Hi, For instance, I have these,
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- $ guix package --list-generations -p ~/.config/guix/profiles/emacs/emacs Generation 14 Dec 30 2021 21:49:01 Generation 15 Dec 30 2021 22:11:51 Generation 16 Dec 30 2021 22:26:48 Generation 17 Dec 30 2021 23:34:14 Generation 18 Dec 31 2021 19:10:15 Generation 19 Apr 26 2022 14:50:34 Generation 20 Apr 26 2022 14:50:45 Generation 21 May 03 2022 14:14:20 (current) --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- or --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- $ guix pull --list-generations -p ~/.config/guix/current Generation 72 Dec 29 2021 22:52:13 Generation 73 Dec 31 2021 19:02:14 Generation 74 Jan 04 2022 10:04:35 Generation 75 Jan 06 2022 10:30:48 Generation 76 Feb 04 2022 11:15:54 Generation 77 Apr 05 2022 10:27:45 Generation 78 Apr 20 2022 01:26:24 Generation 79 Apr 26 2022 13:43:13 (current) --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Now, assume I am running out of space. If I run, guix gc --delete-generations=2m then I am removing the items in the store (data) and also the meta data (manifest, date, channels, etc.). I am fine to delete the old items in the store. I do not want to keep things I am not using. However, for tracking and monitoring, I would like to still keep these meta and potentially be able to rebuild such generation. The question is what to do when we delete? I am proposing to delete the content, i.e., all but keep the meta, i.e., the file manifest. We could have an option soft (keep meta) and hard (remove all, meta included, as today) for guix gc. Or an option “guix gc --repack=2m” which would remove all except the manifest file. The capacity of switching to old generation is kept, space is saved, and it is almost transparent for the user. Well, if I would like to switch to a previous generation, Guix would recompute all the derivations, i.e., just fill the store (cache). Working on projects long of several years, the old generations are deleted and a part of the history is lost. Obviously, I track in the Git repo of the project some manifest.scm and channels.scm files. Well, it could be better if to be able to keep generations from years in a very light and transparent way. On machine where many users are running a lot of profiles, the sysadmin periodically run “guix gc” to save some space and therefore Guix delete materials for users missing to track the correct information. WDYT? Cheers, simon