README

   1 -*- mode: org -*-
   2
   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
   5 to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional
   6 upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user
   7 profiles, and garbage collection.
   8
   9 It provides [[https://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.
  12
  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”).
  15
  16 Guix is based on the [[https://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] package manager.
  17
  18
  19 * Requirements
  20
  21 If you are building Guix from source, please see the manual for build
  22 instructions and requirements, either by running:
  23
  24   info -f doc/guix.info "Requirements"
  25
  26 or by checking the [[https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Requirements.html][web copy of the manual]].
  27
  28 * Installation
  29
  30 See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running
  31
  32   info -f doc/guix.info "Installation"
  33
  34 or by checking the [[https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Installation.html][web copy of the manual]].
  35
  36 For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the section
  37 "Building from Git" in the manual.
  38
  39 * Installing Guix from Guix
  40
  41 You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix.
  42 To do so:
  43
  44   - Start a shell with the development environment for Guix:
  45
  46       guix environment guix
  47
  48   - Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option
  49     '--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir'
  50     value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the
  51     new Guix to consider the store to be empty!).  We recommend to use the
  52     value '/var'.
  53
  54   - Run "make", "make check", and "make install".
  55
  56 * How It Works
  57
  58 Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/.  A derivation is
  59 the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under
  60 =/gnu/store/xxx.drv=.  The (guix derivations) module provides the
  61 `derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as
  62 `build-expression->derivation'.
  63
  64 Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the build daemon (the =guix-daemon=
  65 command), which in turn performs builds and accesses to the store on its
  66 behalf.  The RPCs are implemented in the (guix store) module.
  67
  68 * Contact
  69
  70 GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/.
  71
  72 Please email <help-guix@gnu.org> for questions and <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug
  73 reports; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for general issues regarding the
  74 GNU system.
  75
  76 Join #guix on irc.freenode.net.
  77
  78 * Guix & Nix
  79
  80 GNU Guix is based on [[https://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]].  It implements the same
  81 package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code.
  82 Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described
  83 below.
  84
  85 Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library
  86 and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language.  GNU Guix relies
  87 on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter.
  88
  89 Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the
  90 features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL,
  91 Unicode, libraries, etc.)  And it means that we have a general-purpose
  92 language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages
  93 (EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages.  This broadens what
  94 can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them.
  95
  96 Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’
  97 daemon to perform operations on the store.  At the lowest level, Nix
  98 “derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in
  99 the store.  Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted
 100 by the daemon to perform the build.  Thus, Guix derivations can use
 101 derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa).
 102
 103 With Nix and the [[https://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at
 104 the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash.
 105 Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package
 106 composition and builders.  Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is
 107 written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code,
 108 but exposes all the API as Scheme.
 109
 110 * Related software
 111
 112   - [[https://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated
 113     software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix
 114   - [[https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a
 115     symlink tree to create user environments
 116   - [[https://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea
 117   - [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a
 118     specified set of packages
 119   - The [[https://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software
 120     distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the
 121     host system