<nnr>Is anyone running GuixSD on xen? <nnr>Or virtualized in any way other than KVM? <davexunit>I've only used GuixSD with Xen and containers <nnr>I would like to run it virtualized, but KVM is not an option for me, since the system I'm trying to run it on does not have support for hardware virtualization. <nnr>I'd prefer PV Xen, but I'd be ok with running the userland in an lxc container or the like too, I just don't know much about setting up or using lxc. <davexunit>I guess you'd need to figure out how to create the necessary disk image for Xen to boot <nnr>So far, I've been mounting the logical volume I want to install to as well as the usb image (on a loop device), and having xen manually grab the kernel and initrd. That part seems to be working, but the system doesn't make it out of the initrd. <nnr>It never seems to fail in exactly the same place, but ultimately the initrd loads most, if not all of the kernel modules, and then the whole VM stops, and xl tears it down. <davexunit>I don't think I can help debug this particular issue, so it would be worth asking the guix-devel mailing list so the full development team can see. <nnr>Hm. Ok, perhaps. I might just wait for the alpha to make some more progress, maybe the boot process is still just too delicate to survive what I'm trying to do to it. <davexunit>it would be helpful to have the initrd issue on file, though. <nnr>Or, what sort of setup/configuration goes into making an lxc container for guixsd? <nnr>What container system did you use? <davexunit>I've been writing a pure Scheme container library for Guix to use, so that's all I've tested with. <nnr>Ah, that's interesting. <davexunit>but I haven't yet done network virtualization or cgroups stuff <davexunit>nor have I gotten something like xorg running <nnr>Eh, one can live without xorg. <davexunit>I had to tweak guixsd's initialization script to make it stop trying to do things that can only be done on the host system. <nnr>Does it just check to see if it's in a container and then act appropriately once it knows? <davexunit>I just parameterized the procedure that generates the script so it has a container? flag <davexunit>and it leaves out bits of the script when building the script for use with a container <davexunit>this stuff will be in the master branch soon <civodul>should we start building all of core-updates? <mark_weaver>civodul: if you could wait a few hours, that would be good. I'd like to do a few more updates over the next hours. <civodul>mark_weaver: sure, i was just wondering whether we should get ready or not <civodul>suggesting that we freeze the branch within a day, say? ***davi_ is now known as Guest62159
<mark_weaver>civodul: the real 'coreutils' package (the user-visible one) has failed the tests/tail-2/assert.sh test three times in a row on armhf. <mark_weaver>I suspect it will eventually succeed if we keep trying, but obviously that's a bug worth investigating. <mark_weaver>I don't have time to do so now, though. should I restart again, and do you want to look into it? <civodul>mark_weaver: actually, could you "chown -R ludo:users" the tree that i left in /tmp/nix-build-coreutils* on hydra-slave1 yesterday? :-) <civodul>i started investigated and then stopped because that tree was read-only for me <davexunit>john's answers to jono's questions were good, I thought. <civodul>excerpt: "I have noticed that many companies seem to have opted for open licenses other than the GPL. I was curious to see if John had noticed a trend towards the APL as opposed to the GPL." <civodul>John's answers were very good indeed <civodul>but the bias of the author is so obvious <civodul>also the fact that a section is entitled "A cult of personality" <davexunit>john's given that answer a few times, but maybe not on paper. <davexunit>I remember him telling me about how weak the evidence is for these studies <civodul>the main "study" is basically that of BlackDuck Inc. <civodul>wearing a tie and "managing" communities :-) <civodul>wait, he's not actually wearing a tie <taylanub>ooh, didn't know of Replicant. once I move jobs and leave back my company-provided iPhone I'll look into that. (a smartphone is pretty useful really, would be annoyed at losing its capabilities.) <davexunit>Replicant is cool, yeah. some major hardware components don't work with it, though. <davexunit>but you could compromise and install replicant and then explicitly add in a couple of blobs to get by. <taylanub>ouch, wifi is a bummer. could live without VA. <civodul>Someone™ should install QEMU's 'patches' on Some Machine™ <civodul>i made a package for that, that's a start ;-) <davexunit>antiatom: if only they were readibly available <mark_weaver>antiatom: unfortunately, the Neo900 is already committed to using a wireless chip that requires a non-free blob. <mark_weaver>and of course the entire baseband subsystem that talks to the phone network is also non-free <antiatom>mark_weaver: Do you know an embedded WLAN chip that does not require a non-libre blob to function that can fit in embedded systems? <antiatom>mark_weaver: GSM radios will always be imperfect, but i agree the WLAN chip is an issue. if you know of an alternative i think the neo900 project would love to heard about it. <mark_weaver>well, I know that Atheros makes good wireless that doesn't require a blob, although I don't know the details of whether it would be suitable for something like the Neo900. <mark_weaver>a few months ago, someone urged me to talk to the neo900 people about it, and I tried, but it was soon clear that they were unwilling to change. <mark_weaver>well, one more quick comment: I don't see why you say "GSM radios will always be imperfect". we already have free software that can make GSM phone calls and send/receive SMS. see osmocombb ***davi_ is now known as Guest45512
