guix - Wojtek's customized Guix

-*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-

#+TITLE: Tentative GNU Guix Road Map

Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>

  Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
  are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
  notice and this notice are preserved.

The goals of the GNU Guix project are two-fold:

  - to build a purely functional package manager, based on Nix and
    Guile;

  - to use it to build a practical 100% free software distribution of
    GNU/Linux and possibly other GNU variants, with a focus on the
    promotion and tight integration of GNU components–the GNU system.

Since its inception, the project has gone a long way towards that goal.  Below
is a list of items we want for version "1.0" of the Guix System Distribution.
There will be a few 0.x releases by then to give the new features more
exposure and testing.

You're welcome to discuss this road map on guix-devel@gnu.org or #guix on
the Libera Chat IRC network!

* Features scheduled for 1.0

  - larger & more robust build farm
    + we need a powerful, dedicated front-end
    + armhf-linux build machine
    + leave Hydra in favor of 'guix publish' + custom code?
  - more OS features
    + LVM support
    + encrypted root
    + configurable name service switch
    + whole-system unit tests, using VMs
  - more service definitions
    + mcron, postfix(?), wicd(?), etc.
  - better 'guix system'
    + 'reconfigure' should be able to restart non-essential services
    + support for '--list-generations' and '--delete-generations'
  - better 'guix pull'
    + using Git to fetch the source instead of re-downloading everything
    + build more quickly
    + install new .mo files and new manual
    + authentication of the Guix source: use signed commits?
  - simplified, purely declarative service list in 'operating-system'
    + it should be possible to inspect the service instance declarations and
      settings
  - GUIs
    + integrate guix-web?
    + guile-ncurses installer?
  - 'guix publish'?

* Features for later

  - complete GNU/Hurd port
  - use content-based addressing when downloading substitutes to reduce
    bandwidth requirements
    + design nar v2 format where file contents are replaced by their hashes
    + leverage /gnu/store/.links
  - binary origin tracking
    + keep signatures in sqlite.db
    + preserve signatures upon import/export
  - peer-to-peer distribution of updates (GNUnet?)
  - more deterministic builds
    + identify & fix sources of non-determinism in builds
    + strengthen guix-daemon containers to further increase reproducibility
    + trusting-trust: bootstrap with different tool chains
    + fixed-point: re-bootstrap until fixed point is reached
    + distributed validation: compare contents of store items with others
      * resist a hydra.gnu.org compromise
  - reproducible containers: mix of 'guix environment' and 'guix system vm'
  - execute code with least privilege
    + build containers like guix-daemon does
    + provide a Plash-like interface in Bash
  - daemon rewritten in Guile
  - more shepherd integration
    + monitor network interfaces and start/stop events based on that
    + include a DHCP client written in Scheme

