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1 | -*- mode: org -*- |
2 | ||
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3 | [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] (IPA: /ɡiːks/) is a purely functional package manager, and |
4 | associated free software distribution, for the [[http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]]. In addition | |
5 | to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional | |
6 | upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user | |
7 | profiles, and garbage collection. | |
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9 | It provides [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/][Guile]] Scheme APIs, including a high-level embedded |
10 | domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to describe how packages are to be | |
11 | built and composed. | |
b7a7f598 | 12 | |
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13 | A user-land free software distribution for GNU/Linux comes as part of |
14 | Guix. | |
15 | ||
16 | Guix is based on the [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] package manager. | |
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17 | |
18 | ||
e9f6d6dd | 19 | * Requirements |
4255d4e3 | 20 | |
a65e3306 | 21 | GNU Guix currently depends on the following packages: |
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a1e4a936 | 23 | - [[http://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.0.x]] |
d388c2c4 | 24 | - [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]] |
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26 | Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed: |
27 | ||
28 | - [[http://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]] | |
29 | - [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]] | |
30 | - [[http://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]] | |
31 | ||
32 | When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following: | |
33 | ||
34 | - [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] | |
35 | ||
e76bdf8b | 36 | Optionally, packages from Nixpkgs may be transparently reused from Guix. |
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37 | For this to work, you need to have a checkout of the Nixpkgs repository; |
38 | the `--with-nixpkgs' option allows you to let `configure' know where the | |
39 | Nixpkgs checkout is. | |
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a1e4a936 | 41 | - [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/][Nixpkgs]] |
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43 | When building Guix from a checkout, the following packages are also |
44 | required: | |
45 | ||
46 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/][GNU Autoconf]] | |
47 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/][GNU Automake]] | |
48 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/][GNU Gettext]] | |
49 | ||
50 | The "autoreconf -vi" command can be used to generate the build system | |
51 | infrastructure; it reports an error if an inappropriate version of the | |
52 | above packages is being used. | |
53 | ||
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54 | * Installing Guix from Guix |
55 | ||
56 | You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix. | |
57 | To do so: | |
58 | ||
59 | - install the dependencies (see 'Requirements' above) using Guix | |
60 | - re-run the configure script passing it the option | |
61 | `--with-libgcrypt-prefix=$HOME/.guix-profile/' | |
62 | - run "make" and "make install" | |
63 | ||
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64 | * How It Works |
65 | ||
66 | Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is | |
67 | the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under | |
68 | =/nix/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the | |
69 | `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as | |
70 | `build-expression->derivation'. | |
71 | ||
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72 | Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the |
73 | =guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds | |
74 | and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented | |
75 | in the (guix store) module. | |
76 | ||
77 | * Installing Guix as non-root | |
78 | ||
79 | The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate | |
80 | user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this | |
81 | purpose. For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the | |
82 | =guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them | |
83 | like this: | |
84 | ||
85 | $ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild | |
86 | ||
87 | However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users. | |
88 | In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call | |
89 | =nix-setuid-helper=. That program is not setuid-root by default when | |
90 | you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines | |
91 | (assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local): | |
92 | ||
93 | # chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
94 | # chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
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95 | |
96 | * Contact | |
97 | ||
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98 | GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/. |
99 | ||
100 | Please email <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug reports or questions regarding | |
101 | Guix and its distribution; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for | |
102 | general issues regarding the GNU system. | |
103 | ||
104 | Join #guix on irc.freenode.net. | |
105 | ||
106 | * Guix & Nix | |
107 | ||
108 | GNU Guix is based on [[http://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same | |
109 | package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code. | |
110 | Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described | |
111 | below. | |
112 | ||
113 | Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library | |
114 | and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies | |
115 | on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter. | |
116 | ||
117 | Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the | |
118 | features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL, | |
119 | Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose | |
120 | language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages | |
121 | (EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what | |
122 | can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them. | |
123 | ||
124 | Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’ | |
125 | daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix | |
126 | “derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in | |
127 | the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted | |
128 | by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use | |
129 | derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa). | |
130 | ||
131 | With Nix and the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at | |
132 | the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash. | |
133 | Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package | |
134 | composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is | |
135 | written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code, | |
136 | but exposes all the API as Scheme. | |
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137 | |
138 | * Related software | |
139 | ||
140 | - [[http://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated | |
141 | software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix | |
142 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a | |
143 | symlink tree to create user environments | |
144 | - [[http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea | |
145 | - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a | |
146 | specified set of packages | |
147 | - The [[http://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software | |
148 | distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the | |
149 | host system |