using magit (and maybe mu4e) for sending patches to Guix?

[Benjamin Slade]

Hi Guix,

There was a discussion 4 or so years ago on this topic (see 
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2020-11/msg00099.html> ), but I 
was wondering if anyone might have additional advice at this point. (I've got a 
pending patch series I want to get properly submitted.)

I send occasional patches to Guix, and I often forget and so mess up the 
process in some way 
[<https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Sending-a-Patch-Series.html>]. I'm 
used to doing things in Emacs with Magit and so was wondering if anyone had a 
good Magit workflow (possibly though not necessarily involving the email bit 
using mu4e).


best,
 —Benjamin
 --
 '(Dr Benjamin Slade (he/him)
 (website . <https://lambda-y.net>) 
 `(pgp_fp: ,(B20E 444C FA80 B5F8 15FA  4AD8 6FBF CD68 3B05 2B84))
   "sent by [mu4e] 1.12.5 in [Emacs] 30.0.50 with [org-msg] on [CachyOS] 
([Linux])")


[mu4e] <https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html>

[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>

[org-msg] <https://github.com/jeremy-compostella/org-msg>

[CachyOS] <https://cachyos.org>

[Linux] <https://opensource.com/resources/linux>

Re: LuaTeX/luaotfload doesn't find any fonts (using fontspec) on Guix?

[Benjamin Slade]

Many thanks, Nicolas. I'll try that out!

On Tue, 14 May 2024 19:35:58 +0200 (4 hours, 36 minutes, 43 seconds ago), 
Nicolas Goaziou  wrote:

> Hello,

> I forgot to send a carbon copy to help-guix ML in my last answer, so
> I include it here.

> Nicolas Goaziou via  writes:

> > Benjamin Slade  writes:
> >
> >>> This doesn't seem good as the store is not writable.
> >>
> >>> I read[¹] that "texmf.cnf" and "texmfcnf.lua" might be misconfigured. In
> >>> particular, `kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFCACHE' reports a store location.
> >>> At the very least, I think TEXMFCACHE in "texmf.cnf" should be set to
> >>> $TEXMFVAR instead of $TEXMFSYSVAR;$TEXMFVAR as it is the case currently.
> >>> I'm not sure it will help, tho.
> >>
> >> I will try to see if there is anything that can be done in terms of
> >> local/home configuration.
> >>
> >> I wonder if there's a reasonable upstream/Guix fix for the luatex
> >> package definition.
> >
> > What I wrote above is actually wrong. $TEXMFSYSVAR does not point to the
> > store, but to "{/gnu/...", which means "lualatex" creates a "{"
> > directory in the current working directory. It is silly (and has been
> > reported already[¹]), but at least the cache can be written to the disk.
> >
> > I'm not sure yet there's a problem on the Guix side. Font configuration
> > can be tricky.

> Actually, the problem is on the Guix side, and it will be solved in the
> "tex-team" branch.

> Meanwhile, the solution is to set OSFONTDIR environment variable to
> '{$XDG_DATA_DIRS}'.

> With it, the following "test.tex" document compiles correctly:

> --8<---cut here---start->8---
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \setmainfont{Fantasque Sans Mono}
> \begin{document}
> Test \textbf{Test} \textit{Test}
> \end{document}
> --8<---cut here---end--->8---

> in the following environment

>   guix shell --pure texlive-collection-latex texlive-fontspec fontconfig
> font-fantasque-sans

> with the following command

>   export OSFONTDIR='{$XDG_DATA_DIRS}'; lualatex test.tex

> Thank you for the bug report!

> Regards,
> -- 
> Nicolas Goaziou



best,
 —Benjamin
 --
 '(Dr Benjamin Slade (he/him)
 (website . <https://lambda-y.net>) 
 `(pgp_fp: ,(B20E 444C FA80 B5F8 15FA  4AD8 6FBF CD68 3B05 2B84))
   "sent by [mu4e] 1.12.5 in [Emacs] 30.0.50 with [org-msg] on [CachyOS] 
([Linux])")


[mu4e] <https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html>

[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>

[org-msg] <https://github.com/jeremy-compostella/org-msg>

[CachyOS] <https://cachyos.org>

[Linux] <https://opensource.com/resources/linux>

Re: LuaTeX/luaotfload doesn't find any fonts (using fontspec) on Guix?

[Benjamin Slade]

On Tue, 07 May 2024 19:25:35 +0200 (1 day, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago), Nicolas 
Goaziou  wrote:

> Hello,

Hi Nicolas,

Thanks for this! 


> This doesn't seem good as the store is not writable.

> I read[¹] that "texmf.cnf" and "texmfcnf.lua" might be misconfigured. In
> particular, `kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFCACHE' reports a store location.
> At the very least, I think TEXMFCACHE in "texmf.cnf" should be set to
> $TEXMFVAR instead of $TEXMFSYSVAR;$TEXMFVAR as it is the case currently.
> I'm not sure it will help, tho.

I will try to see if there is anything that can be done in terms of local/home 
configuration.

I wonder if there's a reasonable upstream/Guix fix for the luatex package 
definition.

I would really like to be able to get this working; I do a lot of work which 
requires LuaTeX and being able to work with additional fonts, and currently 
this means I cannot do this work on any of my Guix machines, it seems.

best,
 —Benjamin
 --
 '(Dr Benjamin Slade (he/him)
 (website . <https://lambda-y.net>) 
 `(pgp_fp: ,(B20E 444C FA80 B5F8 15FA  4AD8 6FBF CD68 3B05 2B84))
   "sent by [mu4e] 1.12.5 in [Emacs] 30.0.50 with [org-msg] on 
[EndeavourOS] [Linux]")


[mu4e] <https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html>

[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>

[org-msg] <https://github.com/jeremy-compostella/org-msg>

[EndeavourOS] <https://endeavouros.com/>

[Linux] <https://opensource.com/resources/linux>

LuaTeX/luaotfload doesn't find any fonts (using fontspec) on Guix?

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm having trouble using LuaTeX on Guix.

luaotfload doesn't seem to be able to find any fonts, whether system-wide or 
local (when used with fontspec). I get messages like:

  luaotfload | db : Reload initiated (formats: otf,ttf,ttc); reason: Font 
"Cardo" not found.
luaotfload | resolve : sequence of 3 lookups yielded nothing 
appropriate.
! Package fontspec Error: The font "Cardo" cannot be found.

I don't have this issue on other distros, or on Guix when using XeTeX instead 
of LuaTeX.

Is there some additional setup or configuration (or another package ?) that I 
need on Guix to get LuaTeX/luatofload to work properly ? (pathing issues of 
some sort ?)

Re: system hangs at boot - LUKS /home/ problem(?)

[Benjamin Slade]

I can't roll back to the earlier commit mentioned by Remco because other 
things/channels depend on me being roughly up-to-date on the main guix channel.

However, I can confirm the issue, as changing my configuration *not* to mount 
an encrypted /home resolves the boot issue.

I note two things:

a. when I try to configure with an encrypted /home, I get error/warning 
messages at the end: (earlier I also got a message about the 
"find-crypthome-by-uuid" process failing; I changed to specify a /dev/sXN 
device instead)

guix system: warning: exception caught while executing 'start' on 
service 'device-mapping-crypthome':
  error: system*/tty: unbound variable
  guix system: warning: some services could not be upgraded
  hint: to allow changes to all the systems to take effect, you will need 
to reboot.

b. no `crypttab' is created (I don't remember how Guix handles encrypted 
/home's to know whether or not this is expected).


