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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. | |
b7a7f598 | 8 | |
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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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47c66da0 | 23 | - [[http://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.0.x]], version 2.0.7 or later |
d388c2c4 | 24 | - [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]] |
f0b98b84 | 25 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/make/][GNU Make]] |
288dca55 | 26 | - optionally [[http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/guile-json/][Guile-JSON]], for the 'guix import pypi' command |
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27 | - optionally [[http://www.gnutls.org][GnuTLS]] compiled with guile support enabled, for HTTPS support |
28 | in the 'guix download' command. Note that 'guix import pypi' requires | |
29 | this functionality. | |
4255d4e3 | 30 | |
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31 | Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed: |
32 | ||
33 | - [[http://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]] | |
34 | - [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]] | |
35 | - [[http://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]] | |
36 | ||
37 | When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following: | |
38 | ||
39 | - [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] | |
40 | ||
8b2d9e5d | 41 | * Installation |
4255d4e3 | 42 | |
8b2d9e5d | 43 | See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running |
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8b2d9e5d | 45 | info -f doc/guix.info "(guix) Installation" |
7da7ae93 | 46 | |
8b2d9e5d | 47 | or by checking the [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Installation][web copy of the manual]]. |
7da7ae93 | 48 | |
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49 | For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the section |
50 | "Building from Git" in the manual. | |
7da7ae93 | 51 | |
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52 | * Installing Guix from Guix |
53 | ||
54 | You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix. | |
55 | To do so: | |
56 | ||
230fda86 | 57 | - Start a shell with the development environment for Guix: |
8db351e3 | 58 | |
230fda86 | 59 | guix environment guix |
d4c74860 | 60 | |
fa747b27 | 61 | - Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option |
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62 | '--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir' |
63 | value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the | |
64 | new Guix to consider the store to be empty!). | |
d4c74860 | 65 | |
fa747b27 | 66 | - Run "make", "make check", and "make install". |
43d8f490 | 67 | |
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68 | * How It Works |
69 | ||
70 | Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is | |
71 | the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under | |
d17ef356 | 72 | =/gnu/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the |
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73 | `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as |
74 | `build-expression->derivation'. | |
75 | ||
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76 | Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the |
77 | =guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds | |
78 | and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented | |
79 | in the (guix store) module. | |
80 | ||
81 | * Installing Guix as non-root | |
82 | ||
83 | The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate | |
84 | user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this | |
85 | purpose. For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the | |
86 | =guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them | |
87 | like this: | |
88 | ||
89 | $ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild | |
90 | ||
91 | However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users. | |
92 | In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call | |
93 | =nix-setuid-helper=. That program is not setuid-root by default when | |
94 | you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines | |
95 | (assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local): | |
96 | ||
97 | # chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
98 | # chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper | |
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99 | |
100 | * Contact | |
101 | ||
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102 | GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/. |
103 | ||
104 | Please email <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug reports or questions regarding | |
105 | Guix and its distribution; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for | |
106 | general issues regarding the GNU system. | |
107 | ||
108 | Join #guix on irc.freenode.net. | |
109 | ||
110 | * Guix & Nix | |
111 | ||
112 | GNU Guix is based on [[http://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same | |
113 | package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code. | |
114 | Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described | |
115 | below. | |
116 | ||
117 | Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library | |
118 | and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies | |
119 | on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter. | |
120 | ||
121 | Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the | |
122 | features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL, | |
123 | Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose | |
124 | language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages | |
125 | (EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what | |
126 | can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them. | |
127 | ||
128 | Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’ | |
129 | daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix | |
130 | “derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in | |
131 | the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted | |
132 | by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use | |
133 | derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa). | |
134 | ||
135 | With Nix and the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at | |
136 | the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash. | |
137 | Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package | |
138 | composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is | |
139 | written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code, | |
140 | but exposes all the API as Scheme. | |
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141 | |
142 | * Related software | |
143 | ||
144 | - [[http://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated | |
145 | software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix | |
146 | - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a | |
147 | symlink tree to create user environments | |
148 | - [[http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea | |
149 | - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a | |
150 | specified set of packages | |
151 | - The [[http://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software | |
152 | distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the | |
153 | host system |