bug#22695: Binary Installation bugs and suggestions

[Thompson, David]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 8:41 AM, myglc2 <address@hidden> wrote:
> I attempted to perform 'Binary Installation' on Debian 8 following ...
>
> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Binary-Installation.html#Binary-Installation
>
> last updated November 04, 2015
>
>
> Bugs:
>
> A) The 4 occurrences of '~root' should be replaced with '/root'

Not a bug.  '~root' expands to '/root' or whatever the root user's
home directory is.

> B) What does 'On hosts using the systemd init system, drop
>    /root/.guix-profile/lib/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service in
>    /etc/systemd/system.' mean.
>
>    FWIW, I tried ...
>
> cp /root/.guix-profile/lib/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service \
>    /etc/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service
>
> ... which did not work.

What didn't work, exactly?  I've personally done this on systemd
setups and it works fine.

> Suggestions:
>
>  1)'guix archive --authorize < 
> /root/.guix-profile/share/guix/hydra.gnu.org.pub'
>
>    ... produced ...
>
>    'warning: failed to install locale: Invalid argument'
>
>    It is not good that the first guix operation that root attempts
>    throws a warning.  Apparently this is to be expected, as careful
>    study of '2.6 Application Setup' might suggest.  As a minimum, we
>    should advise root that the warning is expected.

This warning is unavoidable when the glibc on the host distro has
locales that our incompatible with the glibc that Guix uses.  It's
unfortunate, but *much time* was spent dealing with this headache
already, including time spent talking to glibc developers.

> 2) 'And that’s it! For additional tips and tricks, see Application
>    Setup.' should be changed to say something like, 'This completes
>    root-level install of Guix, However each of your users will need to
>    first set their Locales and, if they intend to use X Window system,
>    X11 fonts, as described in '2.6 Application Setup' before Guix will
>    be fully functional.

That sounds mostly fine, but I don't understand the X11 fonts part.  I
use Guix on foreign distros and have no such issues regarding fonts.

> 3) Is it possible for root to pre-configure locales and X11 fonts for
>    users?

They would have to modify that user's package profile and
.bash_profile, which I don't think we would want to recommend.

> 4) What do we mean by, 'The guix package must remain available in root’s
>    profile, or it would become subject to garbage collection—in which
>    case you would find yourself badly handicapped by the lack of the
>    guix command.'
>
>    What does root have to do to assure that 'The guix package remains
>    available'?

Don't run 'guix package -r guix'.

> 5) We should tell root how to verify that the installation was
>    successful.  If 'make guix-binary.system.tar.xz' is intended to do
>    this, we need to explain where to run it and how to verify the
>    result.

'make guix-binary.system.tar.xz' is how you reproduce the binary
tarball, not how you verify the build was successful.

If the installation is successful, then running 'guix build hello' or
anything else like that should work.

> 6) Should a root 'guix pull' be recommended?

I don't think so.  It only affects the root user, and most people use
Guix as their regular user.  So, if anything, we should recommend
'guix pull' be run for their regular unprivileged user.

> 7) Given the "invasive" nature of this install, an uninstall script, or,
>    as a minimum, explicit instructions of how to remove Guix, really
>    must be provided.

The install is absolutely not invasive.  Guix is entirely
self-contained and does not affect the host distro at all.  Remove
/gnu and /var/guix and it is uninstalled.

> 8) It seems unlikely that a typical sysadmin will be willing to install
>    Guix following the instructions as they now stand. This might be
>    addressed by providing a Guix package for popular distributions.

This has been mentioned many times, but does anyone actually want to
step up and do the work?  Getting such packages into upstream distros
is unlikely because Guix does not conform to the FHS, but we can
provide the packages on our own website.

Personally, I feel that the instructions are so few that it's easy to
do by myself and it also informs me about what exactly is going on
with my system.

> 9) We leave the root user with no locales or X11 fonts.  Do we recommend
>    this?

Again, I don't understand the X11 fonts part, but this problem only
happens when the host distro uses a glibc with incompatible locales.

- Dave