<alezost>Efraim Flashner regularly sends the patches to update packages. IMHO he deserves to have the write access to the git repo (of course if efraim doesn't mind) <bavier>I'm sitting on so many patches right now <bavier>gotta get them cleaned up and submitted <daviid>too bad the neo900 'pretends' to be but is not ... these companies make people think they are nice, but in the back, the all bandwidth and wifi being non free s/w let them do what ever they want ... which is a disaster and unaccepyable <davexunit>I don't know why it's so difficult to get a free software capable wireless chip. <davexunit>we can get them for usb and pci-e interfaces <daviid>they all get paid by gov maybe :) <davexunit>I've had the same android phone for over 5 years now and it's so close to death <davexunit>I've been holding out for a more free phone all the time <daviid>i do really think there is an underground control over anything related to telephony [radiowaves] <davexunit>in the US, the FCC mandates that users cannot tamper with GSM modems and things <daviid>davexunit: me too. my old nokia [non smart phone] is 10y] <davexunit>they have proposed similar restrictions for WiFi chips as well. <daviid>i like to read about suggestions here, keep us informed n the free battle ... and how about a guixsd phone? that would be a must! <daviid>yeah mark_weaver is a great source of info for all these things, among other skils he has and share with us :) <daviid>we should fundraise to build a guix phone <davexunit>daviid: I don't know if there is enough standalone gnu/linux compatible free software to provide the necessary applications <daviid>i don't have that skill [building projects and raise funding has always been my weakest blabla] but i wish someone has and does <daviid>davexunit: yu mean for a guix phone? <daviid>davexunit: yea i always wondered why a debian phone did not amke it through yet <davexunit>yeah. managing a phone's software with guix sounds awesome, but there seems to be missing prerequisites <daviid>davexunit: sure, but let's say we raise a $ 1M ... <davexunit>the selling point wouldn't really be guix, though. it would be to have the software available at all. <daviid>bah, back to work but keep us informed! that's awesone to read about these things from time to time ... <daviid>davexunit: but guixsd phone would garantee all the chain is free s? <davexunit>daviid: yes, but my point is that guix is actually a rather uninteresting piece of software in this context. <davexunit>it would be great to manage my phone like I do the rest of my computers <daviid>i tought that was what guixsd was about <daviid>that's what i want to [to manage my phone like a computer] <davexunit>well phones are so locked down that people can't really get *any* distros on there <daviid>which is why i was looking for a debian phone <daviid>someone did managed to run debian on a xperia, have been told, don't know. but then providers, as you said ... <davexunit>putting aside gettting the device on the cell network, just getting another OS installed proves nigh impossible. <davexunit>there's blog posts and such other there about running Debian on your phone or whatever, but all they do is a debootstrap to a directory on the SD card and use chroot <davexunit>we want to boot from Debian or GuixSD's initrd <davexunit>and use GNOME 3 + touch-screen friendly applications <daviid>exactly, what i said above! i want guixsd and gnome <davexunit>that would be excellent, but it seems we are soooo far from that. <daviid>and that's why i invest so much in guile-clutter by the way <davexunit>but I see bunnie, the Novena guy, talking about the custom phones people are making in Singapore <daviid>davexunit: let's say far, not sooooooooooo far :) <davexunit>daviid: having the GNOME APIs available from Guile will be really great. <daviid>things are in good shape now, it's just that we bind very old verions still, but i should bet faster along the way ... let's see, no promises but that's my objective <civodul>iyzsong: should we add profile hooks to generate gschemas and gdk's loader.cache? ***davi_ is now known as Guest76938
<civodul>i needed to check a log file, but didn't have it locally <civodul>so i tweak guix build --log-file to return the URL of the log on hydra <civodul>but there was a bug in the web client <civodul>but now i forgot what i was doing before that <bavier>will check in that log-file feature? I know I've wanted that feature before <civodul>i think several of us have been wanting it for some time <mark_weaver>civodul: oooh, that log-file feature will be nice to have! :) <antiatom>daviid: Neo900 does not pretend to be anything, they are very up-front and honest about what devices require non-libre software to function. <antiatom>The WLAN card has a libre driver but requires a non-libre firmware blob to be side-loaded into the WLAN processor. This blob never touches the main CPU and they created a special circuit path in the device to load the WLAN firmware blob so it would never taint the central CPU <antiatom>As for GSM, there are only a couple of very old GSM radios supported by osmocomBB, and you need to have those handsets connected to a host PC with specific software in order to manually type GSM commands to it <antiatom>It is more of a hacking tool to explore the GSM stack than a practical solution to having a liberated baseband in day-to-day usage <antiatom>The Neo900 gets closer than anything. If you do not want a non-libre baseband stack, then stop using GSM. <antiatom>You can order a Neo900 without the GSM radio, by the way. <antiatom>As for the WLAN card, please find any suitable alternative that does not require non-libre firmware blobs and can fit in an embedded device of this size. <antiatom>The project would love to know about it. <antiatom>For the Neo900 handsets that DO ship with the non-libre Gemalto GSM/LTE/GPS radio chip, it is at very least isolated from the rest of the system in a very ingenious way <antiatom>There are thre INA321 chips that sit in between the main CPU (where you would run Debian or GuixSD) and the GSM radio, preventing the GSM chip from accessing system resources <antiatom>It also monitors when the GSM chip tries to use any power, so if it is doing something behind your back, the Neo900 is a platform that could offer the ability to "watch the watchers" so to speak <antiatom>Or you could literally shut off all electricity to the GSM radio if you wanted. <antiatom>There is no alternative on the market that can offer this, or even projects in the planning stages that are trying to offer this. <antiatom>I love that osmocomBB exists, but it is not practical for day-to-day use, won't give you mobile Internet, and is probably illegal to use where you live