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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]] |
288dca55 | 25 | - optionally [[http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/guile-json/][Guile-JSON]], for the 'guix import pypi' command |
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26 | - optionally [[http://www.gnutls.org][GnuTLS]] compiled with guile support enabled, for HTTPS support |
27 | in the 'guix download' command. Note that 'guix import pypi' requires | |
28 | this functionality. | |
4255d4e3 | 29 | |
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30 | Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed: |
31 | ||
32 | - [[http://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]] | |
33 | - [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]] | |
34 | - [[http://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]] | |
35 | ||
36 | When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following: | |
37 | ||
38 | - [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] | |
39 | ||
8b2d9e5d | 40 | * Installation |
4255d4e3 | 41 | |
8b2d9e5d | 42 | See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running |
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8b2d9e5d | 44 | info -f doc/guix.info "(guix) Installation" |
7da7ae93 | 45 | |
8b2d9e5d | 46 | or by checking the [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Installation][web copy of the manual]]. |
7da7ae93 | 47 | |
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48 | For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the ‘HACKING’ |
49 | file. | |
7da7ae93 | 50 | |
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51 | * Installing Guix from Guix |
52 | ||
53 | You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix. | |
54 | To do so: | |
55 | ||
d4c74860 | 56 | - Install the dependencies (see 'Requirements' above) and build tools using |
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57 | Guix: |
58 | ||
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59 | guix package --install autoconf automake bzip2 gcc-toolchain gettext \ |
60 | guile libgcrypt pkg-config sqlite | |
d4c74860 | 61 | |
fa747b27 | 62 | - Set the environment variables that Guix recommends you to set during the |
d4c74860 | 63 | package installation process: |
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64 | ACLOCAL_PATH, CPATH, LIBRARY_PATH, PKG_CONFIG_PATH |
65 | ||
fa747b27 | 66 | - Set the PATH environment variable to refer to the profile: |
8db351e3 | 67 | PATH=$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:$PATH |
d4c74860 | 68 | |
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69 | - Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option |
70 | '--with-libgcrypt-prefix=$HOME/.guix-profile/', as well as | |
71 | '--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir' | |
72 | value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the | |
73 | new Guix to consider the store to be empty!). | |
d4c74860 | 74 | |
fa747b27 | 75 | - Run "make", "make check", and "make install". |
43d8f490 | 76 | |
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77 | * How It Works |
78 | ||
79 | Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is | |
80 | the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under | |
d17ef356 | 81 | =/gnu/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the |
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82 | `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as |
83 | `build-expression->derivation'. | |
84 | ||
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85 | Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the |
86 | =guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds | |
87 | and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented | |
88 | in the (guix store) module. | |
89 | ||
90 | * Installing Guix as non-root | |
91 | ||
92 | The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate | |
93 | user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this | |
94 | purpose. For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the | |
95 | =guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them | |
96 | like this: | |
97 | ||
98 | $ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild | |
99 | ||
100 | However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users. | |
101 | In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call | |
102 | =nix-setuid-helper=. That program is not setuid-root by default when | |
103 | you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines | |
104 | (assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local): | |
105 | ||
106 | # chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
107 | # chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
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108 | |
109 | * Contact | |
110 | ||
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111 | GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/. |
112 | ||
113 | Please email <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug reports or questions regarding | |
114 | Guix and its distribution; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for | |
115 | general issues regarding the GNU system. | |
116 | ||
117 | Join #guix on irc.freenode.net. | |
118 | ||
119 | * Guix & Nix | |
120 | ||
121 | GNU Guix is based on [[http://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same | |
122 | package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code. | |
123 | Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described | |
124 | below. | |
125 | ||
126 | Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library | |
127 | and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies | |
128 | on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter. | |
129 | ||
130 | Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the | |
131 | features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL, | |
132 | Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose | |
133 | language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages | |
134 | (EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what | |
135 | can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them. | |
136 | ||
137 | Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’ | |
138 | daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix | |
139 | “derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in | |
140 | the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted | |
141 | by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use | |
142 | derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa). | |
143 | ||
144 | With Nix and the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at | |
145 | the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash. | |
146 | Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package | |
147 | composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is | |
148 | written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code, | |
149 | but exposes all the API as Scheme. | |
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150 | |
151 | * Related software | |
152 | ||
153 | - [[http://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated | |
154 | software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix | |
155 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a | |
156 | symlink tree to create user environments | |
157 | - [[http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea | |
158 | - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a | |
159 | specified set of packages | |
160 | - The [[http://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software | |
161 | distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the | |
162 | host system |