Re: how to install from binary

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

Mason Hock <address@hidden> skribis:

> Guix seems to be building everything from source, which can take a
> while. As per these instructions I tried
>
> # cd [prefix]/share/guix/hydra.gnu.org.pub
> # guix archive --authorize < hydra.gnu.org.pub
> and got
>
> guile: warning: failed to install locale
> warning: failed to install locale: Invalid argument
>
> with no other output. I get that error almost every time I try to do
> something with Guix and it usually works anyway.

Right, it’s a warning (not an error), so you can proceed.  To address
it, see
<https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Application-Setup.html#Locales>.

> Since I got no other errors I just kept going with
>
> $ guix build emacs --dry-run
>
> and got "The following derivations would be built:" so apparently it
> did not work.

It depends.  It may be that some derivations would be built, and others
would be downloaded.  That can happen for instance if the build farm
hasn’t yet built the Emacs you’re asking for.

> During an installation I do see a lot of "updating list of substitutes"
> messages, but I also frequently see the word "build" and a lot of .c
> and .h files go by, which combined with the long installation time
> makes me doubt that it is actually downloading binaries from the
> substitutes and installing them.

We arrange for the build farm to provide binaries as fast as possible,
but sometimes it’s just lagging behind and users have to build from
source.

HTH!

Ludo’.