise is most welcome here.  Not everything will have a
direct mapping to Guix, but surely we can build upon the experience of
other distros.

For information on what Nixpkgs does with some of its packages, see
also:

  https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#chap-multiple-output

AFAIK this remains an opt-in mechanism, pretty much like in Guix.  Their
early experience can be read here:

  https://nixos.org/nix-dev/2016-April/020154.html

Ludo’.