Re: Guix as GSOC Project

[Ashish Gupta]

> Hmm yes.  The idea here was rather to have a user interface, in Emacs,
> to manage packages with Guix.  Are you familiar with package.el?  That’s
> the kind of UI we’d aim for.
>
> What’s your experience writing Emacs Lisp code?

I have read about package.el , but as far as making Emacs Lisp scripts go, i've not really given it a try. I will shortly , once i get enough grasp on Scheme to understand it .I have done UI designing before ( in Qt/GtK), so i guess it should be easy to build on it.

I have started with SICP and going through the basics.

> > *Another idea i had was about a Hotspot access point (Wireless).*
>
> What do you mean?

I was thinking about a system tool/software that could easily enough create Infrastructural WiFi Access Points. There's a very popular program on Windows to achieve this, but doing the same under Linux seems to be impossible as of now. There is hostapd which seems promising, but is still unused. That could be moulded in a better GUI. The need for infrastructural networks is of utmost importance now a days , because smartphones can connect to them and use internet , which is not possible on ad hoc networking (at least under android).

This comes in for internet sharing in an easy manner, for example in the case where you have one LAN cable to connect and five devices to run off the same internet. So, it converts it into your personal hotspot (With internet connection sharing).

Maybe something like this could be built into Guix in a more default way ?

> As you might have seen, Chris is also volunteering to work on that part,
> specifically on GNOME.  Adding LXDE would be great, but my impression is
> that it would take much less effort than GNOME, and probably “not
> enough” for a SoC.
>

As far as packaging a modern DE in Guix goes, i am very sure that packaging GNOME would be a nice idea, as it could appeal to a larger user base among many things. I suggested LXDE just for it's lightweightedness. If GNOME makes the project enough for SOC, then GNOME it should be :D

> Great.  Make sure to ask any questions you may have regarding installation.

I installed Guile 2.0, (i had version 1.8 on arch and that wouldnt go to 2.0 ) , so i went to the git repository and cloned and compiled, is there already some way to watch a git repository for a newer version at all times? As in, one package is kept synced with the git repository instead of the official repository. Can we already do that in Guix in a more convenient manner for the user?
Im referring to something like
           guix-package install guile

which would also check if the git repository has a more recent version of the same package.

Right now the ./configure gives me (im on Arch x86_64):

************************************************************************
No package 'guile-2.0' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables GUILE_CFLAGS
and GUILE_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
See the pkg-config man page for more details.
************************************************************************

It's still asking for Guile-2.0 , the binaries i have in /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin have versions 2.1.0.