IRC channel logs

<phant0mas>good morning guix

<sneek>Welcome back civodul, you have 1 message.

<sneek>civodul, nkar says: you mean "guile -L /run/current-system/profile/share/guile/site/2.0 -C /run/current-system/profile/share/guile/site/2.0/gnu/build/file-systems.scm"? (pk (find-partition-by-label "rootfs")) returns #f.

<civodul>ok

<civodul>nkar: did you have a chance to look at (gnu build file-systems)?

<nkar>no, what do I need to look for?

<civodul>could you try (disk-partitions) for instance, to make sure it sees all the partitions?

<Kehlyos>How is guix any different from nixos and nix ?

<nkar>civodul: ("sda1", "sda2", "sda3", "sda4", "sda5")

<nkar>Kehlyos: guix doesn't ship nonfree software

<nkar>have you tried searching the web? that's a popular question, really

<davexunit>Kehlyos: the most noticable difference is the choice of implementation language

<davexunit>scheme vs the nix language

<nkar>scheme vs the nix language (+ bash)

<Kehlyos>What could be the advantages of scheme over nix except the speed ?

<nkar>some say it's more readable. also, it's not a dsl but a general purpose language, so it has more libs

<nkar>nix is lazy

<Kehlyos>So basically, for the time beeing, it has no fundamental advantages for a classic desktop utilisation ?

<nkar>what does it mean here?

<nkar>guix or scheme, or what?

<Kehlyos>i am talking about nix vs guix

<civodul>Kehlyos: the main advantages of this design choice is that it's more hackable, at all levels

<civodul>and allows more applications to be written easily

<civodul>like guix-web, or the Emacs user interface

<civodul>nkar: so is your root partition listed here?

<nkar>yes, it's sda3

<civodul>ok

<civodul>nkar: can you try, as root: (define sb (read-ext2-superblock "/dev/sda3")) ?

<nkar>Kehlyos: the major advantage for me is guix's commitment to free software

<nkar>since you mentioned desktops, note that we don't have anything like gnome packaged yet. but there's ratpoison, if you can live with it.

<civodul>and even a few other window managers

<civodul>there's quite some distance between GNOME and ratpoison ;-)

<nkar>civodul: it's ext3. should I try the above command anyway?

<civodul>yes

<nkar>okay

<Kehlyos>nkar, My desktop use is kind of minimal, but not to the point of ratpoison :), i use bspwm and bar

<civodul>we don't have those

<civodul>Kehlyos: there's a list of available packages at https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/package-list.html

<alezost>Kehlyos: you may contribute by making a guix package for bspwm

<davexunit>that would be cool :)

<nkar>civodul: read-ext2-superblock is unbound. grep doesn't find it either

<civodul>nkar: ,use(gnu build file-systems)

<nkar>already imported

<civodul>nkar: ,m(gnu build file-systems)

<civodul>:-)

<nkar>got a vector back

<civodul>and then: (ext2-superblock-volume-name sb)

<Kehlyos>While sometimes, i don't really like nix's syntax, if there is no major advantages over nixos, i am not really ready to switch to guix (FSF and philosophy is not really major for me, i am the kind of linux user that does not mind using systemd, and loves nvidia's propriatary bullshit, because i get more performance out of it)

<nkar>civodul: #f

<civodul>okay

<civodul>nkar: and the command "sudo e2label /dev/sda3"?

<Kehlyos>Is there a

<civodul>no, there isn't

<davexunit>can't win 'em all.

<civodul>:-)

<nkar>civodul: empty string

<civodul>nkar: conclusion: your root partition doesn't have a label

<civodul>IOW, PEBKAC :-)

<nkar>PEBKAC?

<civodul>"problem exists between keyboard and chair"

<nkar>haha

<amirouche>x)

<civodul>heh, sorry, i'm being unpleasant ;-)

<nkar>I thought the name field in parted corresponds to the label. sorry for wasting your time.

<civodul>np, that's a tricky area

<civodul>so "sudo e2label /dev/sda3 rootfs" would set 'rootfs' as the label of that partition

<civodul>and then you should be able to use it in the 'file-system' declaration

<nkar>okay, I'll try that later. (I need to replace the motherboard.)

<civodul>we have stripped-down kmod and blkid functionality in Scheme, isn't that cool?

*civodul tries self-congratulation after Kehlyos' comments

<davexunit>:D

<davexunit>it *is* cool

<civodul>ah!

<darlinger>howdy all :)

<jxself>Ahoy there.

<darlinger>just checking out guix. thought i'd drop by the community

<davexunit>welcome darlinger

<jmd>Are we a commune ?

<jxself>Sure why not?

<jxself>With hooded robes too?

<davexunit>darlinger: how'd you learn about guix? I'm curious what piques people's interest.

<jmd>Well there's a church of emacs, so why not indeed.