--B.

On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 16:25:07 +0100 (3 days, 4 hours, 30 minutes ago), Remco van 
't Veer  wrote:

> Hi,

> Confirmed on a couple of my installs.  I too have an unencrypted root
> and encrypted home filesystems.  The passphrase prompt never appears and
> the system seems to be waiting for something or is halted.

> I've git bisected it down to:

>   commit 6f9d844d2ece7b369d17bbe678978462425f869c (HEAD)
>   Author: Ludovic Courtès 
>   Date:   Wed Mar 20 18:48:38 2024 +0100

> services: shepherd: Load each service file in a fresh module.

> Fixes .

> * gnu/home/services/shepherd.scm 
> (home-shepherd-configuration-file)[config]:
> Define ‘make-user-module’.  Call ‘load’ in ‘save-module-excursion’.
> * gnu/services/shepherd.scm (shepherd-configuration-file): Likewise.

> Commit 2b052fe3c0fa85e9faa8873a581568ad4c78e151 still works.

> Cheers,
> Remco

Re: Stuck at boot on fresh install

[Benjamin Slade]

I've been having a vaguely similar issue - which I think also seems to be a 
cryptodisk not being found, though in this case not with a new install as such, 
but with an old install which started happening after removing a bunch of old 
generations. I thought it was a btrfs issue, and so reinstalled with xfs 
instead. And the initial stock install went fine and booted, but as soon as I 
had installed my actual old configuration, the same issue recurred. I have to 
do some additional diagnosis yet.

best,
  —Benjamin
 --
 '(Dr Benjamin Slade (he/him)
 (website . <https://lambda-y.net>) 
 `(pgp_fp: ,(B20E 444C FA80 B5F8 15FA  4AD8 6FBF CD68 3B05 2B84))
   "sent by mu4e 1.12.2 in Emacs 30.0.50 with org-msg on CachyOS")

On Mon, 25 Mar 2024 17:00:25 +0100 (1 hour, 15 seconds ago), David Lecompte 
 wrote:

> Hi Florian,

> > You further could try editing the Guix configuration file in the
> > installer to get another kernel such as:
> > 
> > (use-package-modules linux)
> > 
> > (operating-system
> >   …
> >   (kernel linux-libre-4.19)
> >   …)
> > 

> Thanks, I did not know I could do that during the install.

> However, when I enter the passphrase, GRUB now replies:

> error: access denied
> error: no such cryptodisk found.

> which is what I had before when I typed the passphrase wrong. I tried
> several times, assuming different keyboard layouts, it did not work.

> Either I did not apply your suggestion properly, or I made another mistake
> during the setup, or something is missing.


> > Is it perhaps necessary to upgrade the BIOS first?

> The BIOS is GNU boot v0.1 rc 3, latest version of GNU boot. With it,
> Trisquel works fine.

> I feel a little tired now, I will retry another day.

> Regards,
> David.

Re: What are you doing for a screen locker?

[Benjamin Slade]

I've been using slock, which seems to work with AwesomeWM and StumpWM. I'm not 
sure how I feel running suckless things though. The setup Leah mentioned on the 
Fedi [ 

 ] sounds interesting, if more complicated.

-B.

Re: VPN

[Benjamin Slade]

On Sun, 13 Nov 2022 22:07:02 -0700 (19 hours, 51 minutes, 38 seconds ago), 
Raghav Gururajan  wrote:

> Hello Guix,

> With either OpenVPN or Wireguard system services, is it possible to route DNS
> requests and also opt to block connections without VPN?

I'm also curious about this. I've found the official MullvadVPN app (installed 
via Nix) on Guix seems to end up with sporadic DNS problems. 

Re: substitute for Skype

[Benjamin Slade]

Depending on the exact use case, there are some other possibilities that don't 
run "natively" on Guix, but are still free software and could be installed from 
Flatpak or Nix. E.g. the Signal client for desktop and Matrix Element.

Though, actually, I think the Nheko client for Matrix (available as a Guix 
package) also has voice/video call support though I haven't tried it before.

--Ben

Re: Enterprise Guix Hosting?

[Benjamin Slade]

Not something I've tried personally, but maybe PantherX (Guix-based) could be 
relevant here? https://www.pantherx.org/

30 Jul 2022 17:18:13 Yasuaki Kudo :

> Oh wow!! Thank you everyone!!!    I will definitely show our conversation 
> thread to my partners - in fact, right now!!!   Let's make it happen!!
> 
>> On Jul 31, 2022, at 01:20, Phil  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Olivier Dion via writes:
>> 
 On Sat, 30 Jul 2022, Yasuaki Kudo  wrote:
 I have been exposed to the world of Docker images and Continuous
 Integration that seem spend most of the time downloading and building
 them 
>>> 
>>> Yup.  Tons of energy wasted and pollution generated.
>>> 
 Have you heard of Guix Hosting services jusy like the Docker or Github
 companies target enterprises customers?
>>> 
>>> IMO Guix is still very niche.  Only a handful of Unix enthusiasms /
>>> scientifics use it and companies are not in yet.  I might be wrong.
>> 
>> I introduced Guix to a company called Quantile where I work as the
>> Head of Enterprise Architecture.  Docker would have been the typical
>> mainstream alternative, but for the reasons you say and others Guix was
>> considered a more complete solution to a whole engineering ecosystem.
>> Nix was also considered, but we went with Guix in the end.
>> 
>> We have integrated it into our standard Jenkins pipeline and AWS cloud,
>> and it plays a central role both in how developers work (eg replacing
>> Python's virtual environments) and how software is deployed by our CI/CD 
>> system.
>> 
>> It was a bit of a punt, given Guix is not yet widely used outside
>> academia, but it ticked all the boxes, performed well in PoC tests, and
>> seemed like a solid tech decision - and one I'm still very pleased I made!
>> 
>> We've done a few talks on our setup and integration with more standard
>> commercial tooling - in case you haven't seen these they might be of 
>> interest:
>> https://www.cloudbees.com/videos/purely-functional-ci-cd-pipeline-using-jenkins-with-guix
>> https://xana.lepiller.eu/guix-days-2022/guix-days-2022-guix-aws-lambda.mkv
>> 
>> I'm always very interested in any discussions regarding Guix use in
>> mainstream and commerical projects - I think it has a bright future in
>> this space.
>> 
>> 
>> Phil

Re: stumpwm on guix - "sb-cltl2" issues

[Benjamin Slade]

I think I finally figured out how to get (my) StumpWM configuration to work on 
Guix:

- add (maybe only need one:)
  - to `.bashrc':
,
| export SBCL_HOME="$HOME/.guix-home/profile/lib/sbcl"
`
  - to Guix Home configuration, a home-environment variable `("SBCL_HOME" . 
"$HOME/.guix-home/profile/lib/sbcl")' configuration, e.g.:
,
| 
| (simple-service 'some-useful-env-vars-service
| home-environment-variables-service-type
| `(("SBCL_HOME" . "$HOME/.guix-home/profile/lib/sbcl")
|   ("GUIX_LOCPATH" . "$home/.guix-profile/lib/locale")
|   
|   ("LANG" . "en_GB.UTF-8")
|   ("LANGUAGE" . "en_GB")))
| .
`
- for my configuration I also needed to install the following packages:
  - `sbcl-local-time'
  - `sbcl-clx-xembed'
  - `sbcl-local-time'

Re: Why Emacs is echoing message for each installed Emacs package while startup

[Benjamin Slade]

On Sat, 21 May 2022 20:47:17 -0600 (7 minutes, 44 seconds ago), Maxim Cournoyer 
 wrote:

> Hi,

> [...]

