Re: Guix on Debian (was: GSoC ideas)

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Leo Famulari <address@hidden> writes:

>> Are those bootstrapping binaries really necessary for getting Guix
>> going?  I guess for some reason I thought if you did the whole
>> configure/make/etc dance it wouldn't be but maybe I'm wrong.
>
> My understanding is that if you alter the bootstrap binaries, the entire
> dependency graph will change, forcing a rebuild of everything. And of
> course, the altered binaries may present different interfaces, breaking
> things as well.

This is correct.  Back then we ran into trouble with our Guix
installation at work when someone modified permission bits on the
bootstrap binaries, causing a rebuild of everything.  It took us a while
to find out the cause and revert the change.

Some of the bootstrap binaries can be reproduced from source (if you
make sure to follow the Guix recipes), but others (like Guile IIRC)
don’t have reproducible build systems, so reproducing the exact same
binaries without using Guix is going to be very challenging.

I don’t know if it is possible and if it would make sense to cheat,
i.e. just lie to Guix about the hashes of the bootstrap binaries.

~~ Ricardo