<darlinger>davexunit: i just popped over to the nixos channel to ask them about using openrc instead of systemd and someone suggested that i check out guux

<darlinger>guix*

<jmd>we use a thing called dmd

<darlinger>jmd: there's also saint ignucio

<darlinger>jmd: yeah i'm looking at it... how hard is it to pick up?

<jmd>Actually I don't know. I've never looked at it in detail.

<darlinger>jmd: lol isn't it the init you're using?

<davexunit>darlinger: it's easy enough to use the CLI for it to start/stop/etc daemons

<jmd>My contribution so far has been limited to packaging and porting to new architectures.

<davexunit>writing service definitions for guix requires learning a bit more about how guix works.

<davexunit>since you use the store monad and 'g-expressions'

<darlinger>how different has the guix package manager become from the parts of Nix that it's implemented?

<darlinger>i heard there was some divergence on guix' part

<davexunit>darlinger: we use the nix-daemon and replace everything else

<darlinger>davexunit: so there still is things like multi-user mode and such?

<davexunit>what is multi-user mode?

<davexunit>like more than one user talking to the daemon?

<alezost>darlinger: if you mean that each user can install packages in their own profiles than yes there are such things

<davexunit>that too

<darlinger>davexunit: basically. you should check out the nixos docs.

<darlinger>alezost: ohhh okay :) that was my question

<davexunit>I've read parts of their docs when implementing various things, but I'm not familiar with 100% of their terminology

<davexunit>we call that 'per-user profiles'

<darlinger>davexunit: i'll just have to dive into the guix docs. is it easy to write custom builds?

<davexunit>yes

<davexunit>we try to make things as hackable as possible.

<darlinger>davexunit: awesome! and there are already repos? is it all gpl-ed software?

<davexunit>the repo comes with guix. it's all free software.

<davexunit>gpl'd software is but a subset of the set of free software :)

<darlinger>davexunit: sweet... is guile/scheme hard to pick up?

<davexunit>darlinger: have you worked with any lisps before?

<davexunit>I picked up guile a couple of years ago

<davexunit>coming from having next to no experience with lisp

<davexunit>and found it pretty easy to learn.

<davexunit>a goal of guix is to make it easy for non-scheme experts to do useful things.

<darlinger>davexunit: i'm done most of my stuff with procedural languages (python, ruby, bash, some C)

<davexunit>you'll find the most in common with ruby.

<darlinger>davexunit: is it closer to perl than ruby?

<davexunit>if you've used methods like Array.map

<davexunit>no

<darlinger>hmmm okay. how does guile play out into the scheme of things?

<davexunit>ruby has a bit of a functional style to it, that is what you'll find in common with scheme.

<darlinger>(i made a pun) but seriously

<davexunit>guile is the scheme implementation used.

<darlinger>davexunit: oh, i never got into functional ruby. but from the sounds of it, it should be pretty easy

<darlinger>davexunit: oh that makes sense. so scheme is sort of like markdown in which there are a lot of different implementations/

<darlinger>?

<davexunit>ruby: [1,2,3].map({ |x| x * x })

<davexunit>scheme: (map (lambda (x) (* x x)) '(1 2 3))

<darlinger>davexunit: oh that's a littel python-esque too with the map function

<davexunit>darlinger: yes, scheme is a standardized language, but there are many implementations that each add their own non-standard things.

<darlinger>davexunit: do you use linux or linux-libre kernel?

<davexunit>so you'll find that each scheme has their own unique features and limitations.

<davexunit>darlinger: linux-libre

<darlinger>davexunit: sort of scares me to be honest. i know binary blobs and proprietary stuff has been stripped out, but any major projects that i should know about that have been excluded/stripped out?

<davexunit>just proprietary stuff.

<darlinger>davexunit: does linux-libre use the linux project as upstream?

<davexunit>yes

<davexunit>it's a deblobbed linux.

<davexunit>if your computer doesn't require nonfree drivers and firmware, you won't notice a difference.

<darlinger>davexunit: gotcha. so i can basically just throw proprietary nvidia out the window at that point?

<davexunit>yeah.

<darlinger>davexunit: would it be incredibly hard to patch it in?

<davexunit>I don't know, actually.

<darlinger>also, i'm coming from gentoo/funtoo. would it be hard to rework a .config or do i have to start configuring from scratch?

<davexunit>there are examples in the manual

<davexunit>you can also just try out the guix package manager on gentoo and not have to install the full system.

<davexunit>or create a vm

<davexunit>here's my desktop config: https://gitorious.org/davexunit/guix-config/source/6c37693fa461261846deaabf8a8861fa2c084ba8:desktop.scm

<davexunit>I have only just started to use the standalone system on real hardware.