> >> > But, why is the message is shown?  Can someone remove it?  It would
> >> > probably be better that I myself clone the repo, fix it and send the
> >> > patch, but my hard disk space isn't allowing me to do that.  Is it
> >> > possible disable that message by modifing any Guix configuration file?
> >
> >> Like Simon, I do not see why the autoloads-related messages are a
> >> problem; they only occur when starting Emacs from scratch.  If you have
> >> so many packages that the loading time or loading messages bothers you,
> >> you may want to consider running Emacs as a server and connecting to it
> >> via emacsclient; that way you load it once when you login to your
> >> session for example and that's it.
> >
> >> For what it's worth, the messages are not printed by that custom Guix
> >> Elisp code explicitly but by the Emacs function `load', on line 59 of
> >> guix-emacs.el: (load f 'noerror).  If it really bothers you could change
> >> it to:
> >
> >> (load f 'noerror 'nomessage)
> >
> >> Hope that helps,
> >
> >> Maxim
> >
> >
> > The messages also appear when viewing the *Async-native-compile-log* when
> > Emacs is native compiling packages. And the all of the "loading packages"
> > messages are repeated before /each/ package that is compiled.

> That's not with the Emacs in Guix I guess, since we do not yet have
> native compilation enabled. 


It's via a Guix channel for nativecomp Emacs: 
 .

> But it seems like the problem here is not
> the printing of the messages, but why when natively compiling packages
> it would cause all the packages to be reloaded for each package... which
> is crazy.

It only seems to be the packages installed via Guix though.

Re: Why Emacs is echoing message for each installed Emacs package while startup

[Benjamin Slade]

On Sat, 21 May 2022 15:09:50 -0600 (50 minutes, 46 seconds ago), Maxim 
Cournoyer  wrote:

> Hi,

> Akib Azmain Turja  writes:

> > zimoun  writes:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On Wed, 18 May 2022 at 22:29, Akib Azmain Turja  wrote:
> >>
> >>> The timing maybe wrong, because it is more a year old (and I didn't
> >>> measure).  I was new to Emacs Lisp (I used Doom before), and my init.el
> >>> was messy.  So maybe the init file had something in it that was
> >>> responsible for slow startup when the packages managed by Guix.
> >>
> >> Well, if you are able to time the two setups: the one using package.el
> >> and ’leaf’ and the other one using Guix (and probably replacing the
> >> lines «:ensure :package :feather :straight :el-get» to use instead the
> >> Emacs packages installed by Guix).
> >>
> >> It could be informing about the potential gap.

> There were timings made in the past when considering using the builtin
> package.el to take care of some of the things we do, but it's much more
> code than what we have and is unsurprisingly a bit slower.  If you look
> at the guix-emacs.el file that takes care of autoloads discovery you'll
> see there's really not much to it, if fits all under 100 lines of code.

> > But, why is the message is shown?  Can someone remove it?  It would
> > probably be better that I myself clone the repo, fix it and send the
> > patch, but my hard disk space isn't allowing me to do that.  Is it
> > possible disable that message by modifing any Guix configuration file?

> Like Simon, I do not see why the autoloads-related messages are a
> problem; they only occur when starting Emacs from scratch.  If you have
> so many packages that the loading time or loading messages bothers you,
> you may want to consider running Emacs as a server and connecting to it
> via emacsclient; that way you load it once when you login to your
> session for example and that's it.

> For what it's worth, the messages are not printed by that custom Guix
> Elisp code explicitly but by the Emacs function `load', on line 59 of
> guix-emacs.el: (load f 'noerror).  If it really bothers you could change
> it to:

> (load f 'noerror 'nomessage)

> Hope that helps,

> Maxim


The messages also appear when viewing the *Async-native-compile-log* when Emacs 
is native compiling packages. And the all of the "loading packages" messages 
are repeated before /each/ package that is compiled.

Re: stumpwm on guix - "sb-cltl2" issues

[Benjamin Slade]

On Fri, 06 May 2022 08:44:46 -0600 (1 week, 4 hours, 25 minutes ago), Katherine 
Cox-Buday  wrote:

> Wil deBeest  writes:

> > 
> > Wil deBeest  writes:
> >
> >> 
> >> Benjamin Slade  writes:
> >> 
> >>> I'm trying to run my long-standing stumpwm init.lisp on a recent Guix
> >>> install, using the packaged stumpwm, however when it launches, it
> >>> fails to process the init.lisp and gives me an "Don't know how to
> >>> REQUIRE sb-cltl2." error.
> >>> I've set the SBCL_HOME variable both in .xprofile and in the init.lisp
> >>> itself [via `(sb-posix:putenv
> >>> "SBCL_HOME=/run/current-system/profile/lib/sbcl/")' ], but this
> >>> doesn't seem to help.
> >>> Is there a good way around this? (On my other system I just compile
> >>> stumpwm from source and install; I don't know if that makes a
> >>> difference here.)
> >>> —Ben
> >> 
> >> I used to have the same problem, but I don't remember what fixed it.
> >> 
> >> SBCL_HOME isn't set at all, I only have `exec
> >> /home/bovid-19/.guix-profile/bin/stumpwm' in my
> >> `~/.xinitrc', and my stumpwm init file starts like this:
> >> 
> >> (in-package :stumpwm)
> >> (require 'sb-cltl2)
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I'm not sure what else I can look for.
> >
> > I have probably found the solution: in addition to stumpwm, I also have
> > `cl-trivial-cltl2' and `cl-asdf' (and sbcl) in my system configuration.
> > If you can confirm that those two packages are what was missing, we
> > should add them to the stumpwm package as inputs.

> I think I have this problem? But like Benjamin, it has also been a very long
> time since I addressed it. In my profiles, I include:

>  "stumpwm"
>  "sbcl-stumpwm-kbd-layouts"
>  ;; net module has this unacknowledged dependency
>  "sbcl-cl-ppcre"
>  "sbcl-stumpwm-net"
>  "sbcl-stumpwm-pass"
>  "sbcl-stumpwm-stumptray"
>  "sbcl-stumpwm-swm-gaps"
>  "sbcl-stumpwm-ttf-fonts"

> and I don't seem to have any problem. I start it from lightdm, and I don't 
> think
> that's doing anything special.

> Probably in my case some of the modules are including the missing 
> dependencies.

> I hope that helps somehow.

> -- 
> Katherine

Thanks! I'll try adding these packages and see if that helps.

best,
 —Ben

Re: using dpkg-deb in a Guix package definition

[Benjamin Slade]

On Fri, 06 May 2022 08:39:48 -0600 (1 week, 4 hours, 10 minutes ago), Katherine 
Cox-Buday  wrote:

> Benjamin Slade  writes:

> > Are there any good examples of writing a Guix package definition using dpkg?

