Re: Brain storming cool Guix features

[L p R n d n <guix@lprndn.info>]

Hellohello,

Joshua Branson <jbranso@dismail.de> writes:

> I had some cool ideas/features for things that GuixSD could potentially
> add, and I wanted to share.  Are any of these possible?
>
> #+BEGIN_SRC scheme
> (operating system
>   (keymap  "dvorak")
>   ...)
> #+END_SRC
>
>
> The above would make the bootloader, console, X, and wayland all use the
> dvorak layout.  That would be a nice feature!  I currently use "dvorak",
> and it's slightly annoying that grub uses qwerty.  :(
>
> #+BEGIN_SRC
> (user-account
>    (name "joshua")
>    (default-font "font-hack"))
> #+END_SRC
>
>
> The above would set a default font for the user joshua.
>
>
> How about a hook that stores the user's profile of packages in a
> manifest file after every package transaction (upgrade or downgrade)?
>
> #+BEGIN_SRC
> (user-account
>         (name "joshua")
>         (updates-in-manifest #t)
>         (manifest-file "/etc/manifest.scm"))
> #+END_SRC

The ability to deal with user profiles in the configure file would be
awesome. Is it already possible to define a "default" manifest for a
user? If not, could be cool too.  

>
> How about automatic updates?  Since a guixSD user can always downgrade
> to the previous version, it would be nice if it would automatically
> update my user profile, root profile and reconfigure say once a week.
>
> #+BEGIN_SRC scheme
> (operating system
>   (auto-upgrade #t)
>   (auto-upgrade-interval 'once-a-week)
>   ...)
> #+END_SRC

As said by Ricardo, currently a cron job might just be enough. In the
long term, a tool to manage updating (pause, schedule, configure stuff)
could be useful.

> --
> Joshua Branson
> Sent from Emacs and Gnus


If I can add, I thought about something.

- Currently, I think the only way for a GuixSD installation to break is
  if something goes wrong with the bootloader. Might be nice to have a
  tool (in the install image I suppose) to recover the bootloader.
  Maybe 'guix system init' can deal with that king of cases for now, I
  don't know, but a dedicated command might be able to use the original
  store, restore previous generations etc.

Bye,

Lprndn