<davexunit>I still mostly work on guix on a debian machine

<darlinger>davexunit: ohhhh

<darlinger>i'm thinking of putting it on hardware... would that be ill-advised?

<davexunit>if you have a computer to spare, it would be great if you tried to install and see how it goes.

<davexunit>just be warned: this is alpha software.

<darlinger>and i would use it on gentoo but i'm sort of behind on emerges and i want to jump ship

<darlinger>davexunit: hmmmph wait is guix a source based distro or can we do binaries?

<davexunit>it's source based, but you can fetch binaries from a build farm.

<davexunit>it's a transparent system. if the package is available on an authorized remote machine, guix will fetch that. otherwise, it builds locally.

<darlinger>davexunit: does the project have authorized remote machines handy?

<davexunit>yes.

<davexunit> https://hydra.gnu.org

<darlinger>davexunit: excellent

<darlinger>davexunit: oh guix has it's own hydra system too?

<davexunit>it's a bit overloaded, though. we need donations of resources. :)

<davexunit>yup.

<darlinger>davexunit: monetary or in the form of servers?

<davexunit>servers.

<davexunit>more machines to offload builds onto.

<darlinger>davexunit: what sort of specs are you looking for? i may or may not be able to donate some vps'

<davexunit>I'm not sure, actually. our maintainer, civodul, would know better. if you are interested in helping out with this, I would say send an email to guix-devel@gnu.org about it.

<darlinger>davexunit: let me try it out first. i'm a little shy about using it on hardware though.

<davexunit>if you have a spare computer, running the full system is fun. :)

<davexunit>otherwise, just mess around with VMs and such using your host OS.

<darlinger>davexunit: lol i DO have a spare computer :)

<darlinger>davexunit: i'm pretty well versed in kvm too... so i can do that as well

<davexunit>cool. :)

<darlinger>davexunit: wait does libre-linux have kvm?

<davexunit>have fun.

<davexunit>yup

<darlinger>davexunit: thanks for the qna! it was very helpful

<davexunit>you're welcome.

<davexunit>do report back the good and bad things.

<darlinger>oh i will! :) i love free software and i think this is the first project that i'd be seriously interested in contributing to.

<davexunit>glad to hear it :)

<davexunit>if you have scheme specific questions, #guile is another good channel to hang out on.

<darlinger>davexunit: good to keep in mind :) thanks

<darlinger>also, how familiar are you with gentoo/funtoo?

<davexunit>not very. I've never installed it.

<davexunit>I chose arch instead for awhile.

<davexunit>then back to debian.

<darlinger>davexunit: you familiar with the premise of use flags and profiles?

<davexunit>sort of.

<davexunit>use flags allow you to basically tell gentoo with configure switches to turn on/off when building?

<darlinger>davexunit: pretty much. it allows you to say what features you'd like to explicitely include or exclude in your packages, globally

<davexunit>a-ha.

<darlinger>like if you don't want kde in anything you can put that in your /etc/portage/make.conf

<darlinger>a simple -kde

<darlinger>davexunit: you can do that with A LOT of different flags

<davexunit>we don't have such a system in guix, but it could be done.

<darlinger>portage is a genious package manager

<darlinger>davexunit: i was thinking about that

<darlinger>the main issue i have with portage is that i frequently get caught in dependency hell

<davexunit>I typically want the fully featured package.

<davexunit>guix certainly gets one out of that hell.

<darlinger>davexunit: and that's your choice, but some people, like me, like to keep things as trim as i can

<darlinger>davexunit: lol well yeah. so does Nix.

<davexunit>yes, I understand. I think your use-case is important, too.

<jmd>I thought the whole point of a functional package manager is that it replaces "dependency hell" with "rebuild hell".

<darlinger>davexunit: exactly.

<darlinger>jmd: o_o

<davexunit>jmd: not from a user's perspective.

<darlinger>my idea was, why not combine the strengths of a functional package manager with the configurability of portage

<davexunit>I don't think it would be too hard to write a proof of concept use flags implementation with guix.

<darlinger>there are also some examples of another great source-based package manager, i.e. sorcery. but i don't think any active projects are using it anymore

<darlinger>davexunit: you don't think?

<davexunit>you'd have a base package with everything turned on. then you'd call a function that takes a package and a set of use flags and returns a new packages with proper tweaks made.

*phant0mas thinking it's time to try guix alone on bare metal

<davexunit>the hard, tedious work would be backporting use flags to existing packages.

<davexunit>but it's most certainly possible.

<darlinger>davexunit: why can't we just borrow from portage? i believe it's open source.

<davexunit>guix packages are fundamentally different

<darlinger>davexunit: source is source

<davexunit>we'd borrow their ideas, not their source, most likely.

<darlinger>davexunit: while the package manager and how it handles it are different, we're still building our stuff with gcc

<davexunit>but the way in which we describe packages and run builds are different.