> I'm not sure if this helps, but I had to consume a deb and wrote a package 
> that
> unpacks it to get the binary:

> <https://github.com/kat-co/guix-channels/blob/non-free/non-free/packages/security.scm#L122-L127>=

> -- 
> Katherine

Thanks!  I got a partial definition done; it at least downloads and dpkg's, 
though I have to figure out what to patchelf still (and would rather have in 
/bin than /opt).

,
| (use-modules (guix packages)
|  (guix download)
|  ((guix licenses) #:prefix license:)
|  (gnu packages)
|  (gnu packages debian)
|  (gnu packages gnome)
|  (gnu packages glib)
|  (gnu packages gtk)
|  (guix build-system)
|  (nonguix build-system binary)
|  (gnu packages pkg-config)) 
| 
| (package
|  (name "brave-browser")
|  (version "1.38.111")
|  (source
|   (origin
|(method url-fetch)
|(uri (string-append
|  "https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v;
|  version "/brave-browser_" version "_amd64.deb"))
|(sha256
| (base32 "1fx2gbp21m7adclykq7nl21qm5hmlpcbnz0fdybmqfchs29d0i5i"
|  (build-system binary-build-system)
|  (arguments
|   `(#:install-plan
| '(("opt/" "opt"))
|#:patchelf-plan
|'(("opt/brave.com/brave/brave" ("libc"))
|  ("opt/brave.com/brave/brave-browser" ("libc")))
| #:phases
| (modify-phases %standard-phases
|(replace 'unpack
| (lambda* (#:key inputs source #:allow-other-keys)
|   (let ((dpkg (string-append (assoc-ref inputs 
"dpkg")
|  "/bin/dpkg")))
| (invoke dpkg "-x" source ".")))
|  ; need something like: dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile $src | tar -x 
--no-same-permissions --no-same-owner
|  (native-inputs
|   `(("dpkg" ,dpkg)
| ;; ("wrapGAppsHook" ,wrapGAppsHooks)
| ))
|  (inputs
|   `(("glib" ,glib)
| ("gtk+" ,gtk+)
| ("gsettings-desktop-schemas" ,gsettings-desktop-schemas)))
|  (supported-systems '("x86_64-linux"))
|  (home-page "https://brave.com/;)
|  (synopsis "Brave browser")
|  (description "Brave browser based on Chromium.")
|  (license (list license:mpl2.0)))
`

some Nix packages on Guix System fail with error referencing GLIBC_PRIVATE

[Benjamin Slade]

Hi Guix,

I've had a problem with a couple of Nix packages installed on Guix System 
failing to run, complaining about not finding `GLIBC_PRIVATE'.

Two examples: `gargoyle' 
[<https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=unstable=gargoyle=0=50=relevance=packages=gargoyle>]
 and `deadd-notification-center' 
[<https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=unstable=0=50=relevance=packages=deadd>].

Here's the message for gargoyle:

`gargoyle: 
/nix/store/6w8g7njm4mck5dmjxws0z1xnrxvl81xa-glibc-2.34-115/lib/libpthread.so.0: 
version `GLIBC_PRIVATE' not found (required by 
/gnu/store/5h2w4qi9hk1qzzgi1w83220ydslinr4s-glibc-2.33/lib/librt.so.1)'

I filed a bug at Nix ( <https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/171050> ), but 
am not sure if the issue on the Nix side or the Guix side.

best,
 —Ben
--

'(Dr Benjamin Slade (he/him)
 ((Linguistics . University of Utah) . <https://linguistics.utah.edu> )
 `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
   ((:official-mail . )
(:secure-mail . ))
 (:website . <https://lambda-y.net> )
   "sent by [mu4e] 1.6.10 in [Emacs] 28.1.50 with [org-msg] on [GNU Guix]")


[mu4e] <https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html>

[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>

[org-msg] <https://github.com/jeremy-compostella/org-msg>

[GNU Guix] <https://guix.gnu.org/>

using dpkg-deb in a Guix package definition

[Benjamin Slade]

Hello Guix,

I've been using this package [ 
<https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-unstable/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/brave/default.nix#L177>
 ] from Nix on top of Guix System, but I'd like to create my own Guix package 
for it instead. Are there any good examples of writing a Guix package 
definition using dpkg?

best,
 —Ben
--

'(Dr Benjamin Slade (he/him)
 ((Linguistics . University of Utah) . <https://linguistics.utah.edu> )
 `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
   ((:official-mail . )
(:secure-mail . ))
 (:website . <https://lambda-y.net> )
   "sent by [mu4e] 1.6.10 in [Emacs] 28.1.50 with [org-msg] on [GNU Guix]")


[mu4e] <https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html>

[Emacs] <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>

[org-msg] <https://github.com/jeremy-compostella/org-msg>

[GNU Guix] <https://guix.gnu.org/>

Re: Nix on Guix? (and setting Guix $PATH)

[Benjamin Slade]

Reinstalling Nix seemed to work for whatever reason and I don't seem to have 
the permissions errors this time trying to install or run Nix packages.

But I have to run `source /run/current-system/profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh' 
from a terminal every time to get Nix packages in my PATH. Is there a better 
way of doing this? Setting the PATH somewhere or running 
`/run/current-system/profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh' from .profile or something?


 —Ben

Re: Nix on Guix?

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks, Petr. I did add and update channels. I wonder if it's something simple, 
like needing to restart the system after installing Nix? I'll try again.

stumpwm on guix - "sb-cltl2" issues

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm trying to run my long-standing stumpwm init.lisp on a recent Guix install, 
using the packaged stumpwm, however when it launches, it fails to process the 
init.lisp and gives me an "Don't know how to REQUIRE sb-cltl2." error.

I've set the SBCL_HOME variable both in .xprofile and in the init.lisp itself 
[via `(sb-posix:putenv "SBCL_HOME=/run/current-system/profile/lib/sbcl/")' ], 
but this doesn't seem to help.

Is there a good way around this? (On my other system I just compile stumpwm 
from source and install; I don't know if that makes a difference here.)

 —Ben

Nix on Guix?

[Benjamin Slade]

Hello Guix,

I'm trying to get the Nix package manager running on Guix. I followed the 
instructions at: 
 and 
successfully installed it, but trying to install and/or run any Nix 
applications gives me permission errors.

I installed for the 'guix-system'; should I have installed for 'guix-user'? Or 
do I need to add my user to some Nix-related group? Or have I done something 
else wrong?

best,
 —Ben

Re: ebook reader recommendations?

[Benjamin Slade]

For hardware, I too have found Kobo hardware pretty decent - 
they're fairly hackable and are well supported by third-party 
open/free software. The Remarkable tablets are also supposed to be 
pretty hackable, but they're a bit pricey and I have no direct 
experience here.


For software, I really like Koreader - 
https://github.com/koreader/koreader - it works really well on 
eink devices (as well as Android tablets and even, to a certain 
extent, desktop linux).


—Ben



On 2020-12-03T01:58:22-0700, Pierre Neidhardt  
wrote:


> Hi Guixers!

> I'm looking for an open ebook reader, at least something that 
> runs free

> software.

