Thanks very much Kaelyn.

This clarifies things a lot 👏

Tim


On Wed, 24 May 2023 at 18:17, Kaelyn <kaelyn.alexi@protonmail.com> wrote:

>
> ------- Original Message -------
> On Wednesday, May 24th, 2023 at 8:25 PM, Timothy Washington <
> twashing@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > . This is expected. When you ran the "guix package -L ~/dotfiles/ -m
> ~/dotfiles/guix/packages/manifest.scm" command above, that not only built
> the manifest but also
> > used the manifest to create a new generation of
> /home/twashing/.guix-profile.
> >
> > Ah I see.
> >
> > . If you run "guix package --list-generations" you should see a list of
> all of the existing (numbered) generations with the currently active
> generation marked
> > (it's typically the last / latest generation, and should be in this
> case).
> > . Running "guix package -I" will list the packages in the current
> generation of your default guix profile,
> > which should contain the packages in your manifest.
> >
> > . To go into more details about how profiles work: unless you specify
> the "-p" argument to "guix package",
> > it will operate on your default profile when installing or removing
> packages (including through using manifests with "-m"),
> > and create a new generation when the set of installed packages changes.
> >
> > . /home/twashing/.guix-profile is a symlink to
> /var/guix/profiles/per-user/twashing/guix-profile,
> > which in turn is a symlink to one of the numbered symlinks in that same
> /var/guix directory (i.e. if your current generation number is 14, then
> /var/guix/profiles/per-user/twashing/guix-profile will point to
> /var/guix/profiles/per-user/twashing/guix-profile-14-link).
> >
> > . Each of those numbered symlinks points to the actual profile in
> /gnu/store,
> > so using that hypothetical generation 14 as the one created by your
> "guix package -m" command above,
> > /var/guix/profiles/per-user/twashing/guix-profile-14-link would be a
> symlink to /gnu/store/sqaz4ff2nshfizfh8ymbzllia6lsgnfv-profile.
> >
> > This is really useful for my understanding. Thank-you!
> >
> > But when I restart my machine, the currently installed tools (from "guix
> package -i foo") are not available on login.
> > For example, I manually ran "guix package -i tree git". And after
> restarting my machine, those were no longer available, even though
> presumably they should have been part of my latest generation.
> > I do remember trying to load the tools like below. But git and tree were
> still not available.
> > ". /home/twashing/.guix-profile/etc/profile"
> >
> > Are tools in generations cumulative?
>
> They are when installed or removed via "guix package -i" and "guix package
> -r". Updating your profile using a manifest is not cumulative--the new
> generation of your profile will have exactly the set of packages in the
> manifest. You can then use "guix package -i" and "guix package -r" to
> modify the installed set, but the set will be reset if/when "guix package
> -m my-manifest.scm" is run.
>
> > And how can I load the cumulative sum of all my generations, and any
> custom profiles I create?
>
> The most reproducible way to maintain the set of packages in your default
> profile is to include them in your manifest (e.g. adding git and tree to
> the list of packages included in the manifest, then running "guix package
> -m your-manifest.scm" again). The generations of a profile are like git
> commits or filesystem snapshots in that they represent the profile at
> different points in time, and they aren't really meant to be composed
> together. If you'd like to maintain separate profiles for different sets of
> packages or groups of functionality instead of installing all the things
> you need in your default profile, I might recommend taking a look at the
> Guix Cookbook, in particular
> https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Guix-Profiles-in-Practice.html.
>
> On a different tack, if you have no issue with installing all of the
> packages you need in a single profile using a manifest, and you'd like a
> way of managing at least some of your home configuration (shell aliases,
> simple config files, etc), there is also "guix home" for a declarative way
> of specify those pieces:
> https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/Home-Configuration.html.
> In a manner of speaking, it is to your home directory what "guix system" is
> to the OS when booting Guix.
>
> Cheers,
> Kaelyn
>