On 2026-01-10 20:28, Cayetano Santos wrote:
sam. 10 janv. 2026 at 19:42, Ekaitz Zarraga <[email protected]> wrote:
Just my 5 cents here,
On 2026-01-10 17:01, Gabriel Wicki wrote:
What’s a bundle? A set of packages that you would put together with guix
pack?
Yes. I am not sure about various workflows and toolchains needed by
specific designers, but I could imagine a set of tools being used for
PCB design, or one for chip-design. And providing ready-to-use images
to lure people in so they get to feel the advantages of Guix.
Doesn't this thing feel like a "toolchain" like `gcc-toolchain`?
Electronics design and software are related, but depart on relevant
aspects. Say for example fpga toolchains, you typically need to perform
verification, testing, synthesis and implementation. Following the
device at hand, we have the tools in Guix. More in particular, we
already have the whole toolchain if we consider GateMate FPGAs [1],
which accept a fully free toolchain. Delivering a bundle of integrated
tooling might be a good entrance point for newcomers.
Then, you can also think of specific development environments [2], etc.
C.
[1] https://builds.sr.ht/~csantosb/job/1588460
[2] https://codeberg.org/csantosb/emacs.vhdl-ide
Sure!
What I meant here is we can use the concept of "toolchain" we already
have so people can install everything together in one `guix install` or
`guix shell` command. That could be great!
We could use some of that. In the end, toolchains are just packages that
include a set of packages. So we have the mechanism for that already and
we could make use of it.
Kicad is an obvious example I think, the symbols and the libraries are
separated, so you have to install all. Maybe a "toolchain"-like package
that had all those together could be a good idea.
For FPGAs we could do something similar. The set of packages that are
normally used for FPGAs are almost always the same, we could combine
them in just one.
After all, if someone doesn't want them all, like it happens with
gcc-toolchain, they could install the packages independently. Like, for
example `guix install binutils`.
Cheers!