> I found this fascinating project, although for now you have to 
> assemble

> it yourself:

> https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book

> More conventionally, I found this one, although it seems to be 
> hard to

> find on the market:

> https://github.com/bq/cervantes

> Any recommendations, anyone?

> Cheers!

> -- 
> Pierre Neidhardt

> https://ambrevar.xyz/


--
'(Benjamin Slade ("he/him") ( https://lambda-y.net )
  (:blog https://babbagefiles.xyz )
 `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
 "sent by mu4e 1.4.13 in GNU Emacs 28.0.50 running on Arch Linux 
 ")

Re: Way to synchronize files like Dropbox

[Benjamin Slade]

I would also recommend syncthing. I use it to synchronize files between
several computers (including a GuixSD one) as well as mobile. 

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )

Re: pdf editor for placing stress

[Benjamin Slade]

Hi znavko,

On 2019-02-16T09:21:26-0700, zna...@tutanota.com wrote:
 > Hello, GuixSD! Is there any software for placing stress and some other notes 
 > on text inf pdf files for files with lot of pages?
 > GIMP is bad when you need 50 page you must make invisible other layers.

pdf-tools is pretty good for this sort of thing:
https://github.com/politza/pdf-tools

as an alternative (or complementary) approach, you could use:

interleave: https://github.com/rudolfochrist/interleave

or

org-noter: https://github.com/weirdNox/org-noter

to have synchronised text notes for pdfs.


-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: Gaming desktop hardware + 802.11 ac wifi

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2019-01-18T13:09:31-0700, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:
 > At first I thought that would not be possible lest the PCI-E wifi
 > card would obstruct the GPU fans.  Then I learned about PCI risers,
 > which allow me to plug the PCI card much further down.  That would be
 > indeed a good solution.

Great! (As far as I can tell those are the best wifi cards that don't
need blobs. I don't think there are any ac-capable wifi cards that don't
require blobs, unfortunately.)


--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: Gaming desktop hardware + 802.11 ac wifi

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2019-01-18T20:35:06-0700, Maxim Cournoyer  wrote:
 > Hi,
 > Would you know if this would be compatible with newer ThinkPad models
 > such as the T460S?

 > I'm using a ThinkPenguin USB wifi adapter with the one I have, but it's
 > a bit bothersome.

One, you would have to see what size card the T460S uses. I *think* it's
probably a half-height one (which is also what my X230 uses), so that
would be the one I listed under (2).

But, two, you could run into issues with the bios only whitelisting
certain wifi cards. I know some ThinkPads have such whitelist, but I
don't know about your particularly model. (And I don't think Coreboot is
an option for that model either.)

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: Gaming desktop hardware + 802.11 ac wifi

[Benjamin Slade]

Unfortunately not. If you're building your own machine, could you build
in such a way to be able to use a PCIe card?  AFAIK PCIe has
better/faster transfer rate than USB anyway.  


On 2019-01-18T03:30:46-0700, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:

 > Just noticed they are PCIe cards :p  Anything in USB?

 > -- 
 > Pierre Neidhardt
 > https://ambrevar.xyz/


-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: Gaming desktop hardware + 802.11 ac wifi

[Benjamin Slade]

For ThinkPad laptops, I've had good luck with the following:

1) Atheros AR9380, e.g. -
Apple A1298 Mac Pro Airport Extreme Wireless Card BCM94322MC 825-7213-A
- 802.11a/b/g/n 450M Dual-band 2.4/5 GHz

2)  7WCGT Dell Atheros AR5BHB112 802.11n Bigfoot Networks Killer 1103 PCI-E 
Half Mini
  - Atheros AR5B22 a/b/g/n  dual-band 450mbps  2.4/5 Ghz


On 2019-01-17T13:28:16-0700, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:

 > But it.s 2.4GHz only.  I need 5GHz.

 > Has anyone heard of a 5GHz wifi chipset compatible with Linux-libre?

 > --
 > Pierre Neidhardt
 > https://ambrevar.xyz/


--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: [ANN] Emacs-Guix 0.5.1

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks all, doing `guix package -i guix` indeed solved this issue.



On 2019-01-05T06:05:20-0700, zimoun  wrote:

 > Dear Benjamin,

 > If I understand well, it is the same issue than the one reported here:
 > https://github.com/alezost/guix.el/issues/28

 > Recently, Alex explained why in the second part of this message:
 > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2019-01/msg00020.html

 > One (not-yet satisfactory) fix seems to install guix itself in the profile:
 >   guix package -i guix
 > then to correctly add ~/.config/guix/current/.
 > It works for me.

 > Hope that help.


 > All the best,
 > simon


-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: [ANN] Emacs-Guix 0.5.1

[Benjamin Slade]

I love Emacs-Guix - thank you for this.

Relatedly - I'm trying to debug an issue: so on my both pure GuixSD
machine and on my Arch machine with standalone Guix binary installer,
=guix-all-packages= shows me 9213 packages, but on my Void machine with
standalone Guix binary installer, the same command only shows me around
900(!) packages. But on the same machine, the expected full range of
Guix packages are available in the terminal via =guix package=. What
could cause Emacs-Guix to only show a subset of packages in this one
case?

--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )


On 2018-12-23T13:15:39-0700, Alex Kost  wrote:

 > Hello, Emacs-Guix (Emacs interface for GNU Guix) version 0.5.1 has been
 > released.  If you are not familiar with it yet, you may try it with:
 > ‘guix package -i emacs-guix’ and "M-x guix".

 > Summary of the new features:

 > * M-x guix

 >   This is the *new* "M-x guix" which is a popup interface for the rest
 >   Emacs-Guix commands.  You may find a screenshot of this popup window
 >   at <https://emacs-guix.gitlab.io/website/images/screenshots/popup.png>.

 >   The old "M-x guix" (interface for guix shell commands) was renamed to
 >   "M-x guix-command".  Also you can reach it from the new "M-x guix"
 >   with "c" key.

 > * M-x guix-set-emacs-environment

 >   This command sets Emacs environment according to a specified profile.
 >   Note that after calling this command, the whole Emacs will have a new
 >   environment (you may check ‘process-environment’ variable), so "M-x
 >   shell" or any other process will inherit this environment.

 >   Many thanks to Jan Nieuwenhuizen for inventing and implementing this
 >   command.

 > * "Total size" messages in "Guix Store Items" buffer

 >   Now, whenever this buffer is displayed (for example, after "M-x
 >   guix-store-dead-items"), a minibuffer message will display total size
 >   of the listed store items.  Also you can mark several items (with "m")
 >   and press "z" to get their total size.

 >   Thanks to Pierre Neidhardt for the idea of this feature.

 > --
 > Alex

Re: Next browser finally on master!

[Benjamin Slade]

Pierre,

This is great news! Just installed it via Guix and played with it for a
minute or two and am looking forward to more extensive use.

cheers,
  -Ben

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: using Shepherd outside of GuixSD ?

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-10-17T06:24:18-0600, Ludovic Courtès  wrote:

 > I don’t know if anyone tried.  That’s certainly doable, though
 > probably not as convenient as on GuixSD, notably because GuixSD
 > performs static checks on the service dependency graph to prevent
 > certain kind of errors from occurring at run time (e.g., reference to
 > a non-existent service), and also because GuixSD provides additional
 > tools that are handy when testing services (e.g., ‘guix system
 > shepherd-graph’, ‘guix system vm’.)

