[jackhill/guix/guix.git] / TODO

-*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-

#+TITLE: What's left to do?
#+STARTUP: content hidestars

Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
Copyright © 2019 Mathieu Othacehe <m.othacehe@gmail.com>

  Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
  are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
  notice and this notice are preserved.

* MAYBE Add a substituter that uses the GNUnet DHT or [[http://libswift.org][libswift]]

Would be neat if binaries could be pushed to and pulled from the GNUnet DHT or
rather libswift (since DHTs aren’t suited for large payloads).  Guix users
would sign their binaries, and define which binaries they trust.

Use UPnP and similar to traverse NAT, like ‘filegive’ does.

* user interface
** add guile-ncurses interface

* extend <package>
** add ‘recommends’ field

For instance, glibc, binutils, gcc, and ld-wrapper would recommend each other.
‘guix package -i’ could ask interactively (?), or allow users to follow all or
none of the recommendations.

** add a ‘user-environment-hook’

This should specify builder code to be run when building a user
environment with ‘guix-package’.  For instance, Texinfo’s hook would
create a new ‘dir’.

** extend ‘propagated-build-inputs’ with support for multiple outputs

#+BEGIN_SRC scheme
  (outputs '("out" "include"))
  (propagated-build-inputs
    `(((("i1" ,p1 "o1")
        ("i2" ,p2))
       => "include")
      ("i3" ,p3)))
#+END_SRC

* synchronize non-GNU package descriptions with the [[http://directory.fsf.org][FSD]]

Meta-data for GNU packages, including descriptions and synopses, can be
dumped from the FSD:
http://directory.fsf.org/wiki?title=GNU/Export&action=purge .
We could periodically synchronize with that.

* add a guildhall build system

The Guildhall is Guile’s packaging system.  It should be easy to add a
‘guildhall-build-system’ that does the right thing based on guildhall
recipes.

* union

Support sophisticated collision handling when building a union: honor
per-package priorities, etc.

* add GUIX_ALLOW_EXPENSIVE_TESTS

Tests that need to download stuff or otherwise take a long time would only be
run when that is defined.

* guix build utils
** MAYBE Change ‘ld-wrapper’ to add RPATH for libs passed by file name

** MAYBE Add equivalent to chrpath that uses [[https://gitorious.org/guile-dlhacks/guile-dlhacks/][guile-dlhacks]]

** MAYBE Add a hash-rewriting thing for deep dependency replacement without rebuild

See [[https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/d1662d715514e6ef9d3dc29f132f1b3d8e608a18][Shea Levy's `replace-dependency' in Nixpkgs]].

* distro
** port to GNU/Hurd, aka. ‘i686-gnu’

Problems include that current glibc releases do not build on GNU/Hurd.
In addition, there haven’t been stable releases of GNU Mach, MiG, and
Hurd, which would be a pre-condition.

* Installer
** Fix impossibility to restart on error after cow-store has been started
See https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2018-12/msg00161.html.
- Force reboot upon installer failure
- Unshare the installer process
- Run the installer process in a separate namespace
** Partitioning
*** Add RAID support
*** Add more partitioning schemes
The actual schemes are taken from Debian Installer but some are not
implemented yet: like "Separate partitions for /home /var and /tmp".
*** Replace wait page "Partition formating is in progress, please wait"
Create a new waiting page describing what's being done:

[              20%              ]
Running mkfs.ext4 on /dev/sda2 ...

