--*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-
-
-#+TITLE: Hacking GNU Guix and Its Incredible Distro
-
-Copyright © 2012, 2013 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
-
- 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.
-
-
-* Running Guix before it is installed
-
-Command-line tools can be used even if you have not run "make install".
-To do that, prefix each command with ‘./pre-inst-env’, as in:
-
- ./pre-inst-env guix-build --help
-
-Similarly, for a Guile session using the Guix modules:
-
- ./pre-inst-env guile -c '(use-modules (guix utils)) (pk (%current-system))'
-
-The ‘pre-inst-env’ script sets up all the environment variables
-necessary to support this.
-
-* The Perfect Setup
-
-The Perfect Setup to hack on Guix is basically the perfect setup used
-for Guile hacking (info "(guile) Using Guile in Emacs"). First, you
-need more than an editor, you need [[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs][Emacs]], empowered by the wonderful
-[[http://nongnu.org/geiser/][Geiser]].
-
-Geiser allows for interactive and incremental development from within
-Emacs: code compilation and evaluation from within buffers, access to
-on-line documentation (docstrings), context-sensitive completion, M-. to
-jump to an object definition, a REPL to try out your code, and more.
-
-To actually edit the code, Emacs already has a neat Scheme mode. But in
-addition to that, you must not miss [[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ParEdit][Paredit]]. It provides facilities to
-directly operate on the syntax tree, such as raising an s-expression or
-wrapping it, swallowing or rejecting the following s-expression, etc.
-
-* Adding new packages
-
-Package recipes in Guix look like this:
-
-#+BEGIN_SRC scheme
- (package
- (name "nettle")
- (version "2.5")
- (source
- (origin
- (method url-fetch)
- (uri (string-append "mirror://gnu/nettle/nettle-"
- version ".tar.gz"))
- (sha256
- (base32
- "0wicr7amx01l03rm0pzgr1qvw3f9blaw17vjsy1301dh13ll58aa"))))
- (build-system gnu-build-system)
- (inputs `(("m4" ,m4)))
- (propagated-inputs `(("gmp" ,gmp)))
- (home-page
- "http://www.lysator.liu.se/~nisse/nettle/")
- (synopsis "GNU Nettle, a cryptographic library")
- (description
- "Nettle is a cryptographic library...")
- (license gpl2+))
-#+END_SRC
-
-Such a recipe can be written by hand, and then tested by running
-‘./pre-inst-env guix-build nettle’.
-
-When writing the recipe, the base32-encoded SHA256 hash of the source
-code tarball, which can be seen in the example above, can be obtained by
-running:
-
- guix-download http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/nettle/nettle-2.5.tar.gz
-
-Alternatively, it is possible to semi-automatically import recipes from
-the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/][Nixpkgs]] software distribution using this command:
-
- guix-import /path/to/nixpkgs/checkout nettle
-
-The command automatically fetches and converts to Guix the “Nix
-expression” of Nettle.
-
-* Porting the Guix distro on a new platform
-
-** Introduction
-
-Unlike Make or similar build tools, Guix requires absolutely /all/ the
-dependencies of a build process to be specified.
-
-For a user-land software distribution, that means that the process that
-builds GCC (then used to build all other programs) must itself be
-specified; and the process to build the C library to build that GCC; and
-the process to build the GCC to build that library; and... See the
-problem? Chicken-and-egg.
-
-To break that cycle, the distro starts from a set of pre-built
-binaries–usually referred to as “bootstrap binaries.” These include
-statically-linked versions of Guile, GCC, Coreutils, Make, Grep, sed,
-etc., and the GNU C Library.
-
-This section describes how to build those bootstrap binaries when
-porting to a new platform.
-
-** When the platform is supported by Nixpkgs
-
-In that case, the easiest thing is to bootstrap the distro using
-binaries from Nixpkgs.