 > Anyway if you give it a try, let us know how it goes!

Thanks, Ludo'.  So the 'guix system' tools are only available on GuixSD
proper, and not via the guix standalone?

I'll certain report back with when/if I manage to try it about
successes/failures.

 —Ben

--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

using Shepherd outside of GuixSD ?

[Benjamin Slade]

Does anyone have any experience using Shepherd as the init for a distro
other than GuixSD ? This could be useful, say on a bare bones foreign
distro where Guix was installed, in order to have more of the Guix
ecosystem available even outside of GuixSD itself.

Concretely speaking, I was thinking of trying to use Shepherd on a Void
Linux install in place of the default runit init.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 —Ben

--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: openvpn with networkmanager

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-09-13T02:54:52-0600, Ludovic Courtès  wrote:
 > I think it would be nice to add a commented example to this section of
 > the manual, like we have for many other services.

I think this would be very useful. With an example it should be much
more straightforward to figure out how to use this in practice.  Does
anyone have a working config they could share?

 —Ben

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: GTK icons missing with EXWM

[Benjamin Slade]

I also had issues with missing icons. I seem to have got at least most
of them (maybe?) with:

- adwaita-icon-theme
- hicolor-icon-theme

in combination with `gnome-icon-theme`.

I also have installed (but suspect are irrelevant, but just in case they
aren't):
- font-awesome
- arc-icon-theme


 —Ben


On 2018-09-15T01:20:30-0600, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:

 > Hi Guix!

 > I run EXWM (Emacs X Window Manager) and while I don't use many GTK
 > applications, the few of them I use are missing lots of icons: epiphany,
 > gtk-youtube-viewer are good examples.

 > I've installed gnome-icon-theme and I believe it fixes a few icons, but
 > lots are still missing.

 > Should I install a specific package?

 > --
 > Pierre Neidhardt
 > https://ambrevar.xyz/


--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: sbcl/glibc troubles

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-09-13T01:47:49-0600, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:

 > Basically all you need is to call

 > --8<---cut here---start->8---
 > (ql:quickload :cffi)
 > (push (format nil "~a/.guix-profile/lib/" (uiop:getenv "HOME")) 
 > cffi:*foreign-library-directories*)
 > --8<---cut here---end--->8---

 > before calling quickload.
 > Note that the trailing "/" in the library path is important.

I must not be doing something right, because it still complains about
not being able to find GLIBC_2.28. I notice it also says:

(CFFI::FL-ERROR "Unable to load foreign library (~A).~%  ~A" :LIBOSICAT 
#<(SIMPLE-BASE-STRING 422) Error opening shared object 
"/home/slade/.cache/common-lisp/sbcl-1.4.4-linux-x64/home/slade/quicklisp/dists/quicklisp/software/osicat-20180228-git/posix/libosicat.so":

 —Ben


-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

sbcl/glibc troubles

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm trying (ultimately) to install "shuffletron" [
http://vintage-digital.com/hefner/software/shuffletron/ ], a common lisp
music player, but I'm getting stuck on one of its dependencies,
"osicat", with the following error from `(ql:quickload "osicat")` under sbcl:

<-->
; Loading "osicat"
..
debugger invoked on a CFFI:LOAD-FOREIGN-LIBRARY-ERROR in thread
#:
  Unable to load foreign library (LIBOSICAT).
  Error opening shared object 
"/home/emacsomancer/.cache/common-lisp/sbcl-1.4.4-linux-x64/home/emacsomancer/quicklisp/dists/quicklisp/software/osicat-20180228-git/posix/libosicat.so":
  /gnu/store/l4lr0f5cjd0nbsaaf8b5dmcw1a1yypr3-glibc-2.27/lib/libc.so.6: version 
`GLIBC_2.28' not found (required by 
/home/emacsomancer/.cache/common-lisp/sbcl-1.4.4-linux-x64/home/emacsomancer/quicklisp/dists/quicklisp/software/osicat-20180228-git/posix/libosicat.so).
<-->

I have glibc-2.28 installed however.  Is there a way to get it to
associate with this instead of (for whatever reason) with glibc-2.27?

 —Ben

--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
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'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

racket

[Benjamin Slade]

When run Racket, in the REPL, the first command I execute runs fine. But
the second (no matter what it is, even if it's just the first again)
always produces:

; ptr-ref: contract violation
;   expected: (and/c cpointer? (not/c (lambda (p) (pointer-equal? p #f
;   given: #f
;   argument position: 1st
; [,bt for context]
; ptr-ref: contract violation
;   expected: (and/c cpointer? (not/c (lambda (p) (pointer-equal? p #f
;   given: #f
;   argument position: 1st
; [,bt for context]

And it doesn't accept any more input after that point (including ",bt").

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: openvpn with networkmanager

[Benjamin Slade]

 > On GuixSD, we have an openvpn service, see
 > https://guix.info/manual/en/VPN-Services.html#VPN-Services. Once
 > configured, you can always start and stop it with "herd start
 > openvpn-client" and "herd stop openvpn-client".

Thanks, Julien. Unfortunately, I don't find that manual page overly
illuminating in terms of how to actually set this up.

Does anyone have an example configuration available anywhere,
particularly one shows how to set up multiple VPNs? I.e. one which
allows for different VPNs to be configured (and switched to, whether via
herd or otherwise)?

thanks,
  —Ben


--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: openvpn with networkmanager

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks, Adam, I'll have to try this. It's hard to know how much of the
issues with NetworkManager+VPNs is a GuixSD-specific issue and how much
is just NetworkManager (on my Arch machine, I have to connect to openvpn
'by hand', it won't connect through NetworkManager; but on my
Bedrock/pieces-from-a-bunch-of-different-distros machine, OpenVPN 'just
works' directly in NetworkManager).

 —Ben



On 2018-09-10T10:05:56-0600, Adam Massmann  wrote:

 > Hi Ben,

 > Benjamin Slade  writes:

 > >
 > > What is a recommended/working way of using OpenVPN on GuixSD?

 > I do not know what the recommended way of working with
 > openvpn is, but I do have a working way. Attached is a bash
 > script that takes a wireless interface as an argument and
 > starts up a vpn, adjusting dns to avoid dns leaks (you will
 > need to modify to add the dns for your setup). So if I have
 > a wifi connection called "interface" I just run
 > ```vpn-launcher-example.sh interface``` to start my vpn
 > session, and then ```vpn-killer-example.sh interface```
 > to cleanup the connection after I have finished
 > openvpn. Also depending on your setup you might need to
 > either run as root, or sprinkle sudos before the nmcli
 > calls.

 > This works well for me, but I strongly doubt it is the
 > recommended way using openvpn. If anyone has a better way
 > I'd also love to hear it.

 > Best,
 > Adam




--
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'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: How do I see Japanese characters in Icecat?

[Benjamin Slade]

Luther,

I think installing one of these font packages:

font-wqy-zenhei
font-wqy-microhei
font-adobe-source-han-sans

And then restarting IceCat should solve the issue for Japanese.


