With some more proper reading around I managed to find this thread
from May:
https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg13655.html
The end of the conversation answered many of my questions. I think
I know how I want to proceed from here.
Thanks for taking the time if you made it this far :)
Tangonov <[email protected]> writes:
Thanks for the reply. I of course felt the need to keep trying
after I
messaged you. Call it determination (or impatience). I had
manged to
do such a good job of addressing my own questions that I ended
up
breaking my home environment.
In the end, I ended up logging in as root, deleting my profile
symlinks for my user and garbage collecting my user state.
From there I was able to install my manifest from scratch using
guix
home.
I am still pretty confused about the relationship between guix
package, guix home and how they interact with packages. It seems
like
I can install many packages by invoking guix install, and then
one
system home reconfigure would undo my links to those packages if
they
aren't included in the home configuration. So it seems like I
should
maintain my package manifest should my interests in which
packages to
keep or discard should change above and beyond a base system.
What's more confusing is after I installed from a clean slate,
my
pinentry broke for gpg. It was fixed by invoking guix install
pinentry, which required no download or build for pinentry. It
seems
like the de-duplication worked in that case, but I now have
(again)
two divergent records of which packages I should, or should not
have.
It feels like I am swinging at a nail with my thumb in the path
of the
hammer.
What exactly is the intended use of guix home?
I am happy to provide my configurations, though, they have
evolved
since my initial message.
Efraim Flashner <[email protected]> writes:
[[PGP Signed Part:Undecided]]
On Tue, Jun 14, 2022 at 08:05:45AM -0700, Tangonov wrote:
I am trying out guix for the first time and feel like I may
have
jumped in
head-first into the shallow end of the pool.
I had started out with using guix package for my packages and
updated my env
for around 30 generations. Then I discovered guix home and
thought
"hey,
that may be better".
I set up guix home following the documentation and it created
my
first home
generation and completely re-installed my packages.
However, after subsequent changes to my home config, a guix
home
reconfigure
is now attempting to re-install (and build) my packages all
over
again,
despite never having run a guix pull.
I tried to "undo" the initialization of guix home as I feel
like I
maybe
should stick to the "older way" for a while longer while I get
the
hang of
Guile Scheme and try not to change too much at once. I have
been
unable to
revert my initial revision, or find a clear path back without
doing
something dramatic.
With all of my history in mind, I have 3 questions:
1. Is there a supported way to apply incremental changes in
guix
home,
without re-doing (and re-compiling) all of my software?
2. Is there a supported way to revert back to just using GNU
Stow
and guix
package?
3. If I can be happy with guix home, is there any supported
way to
remove
potential bloat from having run guix package for 30
generations?
Thanks for the incredible software and help, if you're able.
I suppose the quick answer is to make sure you don't have
'guix' as
one
of the packages in your config.
If you share your config we might be able to see if anything
sticks
out.
