Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org> writes:
> David Thompson <dthomps...@worcester.edu> skribis:
>
>> Lately I've been wanting to version control the list of packages that I
>> install in my user profile so that I can sync it amongst many machines.
>> So, I took a stab at adding a new '--apply' option to 'guix package'
>> that reads in a package list from a Scheme file and creates a new
>> generation of the profile with only those packages are installed.
>> Here's an example configuration:
>>
>> (use-modules (gnu))
>> (use-package-modules base less guile emacs admin ruby mail pumpio man)
>>
>> (list ruby
>> coreutils
>> less
>> man-db
>> notmuch
>> guile-2.0
>> emacs
>> dmd
>> offlineimap
>> pumpa)
>
> Yes, that sounds very useful.
>
> As usual though, there’s the issue of multiple-output packages. The
> above snippet is nice, but doesn’t allow you to specify a particular
> output of a package.
I left it out of my example, but I figured one could specify the output
like so:
(list ruby coreutils `(,glib "bin"))
> What about instead requiring people to return a manifest:
>
> (use-modules (guix profiles))
> (use-package-modules base emacs guile)
>
> (manifest (cons (package->manifest-entry gcc-toolchain "debug")
> (map package->entry
> (list gcc-toolchain emacs guile-2.0))))
>
> That means we’ll have to document (guix profiles).
>
> It’s more verbose than what you suggest, though. If you insist ;-), we
> could allow a list of packages instead of a manifest, though I’d prefer
> not to do that.
Expecting a manifest always sounds good. How about adding a convenience
procedure for the (map package->entry ...) pattern since I think it will
be the most common thing users will want to do?
(packages->manifest (list guile-2.0 guile-opengl guile-sdl))
It could even support using other outputs like in that other example I
gave:
(packages->manifest
(list guile-2.0
guile-opengl
guile-sdl
`(,gcc-toolchain "debug"))
>> Below is a naive patch that does the job, but is unideal because it
>> doesn't do some nice things like display the diff between generations
>> before building.
>
> For that you would need a procedure to infer the manifest transaction:
>
> (manifests->transaction m1 m2)
> ;; returns a <manifest-transaction>
>
> and then that could be passed to ‘show-manifest-transaction’.
>
> However, I’m not sure it’s very useful. Perhaps it would be enough to
> write “installing new manifest from foo.scm with 42 entries.”
> WDYT?
Okay, I'll do that instead. I would be interested in seeing what has
changed when I apply a new manifest, but it's probably not worth the
effort right now.
>> + (option '("apply") #t #f
>> + (lambda (opt name arg result arg-handler)
>> + (values (alist-cons 'apply (load arg) result)
>> + arg-handler)))
>
> It would be better to delay loading until after arguments have been
> parsed, as in ‘guix system’. The procedure to load the file should be
> similar to ‘read-operating-system’.
Sure. The use of 'load' was a quick hack for this prototype. :)
> We’ll need documentation and tests, too. :-)
Naturally.
Thanks, now I have enough direction to do another iteration. :)
--
David Thompson
GPG Key: 0FF1D807