[              40%              ]
Running mkfs.ext4 on /dev/sda3 ...
*** Add a confirmation page before formating/partitioning
** Desktop environments
*** Allow for no desktop environments
Propose to choose between "headless server" and "lightweight X11" in a new
page.
*** Add services selection feature
Add a services page to the configuration. Ask for services to be installed
like SSH, bluetooth, TLP in a checkbox list?
** Locale and keymap
*** Try to guess user locale and keymap by probing BIOS or HW (dmidecode)
** Timezone
*** Regroup everything in one single page
Under the form:
(UTC + 1) Europe/Paris
(UTC + 2) Africa/Cairo
...
** Display issue
*** Investigate display issue described here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-01/msg00305.html
Commit	Line	Data
6b8875c8 LC	1	-- mode: org; coding: utf-8; --
6b8875c8 LC	2
8c247e1c LC	3	#+TITLE: What's left to do?
	4	#+STARTUP: content hidestars
	5
d6af2518	6	Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
11b68c90	7	Copyright © 2019 Mathieu Othacehe <m.othacehe@gmail.com>
6b8875c8 LC	8
	9	Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
	10	are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
	11	notice and this notice are preserved.
	12
d6af2518	13	* MAYBE Add a substituter that uses the GNUnet DHT or [[http://libswift.org][libswift]]
c7e4a72a	14
d6af2518 LC	15	Would be neat if binaries could be pushed to and pulled from the GNUnet DHT or
	16	rather libswift (since DHTs aren’t suited for large payloads). Guix users
	17	would sign their binaries, and define which binaries they trust.
3e5980de	18
d6af2518 LC	19	Use UPnP and similar to traverse NAT, like ‘filegive’ does.
	20
	21	* user interface
3e5980de	22	** add guile-ncurses interface
c7e4a72a	23
6b8875c8	24	* extend <package>
499b8d1f LC	25	** add ‘recommends’ field
	26
	27	For instance, glibc, binutils, gcc, and ld-wrapper would recommend each other.
	28	‘guix package -i’ could ask interactively (?), or allow users to follow all or
	29	none of the recommendations.
	30
6b8875c8 LC	31	** add a ‘user-environment-hook’
	32
	33	This should specify builder code to be run when building a user
	34	environment with ‘guix-package’. For instance, Texinfo’s hook would
	35	create a new ‘dir’.
	36
3036a01f LC	37	** extend ‘propagated-build-inputs’ with support for multiple outputs
	38
	39	#+BEGIN_SRC scheme
	40	(outputs '("out" "include"))
	41	(propagated-build-inputs
	42	`(((("i1" ,p1 "o1")
	43	("i2" ,p2))
	44	=> "include")
	45	("i3" ,p3)))
	46	#+END_SRC
	47
971cb56d	48	* synchronize non-GNU package descriptions with the [[http://directory.fsf.org][FSD]]
29767aae LC	49
	50	Meta-data for GNU packages, including descriptions and synopses, can be
	51	dumped from the FSD:
	52	http://directory.fsf.org/wiki?title=GNU/Export&action=purge .
	53	We could periodically synchronize with that.
	54
c7e4a72a LC	55	* add a guildhall build system
	56
	57	The Guildhall is Guile’s packaging system. It should be easy to add a
	58	‘guildhall-build-system’ that does the right thing based on guildhall
	59	recipes.
	60
6b8875c8 LC	61	* union
6b8875c8 LC	62
d6af2518 LC	63	Support sophisticated collision handling when building a union: honor
d6af2518 LC	64	per-package priorities, etc.
6b8875c8	65
3dfd7cef LC	66	* add GUIX_ALLOW_EXPENSIVE_TESTS
	67
	68	Tests that need to download stuff or otherwise take a long time would only be
	69	run when that is defined.
	70
6b8875c8	71	* guix build utils
29767aae LC	72	** MAYBE Change ‘ld-wrapper’ to add RPATH for libs passed by file name
29767aae LC	73
8c247e1c	74	** MAYBE Add equivalent to chrpath that uses [[https://gitorious.org/guile-dlhacks/guile-dlhacks/][guile-dlhacks]]
6b8875c8	75
29767aae	76	** MAYBE Add a hash-rewriting thing for deep dependency replacement without rebuild
c7e4a72a LC	77
	78	See [[https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/d1662d715514e6ef9d3dc29f132f1b3d8e608a18][Shea Levy's `replace-dependency' in Nixpkgs]].
	79
6b8875c8	80	* distro
6b8875c8 LC	81	** port to GNU/Hurd, aka. ‘i686-gnu’
	82
	83	Problems include that current glibc releases do not build on GNU/Hurd.
	84	In addition, there haven’t been stable releases of GNU Mach, MiG, and
	85	Hurd, which would be a pre-condition.
	86
11b68c90 MO	87	* Installer
	88	** Fix impossibility to restart on error after cow-store has been started
	89	See https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2018-12/msg00161.html.
	90	- Force reboot upon installer failure
	91	- Unshare the installer process
	92	- Run the installer process in a separate namespace
	93	** Partitioning
	94	*** Add RAID support
	95	*** Add more partitioning schemes
	96	The actual schemes are taken from Debian Installer but some are not
	97	implemented yet: like "Separate partitions for /home /var and /tmp".
	98	*** Replace wait page "Partition formating is in progress, please wait"
	99	Create a new waiting page describing what's being done:
	100
	101	[ 20% ]
	102	Running mkfs.ext4 on /dev/sda2 ...
	103
	104	[ 40% ]
	105	Running mkfs.ext4 on /dev/sda3 ...
b93d2602	106	*** Add a confirmation page before formating/partitioning
11b68c90 MO	107	** Desktop environments
	108	*** Allow for no desktop environments
	109	Propose to choose between "headless server" and "lightweight X11" in a new
	110	page.
	111	*** Add services selection feature
	112	Add a services page to the configuration. Ask for services to be installed
	113	like SSH, bluetooth, TLP in a checkbox list?
	114	** Locale and keymap
	115	*** Try to guess user locale and keymap by probing BIOS or HW (dmidecode)
	116	** Timezone
	117	*** Regroup everything in one single page
	118	Under the form:
	119	(UTC + 1) Europe/Paris
	120	(UTC + 2) Africa/Cairo
	121	...
b93d2602 MO	122	** Display issue
	123	*** Investigate display issue described here:
	124	https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-01/msg00305.html