Andreas Enge <andr...@enge.fr> skribis: > The currently unsatisfying situation, according to "HACKING", is that > bootstrapping guix essentially starts by installing (and thus in the worst > case porting) nix.
Agreed. > I have spent the evening working on a shell script automating the > compilation of the bootstrap binaries. Unsurprisingly, I end up > reprogramming in shell part of make-bootstrap.scm. (In particular, it cost > me some time to understand how to obtain statically linked binaries of the > binutils.) And I am only halfway through, and maybe made some errors in the > process that will only reveal themselves later. Isn’t it equally unsatisfying? :-) > So I wonder whether the dependency on nix is essential in make- > bootstrap.scm. Could one not renounce at working in a chroot with defined > inputs from nix, and execute the exact same code in the current > environment, using the programs available in the current system from the > user's path? Then guix could be bootstrapped easily on any gnu/linux > system. Yes. I outlined a plan in <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2013-01/msg00099.html>. However, I really think cross-compilation is the way to go. I have a tentative set of packages for the cross-toolchain that’s not fully baked yet, and then we’ll have to adjust gnu-build-system to support cross-compilation. So that won’t happen overnight, but we could work toward that goal for the next month or so. WDYT? Ludo’, who sympathizes with the feeling of frustration. :-/
