Hi, it would be nice if we could simplify the case where a user does not have root access, but the system supports user namespaces.
Currently, a user would have to perform a number of non-obvious steps to somehow run the Guix daemon in an environment where the filesystem is virtualized. It would be great if we could better support this case, maybe even simplify it to a point where the user does not have to even start the daemon by themselves. A user operating in this mode would lose the ability to share with other users on the same system, of course. By default Guix could store everything in a subdirectory of ~/.local and map that to /gnu/store in the container context. Applications would also need to be run from within that container context to ensure that /gnu/store file names are resolved properly. I think this would be especially useful for situations where “guix pack” is not sufficient. “guix pack” produces one-shot bundles, but it cannot be composed. A daemon+store-in-container setup would be extensible. What do you think about this? Can we automate the setup necessary for this scenario and add better defaults? -- Ricardo
