Re: Guix System video review on YouTube

[zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com>]

On Mon, 27 Apr 2020 at 12:11, Jonathan Brielmaier
<jonathan.brielmaier@web.de> wrote:

> >> * While installing packages via `guix install` you can't scroll in the
> >> terminal, you always get reset to the bottom.
> >
> > I missed what it mean. Could you quickly extend a bit?
>
> $ echo "hello"
> hello
> $ guix install emacs
>
> Then while installing emacs, try to reach the hello. It will be tricky
> as every new output line from `guix install emacs` will reset you to the
> bottom of your terminal. That's annoying.

Does not it depend on the terminal emulator?


> >> * guix show/search does not show if a package is installed.
> >
> > Installed where? In which profile?
> > I am not sure that "installed" make sense at the level of "guix show/search".
>
> It definitely does. It could show packages installed to the profile,
> such coming from the config.scm etc.

I am not using Guix System so I do not have config.scm.

Well, you propose that to loop over all the user profiles (i.e., "guix
package --list-profiles) to check if it is installed in one of them,
right?
I am not convinced it is useful.
Create a new profile and install what I need is cheap so I do not see
why it could be useful to know if the package is already installed or
not. If it is, nothing to be done; if not it is installed where I need
it.
However, what is useful is to know if the item already exist or not in
the store, IMHO.

When "guix install vim", for example the package 'tcsh' goes in the
store but is not considered "installed" by the profile say
'~/.guix-profile'. Therefore, does "guix show tcsh" display
'installed' or 'not installed'?

Because of the profiles -- and I am even not talking about grafts -- I
am not sure that "installed" make sense at the level of "guix
show/search". ;-)
There is too much corner cases, IMHO.


> >> * `guix search ... | less can be confusing at the beginning.
> >
> > There is room of improvements for "guix search". ;-)
> >
> > There is 3 behaviours
> >  1. return the N packages fitting the screen size (current: default)
> >  2. display all the list in PAGER (current: |less)
> >  3. display all the list in stdout (current: |cat)
> >
> > The feature request is: be able to configure which behaviour by
> > default for "guix search". Maybe via an environment variable.
> > (as discussed elsewhere by Ricardo and Tobias, if I understand correctly)
> >
> >
> > WDYT?
>
> To be honest I would like the search to behave more like `guix package
> -A`. Then we don't need this `less` thing. And we could add something
> like `guix search --expanded` which behaves like the current search.

I agree.
There is room of improvement about "guix search".

Some time ago, I also proposed to have something like: "--format"
(inspired by "git log --format=")

   guix search vim --format="%name %synopsis"
   guix search vim --format="%name \n %license \n"
   guix search crypto library --format=full
etc.

It should be also used by "guix show" and we could even imagine by
"guix package -A".

Well, as one said: patches welcome. :-)



> $ zypper search vim | wc -l
> 84
> $ guix package -A vim | wc -l
> 22
> $ guix search vim | less
> 828 lines and you have to search again in less because you are overwhelmed

I do not know 'zypper', only 'aptitude' of Debian. :-)

And there is a big difference between "guix search" and such tools:
the relevance scoring.
Well, "guix search" does not sort alphanumerically by name but sort by
relevance depending on the query.

The order is not predictable. Sometimes we want to order by relevance
(for discoverability), sometimes not. Therefore, it should be possible
to order by any keys than the relevance (using alphanumerical
ordering)


> So I would propose an interface like:
> $ guix search vim
> | Name          | Synopsis                       | Version  | Outputs |
> +---------------+--------------------------------+----------+---------+
> | vim           | Text editor based on vi        | 8.2.0411 | out     |
> | vim-airline   | ...
> [...]
>
> The the search command would fulfill it's function by giving you an
> overview about the available options.

I agree as explained above. :-)
Room of improvements for "guix search". :-)


> >> * Multi user package concept not clear (root as different packages then
> >> normal user).
> >
> > This is related to expectation about "installed", IMHO.
>
> Yes. But can be confusing for all the people coming from traditional
> package managers where root and user share the same packages.

Yes shifting is always difficult. :-)


Cheers,
simon