<davexunit>so the portage source would give us a reference implementation, and then we'd write a guile/guix version.

<darlinger>davexunit: how so? i haven't read the docs on guix quite yet. i was hoping it would be similar to Nix, which i just read the docs to... and they basically use their own DSL with some shell script here and there

<darlinger>davexunit: hmmmm exactly

<davexunit>we don't use shell scripts. :)

<darlinger>davexunit: o.o

<davexunit>our build scripts are written in scheme.

<darlinger>davexunit: wh...why not?

<darlinger>davexunit: ohh lol

<davexunit>because guile has POSIX functions :)

<darlinger>davexunit: ohhhh hahaha makes sense

<darlinger>davexunit: sort of. i'm still wrapping my mind around what posix is

<davexunit>basically, we can make system calls.

<darlinger>i've tried writing some scripts that take posix-style arguments

<davexunit>and we can invoke other programs.

<darlinger>but that's about it

<davexunit>so instead of writing bash scripts, we write guile scripts.

<darlinger>wait, so could we easily use guix with other unix-based systems such as *BSD?

<darlinger>davexunit: that makes sense

<darlinger>davexunit: wait are there ANY bash scripts used in guix?

<davexunit>a few

<davexunit>but they are for other things

<davexunit>like a helper script for using guix from a git repo without installing

<darlinger>davexunit: oh that sort of thing... i've become a little attached to bash/zsh scripting for devops sort of stuff

<davexunit>I've been slowly working on 'devops' tools for guix

<davexunit>so far there's 'guix evironment', which can do what nix-shell does.

<davexunit>'guix system' is the real 'devops' tool, though.

<darlinger>davexunit: what do you mean nix-shell?

<davexunit>that creates disk images, vms, etc. from OS configs

<darlinger>davexunit: ohh gotcha. i knew that nix has nixops

<davexunit>darlinger: it's a utility that comes with nix. it spawns a shell that has all the dependencies for a given package.

<darlinger>gotcha

<darlinger>so why was there a fork in the first place? just for Free Software purposes?

<davexunit>technical reasons, too.

<jmd>I don't think it was a "fork" as such.

<davexunit>using a general purpose programming language instead of a custom one

<davexunit>yeah, it's not really a fork.

<davexunit>we're based on Nix, but we didn't fork the project.

<jmd>guix is a different animal, which builds upon the work done by nix.

<darlinger>this functional package manager stuff really is a new thing, isn't it. it's nice to actually be ahead of the curve for once

<davexunit>yeah, it's still pretty new, but nix has been around for almost a decade.

<davexunit>took a long time for anyone to start catching on.

<darlinger>wait seriously?

<davexunit>yeah

<darlinger>i'm seeing a trend in functional programming stuff recently, are other people getting interested or is it just my interest giving me a bias?

<davexunit>I'm not sure, because I have the same bias.

<davexunit>it does seem to be picking up steam.

<darlinger>is it a good thing? i want it to have more attention, but i also like being in a bit of obscurity

<davexunit>I think it's mostly good.

<davexunit>gotta go for a bit.

<davexunit>see ya!

*davexunit goes afk

<_`_>why? More attention to a particular paradigm helps everyone.

<_`_>Even Peyton agrees.

<darlinger>_`_: oh hey :) didn't know you were here too

<darlinger>davexunit: see ya!

<darlinger>is it possible to just install guix into something like, say, slackware for the time being instead of going for a full install on straight hardware?

<civodul>darlinger: yes, sure

<civodul> http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Installation.html explains how to install the package manager atop a running system

<civodul>that's a relatively simple and non-intrusive way to test it

<darlinger>civodul: would it be able to update itself?

<civodul>yes

<civodul>using the "guix pull" command

<darlinger>civodul: okay :) i think i can go from there

<darlinger>civodul: i'd have to change my path too, i'm guessing?

<civodul>yes, right

<civodul>when installing packages with 'guix package', the command will tell you what environment variables need to be defined/adjusted

<civodul>like $CPATH, $LIBRARY_PATH, etc.

<darlinger>oh okay :) that seems easy enough. thankyou!

<darlinger>wait is multi-user stuff going to be available as well?

<civodul>"multi-user" in the sense that each user has their own profile, yes

<civodul>profile = set of installed packages

<civodul>is that what you meant?

<darlinger>civodul: yes. i just forgot the words :p okay thanks! i'll just read the documentation from now on

<civodul>the Emacspeak announcement is wonderful: http://emacspeak.blogspot.com/2014/11/announcing-emacspeak-410-nicedog.html :-

<civodul>:-)

<davexunit>civodul: that was hilarious

<kmicu>davexunit: did you check NixOps or do you start from scratch?

<davexunit>kmicu: I've looked a bit at what nixops can do for ideas of what to port to guix

IRC channel logs

2014-11-30.log