Re: Services and packages in GuixSD

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andy Wingo <address@hidden> skribis:

> For example this is my current services definition:
>
>     (services
>      (let ((motd (text-file "motd" "
>        This is the GNU operating system, welcome!\n\n")))
>        (list (console-font-service "tty1")
>              (console-font-service "tty2")
>              (console-font-service "tty3")
>              (console-font-service "tty4")
>              (console-font-service "tty5")
>              (console-font-service "tty6")
>
>              (mingetty-service "tty1" #:motd motd)
>              (mingetty-service "tty2" #:motd motd)
>              (mingetty-service "tty3" #:motd motd)
>              (mingetty-service "tty4" #:motd motd)
>              (mingetty-service "tty5" #:motd motd)
>              (mingetty-service "tty6" #:motd motd)
>              (static-networking-service
>               "lo" "127.0.0.1" #:provision '(loopback))
>              (syslog-service)
>              (guix-service)
>              (nscd-service #:name-services (list nss-mdns))
>
>              (slim-service)
>              (lsh-service)
>              (wicd-service)
>              (avahi-service)
>              (dbus-service
>               (list avahi wicd upower colord geoclue polkit))
>              (upower-service)
>              ;; FIXME: Can be bus-activated; just need to make the config
>              ;; and the user.
>              (geoclue-service)
>              ;; FIXME: Doesn't need to be run at startup; can be activated
>              ;; via dbus.  However we do it here in order to create
>              ;; /var/lib/colord.
>              (colord-service)
>              ;; FIXME: Can be bus-activated; just need to make the user.
>              (polkit-service)
>              ;; The LVM2 rules are needed as soon as LVM2 or the
>              ;; device-mapper is used, so enable them by default.  The FUSE
>              ;; and ALSA rules are less critical, but handy.
>              (udev-service
>               #:rules (list lvm2 fuse alsa-utils upower colord)))))
>
> I can't switch to use %base-services or %desktop-services because of the
> udev-service and dbus-service configurations.  That's the bug I'm trying
> to solve here.

You can but it’s inconvenient: You could use a trick similar to the
‘%my-base-services’ example given at

  https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Name-Service-Switch.html

I think we should probably change service procedures to return
first-class objects rather than monadic values (by defining a gexp
expander).  That would make such customization easier.

Additionally, we should arrange so we don’t have to define dmd services
do D-Bus services, because the system bus already takes care of them.
Presumably that means that we need a <dbus-service> type, which would
encompass a package (e.g., GeoClue) and its associated config (e.g., a
record or a file-like object.)

WDYT?

Thanks,
Ludo’.