;;; GNU Guix --- Functional package management for GNU ;;; Copyright © 2020-2022 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> ;;; Copyright © 2020 Jan (janneke) Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org> ;;; ;;; This file is part of GNU Guix. ;;; ;;; GNU Guix is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it ;;; under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by ;;; the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at ;;; your option) any later version. ;;; ;;; GNU Guix is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but ;;; WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of ;;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the ;;; GNU General Public License for more details. ;;; ;;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License ;;; along with GNU Guix. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. ;;; This file returns a manifest containing release-critical bit, for all the ;;; supported architectures and cross-compilation targets. (use-modules (gnu packages) (guix packages) (guix profiles) ((guix platform) #:select (targets)) ((gnu services xorg) #:select (%default-xorg-modules)) (guix utils) (guix gexp) (srfi srfi-1) (srfi srfi-26)) (define* (package->manifest-entry* package system #:key target) "Return a manifest entry for PACKAGE on SYSTEM, optionally cross-compiled to TARGET." (manifest-entry (inherit (package->manifest-entry package)) (name (string-append (package-name package) "." system (if target (string-append "." target) "'"))) (item (with-parameters ((%current-system system) (%current-target-system target)) package)))) (define %base-packages ;; Packages that must be substitutable on all the platforms Guix supports. (map specification->package '("bootstrap-tarballs" "gcc-toolchain" "nss-certs" "openssh" "emacs" "vim" "python" "guile" "guix"))) (define %base-packages/armhf ;; The guix package doesn't build natively on armhf due to Guile memory ;; issues compiling the package modules (remove (lambda (package) (string=? (package-name package) "guix")) %base-packages)) (define %base-packages/hurd ;; XXX: For now we are less demanding of "i586-gnu". (map specification->package '("coreutils" "grep" "findutils" "gawk" "make" #;"gcc-toolchain" "tar" "xz"))) (define %system-packages ;; Key packages proposed by the Guix System installer. (append (map specification->package '("xorg-server" "xfce" "gnome" "mate" "enlightenment" "openbox" "awesome" "i3-wm" "ratpoison" "emacs" "emacs-exwm" "emacs-desktop-environment" "xlockmore" "slock" "libreoffice" "connman" "network-manager" "network-manager-applet" "openssh" "ntp" "tor" "linux-libre" "grub-hybrid" ;; FIXME: Add IceCat when Rust is available on i686. ;;"icecat" )) %default-xorg-modules)) (define %packages-to-cross-build ;; Packages that must be cross-buildable from x86_64-linux. ;; FIXME: Add (@ (gnu packages gcc) gcc) when <https://bugs.gnu.org/40463> ;; is fixed. (append (list (@ (gnu packages guile) guile-3.0/pinned)) (map specification->package '("coreutils" "grep" "sed" "findutils" "diffutils" "patch" "gawk" "gettext" "gzip" "xz" "hello" "zlib")))) (define %packages-to-cross-build-for-mingw ;; Many things don't build for MinGW. Restrict to what's known to work. (map specification->package '("hello"))) (define %cross-bootstrap-targets ;; Cross-compilation triplets for which 'bootstrap-tarballs' must be ;; buildable. '("i586-pc-gnu" "arm-linux-gnueabihf" "aarch64-linux-gnu")) ;;; ;;; Manifests. ;;; (define %base-manifest (manifest (append-map (lambda (system) (map (cut package->manifest-entry* <> system) (cond ((string=? system "i586-gnu") %base-packages/hurd) ((string=? system "armhf-linux") %base-packages/armhf) ((string=? system "powerpc64le-linux") ;; FIXME: Drop 'bootstrap-tarballs' until ;; <https://bugs.gnu.org/48055> is fixed. (drop %base-packages 1)) (else %base-packages)))) %cuirass-supported-systems))) (define %system-manifest (manifest (append-map (lambda (system) ;; Some of %SYSTEM-PACKAGES are currently unsupported on some ;; systems--e.g., GNOME on non-x86_64, due to Rust. Filter ;; them out. (filter-map (lambda (package) (and (supported-package? package system) (package->manifest-entry* package system))) %system-packages)) '("x86_64-linux" "i686-linux")))) ;Guix System (define %cross-manifest (manifest (append-map (lambda (target) (map (cut package->manifest-entry* <> "x86_64-linux" #:target target) (if (target-mingw? target) %packages-to-cross-build-for-mingw %packages-to-cross-build))) (fold delete (targets) '(;; Like in (gnu ci), dismiss cross-compilation to x86: ;; it's pointless. "x86_64-linux-gnu" "i686-linux-gnu" ;; XXX: Important bits like libsigsegv and libffi don't ;; support RISCV at the moment, so don't require RISCV ;; support. "riscv64-linux-gnu"))))) (define %cross-bootstrap-manifest (manifest (map (lambda (target) (package->manifest-entry* (specification->package "bootstrap-tarballs") "x86_64-linux" #:target target)) %cross-bootstrap-targets))) ;; Return the union of all three manifests. (concatenate-manifests (list %base-manifest %system-manifest %cross-manifest %cross-bootstrap-manifest))