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@ -1,19 +1,24 @@ |
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-*- mode: org -*- |
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GNU Guix is Nix[0] from Guile[1]! |
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[[http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] is a purely functional package manager, and associated free |
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software distribution, for the [[http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]]. In addition to standard |
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package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and |
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roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and |
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garbage collection. |
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Concretely, it allows Nix package management to be done entirely in |
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Scheme. The goal is to investigate whether Scheme, and in particular |
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the ability to define EDSLs, would allow it to fulfill the role of the |
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Nix language. |
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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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[0] http://nixos.org/nix/ |
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[1] http://gnu.org/software/guile/ |
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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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* Hacking |
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Guix currently depends on the following packages: |
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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]] |
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- [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] |
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@ -52,10 +57,45 @@ the (guix store) module. |
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* Contact |
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The repository is at <https://gitorious.org/guix/>. |
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Please email <ludo@gnu.org> or <nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl>, or |
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join #guile or #nixos on irc.freenode.net or `civodul'. |
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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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