Creating a reliable bootstrap for building from source

[Pjotr Prins]

Thinking about it, what I want to achieve is that we can take the
latest git tree and bootstrap by building guix and packages. This
should be easy, since I have guix running, but it is not. And the main
trouble is that the underlying build packages can differ over time. I
am looking at gcc versions and guile versions.  I.e., we are building
on shifting sands. How unguixy!

The combination of 'guix pull' held a promise, were it not that pull is
also iffy. Probably for pretty much the same reason.

The bootstrap+configure scripts try to work that, but actually
address a wider case. I.e. people who want to bootstrap in Debian etc.
I don't think we need al that. I write Makefile.guix for my projects
and they tend to be simple! Once you can assume Guix is there life
gets simple as a developer - except when you try to bootstrap :0

The instruction I would like to write for others is:

1. Install the latest bootstrap-guix-from-source package after a guix pull
2. git clone guix && cd guix
3. run make -f Makefile.guix  

(no configure is needed in guix!)

4. ./pre-inst guix etc. etc.

Now the bootstrap-guix-from-source package is easy to create and needs
one single test: build guix from the git tree. It should have a
dependency on the git tree itself, so it gets forced every time on the
build farm.

Once we have that we can even bootstrap using guix pack and such.

I realise potluck could be an alternative, but a working bootstrap
would make guix pull also reliable and we can test it effectively on
the build farm.

Pj. 

(unguixy, I like that. It applies to many deployment statements. The
world is an unguixy place)