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* HACKING <Contributing>: Remove name of the manual from the item argument. * README <Installation>: Likewise.
153 lines
6.4 KiB
Org Mode
153 lines
6.4 KiB
Org Mode
-*- mode: org -*-
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[[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] (IPA: /ɡiːks/) is a purely functional package manager, and
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associated free software distribution, for the [[http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]]. In addition
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to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional
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upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user
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profiles, and garbage collection.
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It provides [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/][Guile]] Scheme APIs, including a high-level embedded
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domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to describe how packages are to be
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built and composed.
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A user-land free software distribution for GNU/Linux comes as part of
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Guix.
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Guix is based on the [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] package manager.
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* Requirements
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GNU Guix currently depends on the following packages:
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- [[http://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.0.x]], version 2.0.7 or later
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- [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]]
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- [[http://www.gnu.org/software/make/][GNU Make]]
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- optionally [[http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/guile-json/][Guile-JSON]], for the 'guix import pypi' command
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- optionally [[http://www.gnutls.org][GnuTLS]] compiled with guile support enabled, for HTTPS support
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in the 'guix download' command. Note that 'guix import pypi' requires
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this functionality.
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Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed:
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- [[http://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]]
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- [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]]
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- [[http://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]]
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When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following:
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- [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]]
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* Installation
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See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running
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info -f doc/guix.info "Installation"
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or by checking the [[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Installation][web copy of the manual]].
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For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the section
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"Building from Git" in the manual.
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* Installing Guix from Guix
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You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix.
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To do so:
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- Start a shell with the development environment for Guix:
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guix environment guix
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- Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option
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'--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir'
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value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the
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new Guix to consider the store to be empty!).
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- Run "make", "make check", and "make install".
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* How It Works
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Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/. A derivation is
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the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under
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=/gnu/store/xxx.drv=. The (guix derivations) module provides the
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`derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as
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`build-expression->derivation'.
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Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the
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=guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds
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and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf. The RPCs are implemented
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in the (guix store) module.
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* Installing Guix as non-root
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The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate
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user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this
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purpose. For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the
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=guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them
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like this:
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$ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild
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However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users.
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In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call
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=nix-setuid-helper=. That program is not setuid-root by default when
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you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines
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(assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local):
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# chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper
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# chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper
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* Contact
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GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix/.
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Please email <bug-guix@gnu.org> for bug reports or questions regarding
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Guix and its distribution; email <gnu-system-discuss@gnu.org> for
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general issues regarding the GNU system.
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Join #guix on irc.freenode.net.
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* Guix & Nix
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GNU Guix is based on [[http://nixos.org/nix/][the Nix package manager]]. It implements the same
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package deployment paradigm, and in fact it reuses some of its code.
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Yet, different engineering decisions were made for Guix, as described
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below.
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Nix is really two things: a package build tool, implemented by a library
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and daemon, and a special-purpose programming language. GNU Guix relies
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on the former, but uses Scheme as a replacement for the latter.
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Using Scheme instead of a specific language allows us to get all the
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features and tooling that come with Guile (compiler, debugger, REPL,
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Unicode, libraries, etc.) And it means that we have a general-purpose
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language, on top of which we can have embedded domain-specific languages
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(EDSLs), such as the one used to define packages. This broadens what
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can be done in package recipes themselves, and what can be done around them.
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Technically, Guix makes remote procedure calls to the ‘nix-worker’
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daemon to perform operations on the store. At the lowest level, Nix
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“derivations” represent promises of a build, stored in ‘.drv’ files in
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the store. Guix produces such derivations, which are then interpreted
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by the daemon to perform the build. Thus, Guix derivations can use
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derivations produced by Nix (and vice versa).
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With Nix and the [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs][Nixpkgs]] distribution, package composition happens at
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the Nix language level, but builders are usually written in Bash.
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Conversely, Guix encourages the use of Scheme for both package
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composition and builders. Likewise, the core functionality of Nix is
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written in C++ and Perl; Guix relies on some of the original C++ code,
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but exposes all the API as Scheme.
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* Related software
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- [[http://nixos.org][Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS]], functional package manager and associated
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software distribution, are the inspiration of Guix
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- [[http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/][GNU Stow]] builds around the idea of one directory per prefix, and a
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symlink tree to create user environments
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- [[http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc_6.html][STORE]] shares the same idea
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- [[https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/][GNOME's OSTree]] allows bootable system images to be built from a
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specified set of packages
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- The [[http://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software
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distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the
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host system
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