README


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-*- mode: org -*-

[[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/][GNU Guix]] (IPA: /ɡiːks/) is a purely functional package manager, and
associated free software distribution, for the [[https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html][GNU system]].  In addition
to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional
upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user
profiles, and garbage collection.

It provides [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/][Guile]] Scheme APIs, including a high-level embedded
domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to describe how packages are to be
built and composed.

A user-land free software distribution for GNU/Linux comes as part of
Guix.

Guix is based on the [[https://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]] package manager.


* Requirements

GNU Guix currently depends on the following packages:

  - [[https://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.2.x or 2.0.x]], version 2.0.13 or later
  - [[https://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]]
  - [[https://www.gnu.org/software/make/][GNU Make]]
  - [[https://www.gnutls.org][GnuTLS]] compiled with guile support enabled.
  - [[https://gitlab.com/guile-git/guile-git][Guile-Git]]
  - [[http://www.zlib.net/][zlib]]
  - optionally [[https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/guile-json/][Guile-JSON]], for the 'guix import pypi' command

Unless `--disable-daemon' was passed, the following packages are needed:

  - [[https://sqlite.org/][SQLite 3]]
  - [[https://gcc.gnu.org][GCC's g++]]
  - optionally [[http://www.bzip.org][libbz2]]

When `--disable-daemon' was passed, you instead need the following:

  - [[https://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]]

* Installation

See the manual for the installation instructions, either by running

  info -f doc/guix.info "Installation"

or by checking the [[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/guix.html#Installation][web copy of the manual]].

For information on installation from a Git checkout, please see the section
"Building from Git" in the manual.

* Installing Guix from Guix

You can re-build and re-install Guix using a system that already runs Guix.
To do so:

  - Start a shell with the development environment for Guix:

      guix environment guix

  - Re-run the 'configure' script passing it the option
    '--localstatedir=/somewhere', where '/somewhere' is the 'localstatedir'
    value of the currently installed Guix (failing to do that would lead the
    new Guix to consider the store to be empty!).

  - Run "make", "make check", and "make install".

* How It Works

Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/.  A derivation is
the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under
=/gnu/store/xxx.drv=.  The (guix derivations) module provides the
`derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as
`build-expression->derivation'.

Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Guix or Nix daemon (the
=guix-daemon= or =nix-daemon= command), which in turn performs builds
and accesses to the Nix store on its behalf.  The RPCs are implemented
in the (guix store) module.

* Installing Guix as non-root

The Guix daemon allows software builds to be performed under alternate
user accounts, which are normally created specifically for this
purpose.  For instance, you may have a pool of accounts in the
=guixbuild= group, and then you can instruct =guix-daemon= to use them
like this:

  $ guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild

However, unless it is run as root, =guix-daemon= cannot switch users.
In that case, it falls back to using a setuid-root helper program call
=nix-setuid-helper=.  That program is not setuid-root by default when
you install it; instead you should run a command along these lines
(assuming Guix is installed under /usr/local):

  # chown root.root /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper
  # chmod 4755 /usr/local/libexec/nix-setuid-helper

* Contact

GNU Guix is hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/p