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[Fsuk-manchester] Follow-up: MFS Meeting. (at PLANT NOMA) Tue, 15 May. "


From: Michael Dorrington
Subject: [Fsuk-manchester] Follow-up: MFS Meeting. (at PLANT NOMA) Tue, 15 May. "GNU Guix package manager"
Date: Sat, 19 May 2018 22:26:58 +0100
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On 09/05/18 20:00, Michael Dorrington wrote:

> * Event: Manchester Free Software's May Meeting
> 
> * Talk: GNU Guix package manager
> * Speaker: Michael Dorrington

Follow-up and notes on the talk.

On LFS, I recommend installing a few extra packages using the Beyond
[GNU/]Linux from scratch (B[GNU/]LFS) book to get to a self-reliant OS
with [GNU/]LFS level package management (remember you need to build
dependencies first):

* Wget - so can download packages
* cURL - some programs use for downloading like GnuPG
* GnuPG - so can verify package signatures on this host
* Unbound - so don't need external name server (DNS resolver)
* Git - download (and update) Git repos; use for general version control
* Linux build extra support (depends on how the .config was obtained)
** USB dongles
** Other things; try out your use cases.
* DHCP?  In a pinch can manually set router and use free IP.
* Wi-Fi especially security?
** Use 'iw' not "Wireless Tools" as it is deprecated
* Console web browser?  No, will use Guix for that; can Wget docs.

For building Guix from source the [GNU/]LFS system already has some of
the necessary dependencies and then the B[GNU/]LFS book gets you even
closer but it doesn't get you all the way there.  The particular issue
is with "Guile-Git" and its dependencies.  But I did it so it can be
done; let me know if you get stuck.

On a "foreign distro" (a normal GNU/Linux(-libre) distro), the Guix
manual recommends a few extra things, see:

https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Application-Setup.html

and here are some notes on them:

1. Using nscd

[GNU/]LFS includes the nscd (name service cache daemon) executable
mentioned in the "Name Service Switch" subsection plus [GNU/]LFS
installs its config file and a cache directory.  However, there appears
to be no init script for nscd and the config (/etc/nscd.conf) contains
references to unconfigured "netgroup".

a) "netgroup" is https://manpages.debian.org/nis/netgroup.5.en.html

Options are:

* Do nothing - nscd will keep complaining about missing /etc/netgroup
* Create an empty /etc/netgroup file
* Remove/comment out "netgroup" lines in /etc/nscd.conf

b) starting nscd needs /var/run/nscd directory and /var/run is temporary

Options are:

* Manually create /var/run/nscd directory and start nscd
* Create a script for it
* Create an init script for it


2. Building Locales (from source)

The "Locales" subsection recommends installing locales via Guix because
"Guix will not use the locale data of the host system".  I wanted to do
this from source since the rest of the system, including Guix itself,
had built from source.  I did this running the guix-daemon with:

--no-substitutes --substitute-urls=''

The building took approximately 24 hours (approx. 600-700 SBUs) and
built approx 1200 packages bootstrapping itself similarly to [GNU/]LFS
but more so!


Let me know if you need more help.

The Guix package manager looks like good package manager for [GNU/]LFS
system.

M.

-- 
FSF member #9429
http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=9429
http://www.fsf.org/about
"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide
mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all
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