On 2018-09-06T12:16:41-0600, Luther Thompson  wrote:

 > This is hopefully a simple question. What package do I install to get
 > Icecat to show non-latin characters in web pages? I often see those
 > hexadecimal boxes in place of missing characters.

 > If there is a separate package for each language, I would like to
 > install the one for Japanese. I don't really know anything about how
 > font packages work.

 > Luther



-- 
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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

openvpn with networkmanager

[Benjamin Slade]

I have the following definition in my config.scm, which I call in
defining the operating system:


(define %slade-desktop-services
  (modify-services %desktop-services
(network-manager-service-type config =>
  (network-manager-configuration
   (inherit config)
   (vpn-plugins (list 
network-manager-openvpn))


This does indeed enable the OpenVPN module of NetworkManager, but
NetworkManager doesn't automatically read in the *.opvn files in
/etc/openvpn (which is probably expected), but moreover as an ordinary
user I'm not allowed to create them. Is the best thing to login as root
and add these to NetworkManager?



-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
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'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: confusion/mdl

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks, that at least gives me a place to start.


On 2018-08-29T09:29:40-0600, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:


 > > macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* mdl_get_atom(const char*, bool, 
 > > mdl_value_t*)’:
 > > macros.cpp:616:27: error: invalid conversion from ‘const char*’ to ‘char*’ 
 > > [-fpermissive]
 > >  char *trailer = strstr(pname, "!-");

 > Well, it looks like macros.cpp is doing something dirty here.
 > I suppose this is an upstream bug (which should be reported).
 > As a workaround, you could try setting appropriate compilation flags.  Look
 > around "-fpermissive" in the gcc manual.

 > (Sorry if this help is a little scarce, I'm very busy these days... :p)

 > -- 
 > Pierre Neidhardt
 > https://ambrevar.xyz/


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confusion/mdl

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm trying to build confusion, the MDL (muddle lisp) interpreter [from
http://www.russotto.net/git/mrussotto/confusion/src/master/src ]. It
says "To build it, you will need the Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative
garbage collector for C", so I installed the guix package `libgc`. I
haven't had much luck building it though:


$ make
g++ -g -DGC_DEBUG  -Wall -Wno-switch   -c -o macros.o macros.cpp
macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* mdl_get_atom(const char*, bool, 
mdl_value_t*)’:
macros.cpp:616:27: error: invalid conversion from ‘const char*’ to ‘char*’ 
[-fpermissive]
 char *trailer = strstr(pname, "!-");
 ~~^
macros.cpp: In function ‘char* mdl_getcwd()’:
macros.cpp:1121:16: error: ‘getcwd’ was not declared in this scope
 cwdp = getcwd(cwdbuf, bsize);
^~
macros.cpp:1121:16: note: suggested alternative: ‘getw’
 cwdp = getcwd(cwdbuf, bsize);
^~
getw
macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* mdl_internal_open_channel(mdl_value_t*)’:
macros.cpp:1322:10: error: ‘isatty’ was not declared in this scope
 if (!isatty(fileno(f)))
  ^~
macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* mdl_internal_reset_channel(mdl_value_t*)’:
macros.cpp:1367:10: error: ‘isatty’ was not declared in this scope
 if (!isatty(fileno(f)))
  ^~
macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* 
mdl_internal_reopen_channel(mdl_value_t*)’:
macros.cpp:1406:10: error: ‘isatty’ was not declared in this scope
 if (!isatty(fileno(f)))
  ^~
macros.cpp: In function ‘void mdl_interp_init()’:
macros.cpp:3865:24: warning: ‘GC_gc_no’ is deprecated 
[-Wdeprecated-declarations]
 last_assoc_clean = GC_gc_no;
^~~~
In file included from macros.hpp:18,
 from macros.cpp:27:
/home/slade/.guix-profile/include/gc/gc.h:81:35: note: declared here
 GC_API GC_ATTR_DEPRECATED GC_word GC_gc_no;
   ^~~~
macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* mdl_builtin_eval_logout()’:
macros.cpp:8942:9: error: ‘getppid’ was not declared in this scope
 if (getppid() == 1) exit(0);
 ^~~
macros.cpp:8942:9: note: suggested alternative: ‘getpt’
 if (getppid() == 1) exit(0);
 ^~~
 getpt
macros.cpp: In function ‘mdl_value_t* mdl_builtin_eval_sleep()’:
macros.cpp:9175:5: error: ‘sleep’ was not declared in this scope
 sleep(fix->v.w);
 ^
make: *** [: macros.o] Error 1


I had a look at Arch's AUR package [
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=mdli ] for it*
and it really seems to consist of `make CXX='g++-4.3'`. Though
Confusion's build instructions themselves don't seem to require an older
version of gcc, but, then again, I didn't have much luck building it on
guix.

What would people suggest as the next step to try?


* Which I couldn't get to successfully build on my Arch machine either,
  the old gcc versions don't seem to build properly.

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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: Guix on aarch64

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-08-20T22:38:20-0600, Leo Famulari  wrote:

 > Having to build tar from the bootstrap binaries suggests you didn't
 > get any pre-built "substitutes", but instead were building every
 > package up to emacs and certbot from source.  Aarch64 substitutes
 > *should* be available from <https://berlin.guixsd.org>.
 > https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Binary-Installation.html#index-substitutes_002c-authorization-thereof

I have followed that page in the manual (and just repeated now just in
case) to make sure both hydra.gnu.org.pub (though I think it should be
authorised by default) and hydra.gnu.org.pub are authorised, and it's
still building everything from source as far as I can tell when I try to
do `guix pull`.

 —Ben

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Re: backup questions

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-08-19T16:53:56-0600, Björn Höfling  
wrote:
 > Ludovic fixed the package, so if you do a guix pull && guix package
 > -i libchop it should be working now.  But he also wrote that libchop
 > is unmaintained (and what I didn't know: he's the author :-)).

Thanks, Björn. I knew Ludovic was the author (I think it was connected
with his PhD research?) and am interested because of the use of Guile
(it would be nice to have a backup system that has a Lisp-type
interface). Thanks also for the warning about the unmaintainedness of
libchop (and indeed a very quick trial suggests it may not be working,
though I'll have to try more extensively).

 —Ben

--
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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: Guix on aarch64

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-08-20T11:51:20-0600, Mark H Weaver  wrote:
 > I looked in the GNU tar source code to see what could produce that
 > message during archive creation.  The message would seem to indicate
 > that an error occurred during a kernel-level 'write' call to the archive
 > file.  The code is written to retry in case of short writes or EINTR.

 > What kind of filesystems are running on /tmp and /gnu?  How much free
 > space is on those filesystems?

/tmp is a tmpfs filesystem on ext4, and /gnu is on ext4. there was over
20Gb of free space.

I seemed to need to:

1) create a very large /tmp
2) create an even 2nd larger swapfile
3) increase swappiness to 100 (to make sure it actually used the
swapfile(s) before deciding it was out of memory)

Because one of the things it wanted to do (for tar?) was create a ">8Gb
sparse file", and this would fail with an "out of memory error" with the
a second 8Gb swapfile on top of my original 3Gb swapfile.