-
-To do that, you need to comment out the definitions of
-‘%bootstrap-guile’ and ‘%bootstrap-inputs’ in distro/packages/bootstrap.scm
-to force the use of Nixpkgs derivations. For instance, when porting to
-‘i686-linux’, you should redefine these variables along these lines:
-
-#+BEGIN_SRC scheme
- (define %bootstrap-guile
- (nixpkgs-derivation "guile" "i686-linux"))
-
- (define %bootstrap-inputs
- (compile-time-value
- `(("libc" ,(nixpkgs-derivation "glibc" "i686-linux"))
- ,@(map (lambda (name)
- (list name (nixpkgs-derivation name "i686-linux")))
- '("gnutar" "gzip" "bzip2" "xz" "patch"
- "coreutils" "gnused" "gnugrep" "bash"
- "gawk" ; used by `config.status'
- "gcc" "binutils")))))
-#+END_SRC
-
-That should allow the distro to be bootstrapped.
-
-Then, the tarballs containing the initial binaries of Guile, Coreutils,
-GCC, libc, etc. need to be built. To that end, run the following
-commands:
-
-#+BEGIN_SRC sh
- ./pre-inst-env guix-build -K \
- -e '(@ (gnu packages make-bootstrap) %bootstrap-tarballs)' \
- --system=i686-linux
-
-#+END_SRC
-
-These should build tarballs containing statically-linked tools usable on
-that system.
-
-In the source tree, you need to install binaries for ‘mkdir’, ‘bash’,
-‘tar’, and ‘xz’ under ‘distro/packages/bootstrap/i686-linux’. These
-binaries can be extracted from the static-binaries tarball built above.
-
-A rule for ‘distro/packages/bootstrap/i686-linux/guile-2.0.7.tar.xz’
-needs to be added in ‘Makefile.am’, with the appropriate hexadecimal
-vrepresentation of its SHA256 hash.
-
-You may then revert your changes to ‘bootstrap.scm’. For the variables
-‘%bootstrap-coreutils&co’, ‘%bootstrap-binutils’, ‘%bootstrap-glibc’,
-and ‘%bootstrap-gcc’, the expected SHA256 of the corresponding tarballs
-for ‘i686-linux’ (built above) must be added.
-
-This should be enough to bootstrap the distro without resorting to
-Nixpkgs.
-
-** When the platform is *not* supported by Nixpkgs
-
-In that case, the bootstrap binaries should be built using whatever
-tools are available on the target platform. That is, the tarballs and
-binaries show above must first be built manually, using the available
-tools.
-
-They should have the same properties as those built by the Guix recipes
-shown above. For example, all the binaries (except for glibc) must be
-statically-linked; the bootstrap Guile must be relocatable (see patch in
-the Guix distro); the static-binaries tarball must contain the same
-programs (Coreutils, Grep, sed, Awk, etc.); and so on.
-
-* Commit Access
-
-Development is done using the Git distributed version control system. Thus,
-access to the repository is not strictly necessary. We welcome contributions
-in the form of patches as produced by ‘git format-patch’ sent to
-bug-guix@gnu.org.
-
-However, for frequent contributors, having write access to the repository is
-convenient. When you get commit access, please make sure to follow the policy
-below (discussions of the policy can take place on bug-guix@gnu.org.)
-
-Non-trivial patches should always be posted to bug-guix@gnu.org (trivial
-patches include fixing typos, etc.)
-
-For patches that just add a new package, and a simple one, it’s OK to commit,
-if you’re confident (which means you successfully built it in a chroot setup.)
-Likewise for package upgrades. We have a mailing list for commit
-notifications (guix-commits@gnu.org), so people can notice. Before pushing
-your changes, make sure to run ‘git pull --rebase’.
-
-For anything else, please post to bug-guix@gnu.org and leave time for a
-review, without committing anything. If you didn’t receive any reply
-after two weeks, and if you’re confident, it’s OK to commit.
-
-That last part is subject to being adjusted, allowing individuals to commit
-directly on non-controversial changes on parts they’re familiar with.
+-*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-
+
+#+TITLE: Hacking GNU Guix and Its Incredible Distro
+
+Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
+Copyright © 2015, 2017 Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org>
+Copyright © 2017 Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>
+Copyright © 2017 Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net>
+
+ 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.
+
+* Contributing
+
+See the manual for useful hacking informations, either by running
+
+ info -f doc/guix.info "Contributing"
+
+or by checking the [[https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Contributing.html][web copy of the manual]].
HCoop / jackhill / guix / guix.git / blobdiff