question re. packaging, build, init and shepherd

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net>]

The GUIX documentation is great when it comes to installing GUIX, and 
then installing packaged software.

It's not so clear on how do install software that isn't in the package 
repository - whether by creating a package, or via the classic 
./configure;make;make install, or if there are tools that can bring 
classically installed software under package management (e.g., the 
Debian alien tool).

And then there's the question of init systems:  Until systemd came 
along, ./configure;make;make install generally just works - leaving init 
files in the right places, starting up daemons, etc.

Which leads to the question of, if I want to install something 
complicated in GUIX - say the Sympa list manager (to pick a non-random 
example), which comes with standard sysvinit scripts - can I just 
./configure;make;make install?  Does Shepherd do the right thing with 
sysvinit scripts?  Can I invoke them through Shepherd (e.g, after a 
config change)?  Can I still edit & invoke the init scripts in the 
classic ways (vi, /etc/init.d/<foo> restart).

---

I'm sure I'm not the only one looking at GUIX as an alternative to the 
various distributions that have gone down the systemd rathole - 
particularly those of us who run Linux in production server environments 
that have been heavily customized over the years.  GUIX seems to be 
reaching a maturity level where it can be considered for production use 
- but there's an awful paucity of information that might let us evaluate it.

Miles Fidelman


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown