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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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4a328f73 | 23 | - [[http://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.0.x]], version 2.0.5 or later |
d388c2c4 | 24 | - [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]] |
4255d4e3 | 25 | |
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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 | ||
8b2d9e5d | 36 | * Installation |
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8b2d9e5d | 38 | See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running |
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8b2d9e5d | 40 | info -f doc/guix.info "(guix) Installation" |
7da7ae93 | 41 | |
8b2d9e5d | 42 | or by checking the [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Installation][web copy of the manual]]. |
7da7ae93 | 43 | |
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44 | For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the ‘HACKING’ |
45 | file. | |
7da7ae93 | 46 | |
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47 | * Installing Guix from Guix |
48 | ||
49 | You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix. | |
50 | To do so: | |
51 | ||
d4c74860 | 52 | - Install the dependencies (see 'Requirements' above) and build tools using |
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53 | Guix: |
54 | ||
55 | guix package --install={autoconf,automake,bzip2,gcc,binutils,ld-wrapper,glibc,gettext,guile,libgcrypt,pkg-config,sqlite} | |
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56 | |
57 | - set the environment variables that Guix recommends you to set during the | |
58 | package installation process: | |
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59 | ACLOCAL_PATH, CPATH, LIBRARY_PATH, PKG_CONFIG_PATH |
60 | ||
61 | - set the PATH environment variable to refer to the profile: | |
62 | PATH=$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:$PATH | |
d4c74860 | 63 | |
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64 | - re-run the configure script passing it the option |
65 | `--with-libgcrypt-prefix=$HOME/.guix-profile/' | |
d4c74860 | 66 | |
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67 | - run "make" and "make install" |
68 | ||
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69 | * How It Works |
70 | ||
71 | Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is | |
72 | the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under | |
73 | =/nix/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the | |
74 | `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as | |
75 | `build-expression->derivation'. | |
76 | ||
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77 | Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the |
78 | =guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds | |
79 | and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented | |
80 | in the (guix store) module. | |
81 | ||
82 | * Installing Guix as non-root | |
83 | ||
84 | The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate | |
85 | user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this | |
86 | purpose. For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the | |
87 | =guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them | |
88 | like this: | |
89 | ||
90 | $ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild | |
91 | ||
92 | However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users. | |
93 | In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call | |
94 | =nix-setuid-helper=. That program is not setuid-root by default when | |
95 | you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines | |
96 | (assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local): | |
97 | ||
98 | # chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
99 | # chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
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100 | |
101 | * Contact | |
102 | ||
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103 | GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/. |
104 | ||
105 | Please email <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug reports or questions regarding | |
106 | Guix and its distribution; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for | |
107 | general issues regarding the GNU system. | |
108 | ||
109 | Join #guix on irc.freenode.net. | |
110 | ||
111 | * Guix & Nix | |
112 | ||
113 | GNU Guix is based on [[http://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same | |
114 | package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code. | |
115 | Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described | |
116 | below. | |
117 | ||
118 | Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library | |
119 | and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies | |
120 | on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter. | |
121 | ||
122 | Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the | |
123 | features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL, | |
124 | Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose | |
125 | language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages | |
126 | (EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what | |
127 | can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them. | |
128 | ||
129 | Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’ | |
130 | daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix | |
131 | “derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in | |
132 | the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted | |
133 | by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use | |
134 | derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa). | |
135 | ||
136 | With Nix and the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at | |
137 | the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash. | |
138 | Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package | |
139 | composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is | |
140 | written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code, | |
141 | but exposes all the API as Scheme. | |
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142 | |
143 | * Related software | |
144 | ||
145 | - [[http://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated | |
146 | software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix | |
147 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a | |
148 | symlink tree to create user environments | |
149 | - [[http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea | |
150 | - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a | |
151 | specified set of packages | |
152 | - The [[http://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software | |
153 | distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the | |
154 | host system |