Hello Mikhail, Mikhail Karpov <[email protected]> skribis:
> A few years ago, there was a discussion about using the unionfs translator > specifically its "stow" mode to support Guix. In light of this, I would like > to ask a few questions: > 1. Are there currently any ideas or proposals regarding the use of unionfs > with Guix? Not that I know of! > 2. What exactly does the unionfs "stow" mode entail from Guix's perspective? > As I understand it, this would allow for the use of merged directory > functionality instead of a symlink tree. > 3. If "stow" mode (or an equivalent) were to be implemented in overlayfs, > would that be useful or desirable for Guix? It’s not clear! Back in the day (in the early 2000s), the plan for GNU (GNU/Hurd) was to use Stow for package management, with one package per directory, and then unionfs would present a single hierarchy containing the set of packages the person chose (this was also referred to as “packagefs” at the time). Guix achieves that using symlinks for its profiles. In theory, unionfs is the more elegant way to achieve that. In practice, unionfs and overlayfs are not portable, so there’s little to be gained from using them instead of symlinks. I hope that makes sense! Thanks, Ludo’.
