X-Git-Url: http://git.hcoop.net/jackhill/guix/guix.git/blobdiff_plain/7da7ae937e69dc7bca77df94a387ed2dc039090f..eaff9364d5f87e8ff105d3d400673a81ccb35bc7:/README diff --git a/README b/README index 3648721333..98e38b4f24 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,25 +1,39 @@ -*- mode: org -*- -Guix is Nix[0] from Guile[1]! +[[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] (IPA: /ɡiːks/) is a purely functional package manager, and +associated free software distribution, for the [[http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]]. In addition +to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional +upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user +profiles, and garbage collection. -Concretely, it allows Nix package management to be done entirely in -Scheme. The goal is to investigate whether Scheme, and in particular -the ability to define EDSLs, would allow it to fulfill the role of the -Nix language. +It provides [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/][Guile]] Scheme APIs, including a high-level embedded +domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to describe how packages are to be +built and composed. -[0] http://nixos.org/nix/ -[1] http://gnu.org/software/guile/ +A user-land free software distribution for GNU/Linux comes as part of +Guix. +Guix is based on the [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] package manager. -* Hacking -Guix currently depends on the following packages: +* Requirements + +GNU Guix currently depends on the following packages: - [[http://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.0.x]] + - [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]] + +Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed: + + - [[http://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]] + - [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]] + - [[http://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]] + +When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following: + - [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] - - [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]], or [[http://nongnu.org/libchop/][libchop]] -For bootstrapping purposes, it is useful to reuse packages from Nixpkgs. +Optionally, packages from Nixpkgs may be transparently reused from Guix. For this to work, you need to have a checkout of the Nixpkgs repository; the `--with-nixpkgs' option allows you to let `configure' know where the Nixpkgs checkout is. @@ -37,6 +51,16 @@ The "autoreconf -vi" command can be used to generate the build system infrastructure; it reports an error if an inappropriate version of the above packages is being used. +* Installing Guix from Guix + +You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix. +To do so: + + - install the dependencies (see 'Requirements' above) using Guix + - re-run the configure script passing it the option + `--with-libgcrypt-prefix=$HOME/.guix-profile/' + - run "make" and "make install" + * How It Works Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is @@ -45,14 +69,81 @@ the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as `build-expression->derivation'. -Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Nix daemon (the -=nix-worker --daemon= command), which in turn performs builds and -accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented in -the (guix store) module. +Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the +=guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds +and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented +in the (guix store) module. -* Contact +* Installing Guix as non-root + +The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate +user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this +purpose. For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the +=guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them +like this: + + $ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild -The repository is at . +However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users. +In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call +=nix-setuid-helper=. That program is not setuid-root by default when +you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines +(assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local): + + # chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper + # chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper + +* Contact -Please email or , or -join #guile or #nixos on irc.freenode.net or `civodul'. +GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/. + +Please email for bug reports or questions regarding +Guix and its distribution; email for +general issues regarding the GNU system. + +Join #guix on irc.freenode.net. + +* Guix & Nix + +GNU Guix is based on [[http://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same +package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code. +Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described +below. + +Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library +and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies +on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter. + +Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the +features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL, +Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose +language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages +(EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what +can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them. + +Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’ +daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix +“derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in +the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted +by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use +derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa). + +With Nix and the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at +the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash. +Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package +composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is +written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code, +but exposes all the API as Scheme. + +* Related software + + - [[http://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated + software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix + - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a + symlink tree to create user environments + - [[http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea + - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a + specified set of packages + - The [[http://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software + distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the + host system