Hi John, On Sat, Feb 07, 2026 at 09:58:42PM -0500, John Haman wrote: > Hi Guix Users - Is there a Guix command that would allow me to upgrade my > system to the latest packages, but only those for which substitutes are > available? Alternatively, would it be possible to prohibit certain > packages from upgrade if the substitutes are not available? (...)
The short answer is there's isn't a great way to do this. There's a 'channels-with-substitutes' function [0] that you can use, though it doesn't guarantee that all the packages will have substitutes available for them. I do it manually by putting my packages into manifest files by channel. Here are the steps. 1. Break applications into manifest files by channel (e.g. apps-guix.scm, apps-nonguix.scm) 2. I check the data service to find the last revision with substitutes built: Guix: https://data.qa.guix.gnu.org/repository/1/branch/master There's a button for "Latest processed revision" which takes you to a specific revision of the archive. The associated git commit hash can be found by clicking "View cgit". For example, lets say it gave me this one: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix/commit/0689ad6dd09ca212f5b62efcbe6ac2921cf2b03a 3. Create a new channels.scm file I'm going to use the channels file and the commits in it later. For now I need it to fix the commit for guix 'time-machine' guix describe --format=channels > `date +%Y%m%d`-channels.scm I go into the channels.scm file and remove any channels that I'm not updating. So it looks like this: (list (channel (name 'guix) (url "https://git.guix.gnu.org/guix.git";) (branch "master") (commit ;change commit to the one we got above "0689ad6dd09ca212f5b62efcbe6ac2921cf2b03a") (introduction (make-channel-introduction "9edb3f66fd807b096b48283debdcddccfea34bad" (openpgp-fingerprint ""BBB0 2DDF 2CEA F6A8 0D1D E643 A2A0 6DF2 A33A 54FA"))))) 4. Move to the commit using guix time-machine This creates a temporary environment and I share where the manifests are kept. guix time-machine --channels=20260212-channels.scm -- shell --container --network \ --nesting --share=/home/<user>/.config/guix/manifests/ nss-certs coreutils [env] guix describe guix 06891d6 repository URL: https://git.guix.gnu.org/guix.git branch: master commit: 0689ad6dd09ca212f5b62efcbe6ac2921cf2b03a The I do: guix weather --substitute-urls='https://bordeaux.guix.gnu.org' --display-missing --manifest=/home/steve/.config/guix/manifests/guix-core-apps.scm It will give a warning about substitutes not being authorised but that's fine as we're not using it. Then it shows whether the substitutes are available for that manifest. If they are we can update the system. 5. Hosted: update the root user For some systems I am using Guix hosted, for me that's on top of Ubuntu. I update the 'guix daemon' like so: sudo -i guix pull --commit=0689ad6d # restart the systemd service 6. Hosted: use the channels.scm I have a script to update the various manifests, but it basically does: guix pull --channels=<file> guix package --manifest=<manifest> --install 7. Guix System: update hashes For my Guix System VM's I update the configuration files with the new commit hash. Reconfigure: # load the new commit hash sudo -i guix system --load-path=$HOME/workspace/guix-sys reconfigure \ --no-bootloader ~/workspace/guix-sys/systems/<someimage.scm> guix pull guix describe # reconfigure using the new definitions sudo -i guix system --load-path=$HOME/workspace/guix-sys reconfigure \ ~/workspace/guix-sys/systems<blah file> That's it - easy! Steve / Futurile [0] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/guix.html#Channels-with-Substitutes
