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1 | -*- mode: org -*- |
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3 | [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] (IPA: /ɡiːks/) is a purely functional package manager, and |
4 | associated free software distribution, for the [[https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]]. In addition | |
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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 | |
e8d8ecde | 9 | It provides [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/][Guile]] Scheme APIs, including a high-level embedded |
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10 | domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to describe how packages are to be |
11 | built and composed. | |
b7a7f598 | 12 | |
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13 | GNU Guix can be used on top of an already-installed GNU/Linux distribution, or |
14 | it can be used standalone (we call that “Guix System”). | |
a65e3306 | 15 | |
e8d8ecde | 16 | Guix is based on the [[https://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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0991fd53 | 23 | - [[https://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.2.x]] |
ca719424 | 24 | - [[https://notabug.org/cwebber/guile-gcrypt][Guile-Gcrypt]] 0.1.0 or later |
e8d8ecde | 25 | - [[https://www.gnu.org/software/make/][GNU Make]] |
c5a2e1ff | 26 | - [[https://www.gnutls.org][GnuTLS]] compiled with guile support enabled |
60e1c109 | 27 | - [[https://notabug.org/guile-sqlite3/guile-sqlite3][Guile-SQLite3]], version 0.1.0 or later |
397cd9cc | 28 | - [[https://gitlab.com/guile-git/guile-git][Guile-Git]] |
06e3a518 | 29 | - [[http://www.zlib.net/][zlib]] |
6776af04 | 30 | - [[https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/guile-json/][Guile-JSON]] |
4255d4e3 | 31 | |
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32 | Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed: |
33 | ||
ca719424 | 34 | - [[https://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]] |
e8d8ecde | 35 | - [[https://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]] |
e8d8ecde | 36 | - [[https://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]] |
06e3a518 | 37 | - optionally [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]] |
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38 | |
39 | When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following: | |
40 | ||
e8d8ecde | 41 | - [[https://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] |
e9f6d6dd | 42 | |
8b2d9e5d | 43 | * Installation |
4255d4e3 | 44 | |
8b2d9e5d | 45 | See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running |
4255d4e3 | 46 | |
8efc35a8 | 47 | info -f doc/guix.info "Installation" |
7da7ae93 | 48 | |
e8d8ecde | 49 | or by checking the [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Installation][web copy of the manual]]. |
7da7ae93 | 50 | |
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51 | For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the section |
52 | "Building from Git" in the manual. | |
7da7ae93 | 53 | |
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54 | * Installing Guix from Guix |
55 | ||
56 | You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix. | |
57 | To do so: | |
58 | ||
230fda86 | 59 | - Start a shell with the development environment for Guix: |
8db351e3 | 60 | |
230fda86 | 61 | guix environment guix |
d4c74860 | 62 | |
fa747b27 | 63 | - Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option |
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64 | '--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir' |
65 | value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the | |
0758a70c | 66 | new Guix to consider the store to be empty!). We recommend to use the |
67 | value '/var'. | |
d4c74860 | 68 | |
fa747b27 | 69 | - Run "make", "make check", and "make install". |
43d8f490 | 70 | |
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71 | * How It Works |
72 | ||
73 | Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is | |
74 | the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under | |
d17ef356 | 75 | =/gnu/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the |
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76 | `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as |
77 | `build-expression->derivation'. | |
78 | ||
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79 | Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the build daemon (the =guix-daemon= |
80 | command), which in turn performs builds and accesses to the store on its | |
81 | behalf. The RPCs are implemented in the (guix store) module. | |
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82 | |
83 | * Contact | |
84 | ||
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85 | GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/. |
86 | ||
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87 | Please email <help-guix@gnu.org> for questions and <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug |
88 | reports; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for general issues regarding the | |
89 | GNU system. | |
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90 | |
91 | Join #guix on irc.freenode.net. | |
92 | ||
93 | * Guix & Nix | |
94 | ||
e8d8ecde | 95 | GNU Guix is based on [[https://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same |
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96 | package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code. |
97 | Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described | |
98 | below. | |
99 | ||
100 | Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library | |
101 | and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies | |
102 | on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter. | |
103 | ||
104 | Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the | |
105 | features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL, | |
106 | Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose | |
107 | language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages | |
108 | (EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what | |
109 | can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them. | |
110 | ||
111 | Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’ | |
112 | daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix | |
113 | “derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in | |
114 | the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted | |
115 | by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use | |
116 | derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa). | |
117 | ||
e8d8ecde | 118 | With Nix and the [[https://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at |
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119 | the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash. |
120 | Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package | |
121 | composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is | |
122 | written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code, | |
123 | but exposes all the API as Scheme. | |
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124 | |
125 | * Related software | |
126 | ||
e8d8ecde | 127 | - [[https://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated |
d38487e9 | 128 | software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix |
e8d8ecde | 129 | - [[https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a |
d38487e9 | 130 | symlink tree to create user environments |
e8d8ecde | 131 | - [[https://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea |
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132 | - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a |
133 | specified set of packages | |
e8d8ecde | 134 | - The [[https://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software |
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135 | distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the |
136 | host system |