Upgrade 0.15 to .16 it doesn't work

Upgrade 0.15 to .16 it doesn't work

[Jone]

Сannot upgrade system, i. g. guix. Its a first problem with upgrade from 0.13.
 I will try again to provide a output.
And I didn't read the manual carefully - a little time, sorry.  I'll
do this more closely later.

And additionally I would like to see two things:
1. FAQ
2. external repo :)

(About 2: Nix export  - it doesn't work for me either. But we'll see:
XFCE, Whisker Menu - no sign of him.)

Re: Upgrade 0.15 to .16 it doesn't work

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Jone <yeger9@gmail.com> writes:

> Сannot upgrade system, i. g. guix. Its a first problem with upgrade
> from 0.13.

Upgrading from 0.13 can be tricky.  Try first to upgrade to 0.15 and
from there use “guix pull” to get the latest Guix.

-- 
Ricardo

FAQ draft (Was: Re: Upgrade 0.15 to .16 it doesn't work)

[swedebugia]

On 2018-12-30 19:19, Jone wrote:
snip
> And additionally I would like to see two things:
> 1. FAQ

Which questions do you propose to include?
Where would you suggest to place this faq? In the manual? website?

I just wrote the following suggestions to a GuixSD FAQ:

General:
* Is GuixSD a 'do-it-yourself' GNU/Linux distribution like e.g. Arch 
Linux and Gentoo?
  * Yes and no. Both the distributions mentioned mess a lot with states 
and configuration files in different formats and are based on a 
completely different way of configuring the OS.
With GuixSD the goal is to configure /everything/ in the declaration of 
the OS and never having to edit a single configuration file in some 
obscure location.

The roll-back functionality of Guix makes it easy to undo almost any 
changes to the state in Guix imposed by your fiddling with the 
configuration.

GuixSD also makes it possible to /easily/ replicate a friends OS 
configuration making it possible to collaborate and share your ideas on 
how to configure the whole OS much more easily than traditional 
distributions.

There are already up to a hundred shared operating system declarations 
available online for your to copy or get ideas from.

* Is it a rolling release distribution?
  * Yes. But anyone could turn it into any stable or whatever release 
model via 'guix channel'.

* How does channels affect the distribution?
  * They let you compose and maintain your own release of Guix.

* Any stable ones available yet?
  * No, not known to us.

* Can I easily share my installed system configuration and 
package-manifest with a friend?
  * Yes. The declaration, usually a file called config.scm, used to 
instantiate the system makes this easy. It contains no secret 
information. The same goes for package-manifests.

* I am a complete GNU OS beginner. Should I use GuixSD?
  * If you are a beginner and want to use GuixSD, you must be willing to 
invest time into learning a new system, and accept that GuixSD is 
designed as a 'do-it-yourself' or 'copy-from-your-friend' distribution; 
it is the user who assembles the system via a configuration written in 
Scheme.

Before asking for help, do your own independent research by reading the 
manual, searching online & searching the mailing lists. There is a 
reason these resources were made available to you in the first place. 
Many thousands of volunteered hours have been spent compiling this 
excellent information.

* Is Guix going to be so good that people will have a hard time avoiding 
it? When will the beta end?
  * We don't know yet. You can take a look at our ROADMAP 
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/ROADMAP and look up the 
latest features in the latest release statement.

Package-related:
* Why is compilation so time-consuming compared to substitutes?
  * Compiling is necessary to convert almost any modern program from a 
high-level language (like Guile Scheme, Python, C++) to low-level 
machine code.

Whether you compile yourself or let others do it for you, your ordinary 
GNOME enabled desktop takes a total of about 3-5 days of compile time on 
a consumer level 2-core Intel 64-bit PC.  *(is this accurate Mark?)

* How will I know if substitutes are available from the build farms 
before running 'guix pull'?
  * Generally you don't. This is a missing feature. You are welcome to 
help improving Guix or Cuirass to make this possible.

* Why do Guix mess around with environment variables when other 
distributions don't?
* Why does environment variables need to be manually set sometimes in 
GuixSD - could that not be automated?
  * If this is needed you have probably found a bug. Ie. right now many 
package definitions lack search-path definitions (e.g. guile-readline, 
guile-colorized, and many others) causing them to not be set automatically.

* Is package X available?
  * Maybe! Take a look at the package list of the website or search our 
git-repo for the name.

If you are up for it, maybe you can package it yourself by importing it 
*LINK,  following the package guide *LINK or by reading the package 
descriptions of similar programs already in Guix.

Any thoughts?

See also
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questions

-- 
Cheers Swedebugia

Re: FAQ draft (Was: Re: Upgrade 0.15 to .16 it doesn't work)

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Thanks for this FAQ.  I agree it would be a nice addition to the manual.

I like many of your points.  The points I would not put however are those that
are likely to change sooner or later, for instance

>  * Any stable ones available yet?
>  * No, not known to us.

Besides, regarding

>  * Is package X available?
>  * Maybe! Take a look at the package list of the website or search our git-repo
> for the name.

I believe this is an important pointer to new comers (e.g. "I will only consider
switching to GuixSD if X and Y are packaged"), so we need a link here.  

The official home page has https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/packages/ which is
a rather poor interface in my opinion.  

So I would like to the much more convenient
https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse instead.

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: FAQ draft (Was: Re: Upgrade 0.15 to .16 it doesn't work)

[znavko]

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IMHO, this run-around should be replaced with more workable fully ready system configuration files placed to the distro or manual.
"There are already up to a hundred shared operating system declarations 
available online for your to copy or get ideas from."

Thank you, Pierre Neidhardt for the link https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse <https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse>

I also offer this:

Whom Guix and GuixSD are intended? - Guix package manager and GuixSD operating system are useful for package developers, programmers and system administrators. Features of Guix are awesome for testing new packages, developing and debugging software in different environments. You can have as many environments, as many versions of any package as you need. Testing and debugging consider to be more efficient and easy with Guix package manager and GuixSD.

What about stability in GuixSD? - Updates is a complex problem for all GNU/Linux distributions. You may have old and stable packages and your system is ok. But even here something might go wrong. For instance, package A may need previous version of package B, while as package C you want to install may need the latest version of B. This collision is extra terrible with such base packages as binutils, glibc and other vital packages. Guix intends to solve this. Guix gives you better flexibility having different versions of any package together. The other case of stability are hardware drivers. GuixSD uses LinuxLibre kernel, Guix repository has only free software. So you need to know which hardware vendors and which products are compatible with free software.
 

Jan 3, 2019, 10:57 AM by mail@ambrevar.xyz:

> Thanks for this FAQ.  I agree it would be a nice addition to the manual.
>
> I like many of your points.  The points I would not put however are those that
> are likely to change sooner or later, for instance
>
>> * Any stable ones available yet?
>>  * No, not known to us.
>>
>
> Besides, regarding
>
>> * Is package X available?
>>  * Maybe! Take a look at the package list of the website or search our git-repo
>> for the name.
>>
>
> I believe this is an important pointer to new comers (e.g. "I will only consider
> switching to GuixSD if X and Y are packaged"), so we need a link here. 
>
> The official home page has > https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/packages <https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/packages/>>  which is
> a rather poor interface in my opinion. 
>
> So I would like to the much more convenient
> https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse <https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse>>  instead.
>
> -- 
> Pierre Neidhardt
> https://ambrevar.xyz <https://ambrevar.xyz/>
>


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