(Unfortunately, even after I fixed that, it chugged away for over
24hours, when I just wanted to install `emacs` and `certbot`. In the end
I just ended up using Nix to install these. :( ) 


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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

getting applications from Nix to have access to fonts

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm having trouble getting external applications, specifically things
installed via Nix, to have access to fonts, which often is the
difference between them working or not working.

For instance, I installed Gargoyle (the text adventure/interactive
fiction interpreter - http://ccxvii.net/gargoyle/ ) from Nix. If I set
gtk2 to use something other than 'sans' as the default font, when I try
to launch Gargoyle, it hangs, with the terminal output `Fontconfig
error: Cannot load default config file`. I have similar issues with
other pieces of software; those which don't hang, usually just have
access to whatever fonts they're actually packaged with, and not any of
the fonts on my system (including fonts installed via Nix itself).

In #guixsd, pkill9 recommended adding `~/.local/bin` to PATH in
~/.profile, and creating a wrapper like this:

<#+BEGIN_SRC bash>
#!/bin/sh
# Wrapper to run Gargoyle built and packaged by Nix

MESA_LIB=$(dirname $(realpath /run/current-system/profile/lib/libGL.so)) #To 
get webgl working
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MESA_LIB${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:}$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
#export FONTCONFIG_PATH="$(guix build 
fontconfig)/etc/fonts${FONTCONFIG_PATH:+:}$FONTCONFIG_PATH"
export FONTCONFIG_PATH="$(guix build fontconfig)/etc/fonts"

exec -a "$0" "/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/$USER/profile/bin/gargoyle" "$@"
<-#+END_SRC--->


However, even doing this, I end up with exactly the same issues. (And
I've tried calling the script directly, e.g. with
`~/.local/bin/gargoyle`, just in case the PATH from .profile wasn't
working correctly.)

Does anyone have any insight or suggestions on how to resolve this?


-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
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Re: Guix on aarch64

[Benjamin Slade]

Though, unfortunately, when I try `guix package -i hello` (or any other
package), I get the following error:



/gnu/store/qzdabl7b02cp4xsfkz4znxpy482gsgh8-bootstrap-binaries-0/bin/tar: 
/gnu/store/4ka60wq7j51ywy7pmpwy7fqqnzk12ay6-binutils-2.30.tar.xz: Wrote only 
4096 of 10240 bytes
/gnu/store/qzdabl7b02cp4xsfkz4znxpy482gsgh8-bootstrap-binaries-0/bin/tar: Child 
died with signal 9
/gnu/store/qzdabl7b02cp4xsfkz4znxpy482gsgh8-bootstrap-binaries-0/bin/tar: Error 
is not recoverable: exiting now
source is under 'binutils-2.30'
applying 
'/gnu/store/r7imyzhcnqbyzrbxygg60iwqp1jmwgrq-binutils-loongson-workaround.patch'...
Backtrace:
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 160: 9 [catch #t # ...]
In unknown file:
   ?: 8 [apply-smob/1 #]
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
  66: 7 [call-with-prompt prompt0 ...]
In ice-9/eval.scm:
 432: 6 [eval # #]
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
2412: 5 [save-module-excursion #]
4089: 4 [#]
1734: 3 [%start-stack load-stack #]
1739: 2 [#]
In unknown file:
   ?: 1 [primitive-load 
"/gnu/store/976r9wpcnsi9lhsg2yr8hdzkqnilyq9n-binutils-2.30.tar.xz-builder"]
In ./guix/build/utils.scm:
 616: 0 [invoke 
"/gnu/store/qzdabl7b02cp4xsfkz4znxpy482gsgh8-bootstrap-binaries-0/bin/tar" ...]

./guix/build/utils.scm:616:6: In procedure invoke:
./guix/build/utils.scm:616:6: Throw to key `srfi-34' with args `(#)'.
builder for 
`/gnu/store/8bkfchbibkfflp72vvdf39hdbv362vm7-binutils-2.30.tar.xz.drv' failed 
with exit code 1
cannot build derivation 
`/gnu/store/6mbhl1b7kdmysilwsxk59vkws2ca9ajh-binutils-2.30.drv': 1 dependencies 
couldn't be built
cannot build derivation 
`/gnu/store/20q3yb3yri1g7nqng06j9kwc07ypxh1g-binutils-cross-boot0-2.30.drv': 1 
dependencies couldn't be built
cannot build derivation 
`/gnu/store/sghh265k30fn0cj24rxc9p6xvn6yv3qs-perl-5.26.1.drv': 1 dependencies 
couldn't be built
guix package: error: build failed: build of 
`/gnu/store/sghh265k30fn0cj24rxc9p6xvn6yv3qs-perl-5.26.1.drv' failed


 —Ben

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Re: Guix on aarch64

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks, Clément. For some reason the `--build-users-group=guixbuild`
make me think it was supposed to build something. In retrospect, it's
obvious that it's just a groupname.

So far it seems to be working. I'll have to see if I can get runit to
start the guixdaemon automatically.

 > > `# ~root/.guix-profile/bin/guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild`
 > >
 > > It just seems to hang. When I look at the process, it doesn't seem to be
 > > using cpu resources anything. I tried leaving it for a couple of hours,
 > > but it never seems to do anything.

 > It is its normal behaviour, because it's a long-running process; it
 > should be always running and the Guix command talks to it.  People
 > usually use an init manager to start it automatically (systemd, the
 > Shepherd...).  You can also add '&' at the end of the command so that it
 > goes in the background.

 > Clément

thanks again,
  —Ben

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Guix on aarch64

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm trying to install the Guix (standalone) package manager on top of
Void Linux (musl libc) on a raspberrypi3 using the aarch64 architecture,
but when (from the processed described here:
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/guix.html#Installation ), I
get to the bit:

`# ~root/.guix-profile/bin/guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild`

It just seems to hang. When I look at the process, it doesn't seem to be
using cpu resources anything. I tried leaving it for a couple of hours,
but it never seems to do anything.

Any suggestions?

thanks,
   —Ben
-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: How should I install non-guix software?

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks, all, for the extended information.

 > I would run it with strace, as in `strace -f ./kitty`. That will help
 > you find exactly which files are missing. It may be easier to just
 > build the program with Guix.

It might be, once I grok Guix better.

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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: How should I install non-guix software?

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm still getting to grips with Guix, so a fairly basic question which
seems connected:  how do I execute a binary? So for instance, I can
download a precompiled binary for the kitty terminal app:
https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/binary.html

But when I try to execute it in Guix, I get the message:
"./kitty: No such file or directory"

I tried symlinking /bin/bash and /usr/bin/env, but this didn't help.

I'm sure something in the manual or this thread probably answers this,
but I often find I can generalise from concrete examples better than vice-versa.

-- 
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'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: mcron

[Benjamin Slade]

Many thanks, Pierre.

Can one also mix Vixie-style things in `~/.config/cron/` ?

It probably doesn't matter since I think I've figured out mcron native
syntax.  I was looking everywhere in "(mcron) Top" for an example of "do
X every N minutes", but finally figured out that this works (at least I
hope so):

--8<---cut here---start->8---
(job '(next-minute (range 0 60 5)) "dosomethingevery5minutes")
(job '(next-minute (range 0 60 10)) "dosomethingevery10minutes")
--8<---cut here-------start->8---

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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: mcron

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-08-04T02:44:24-0600, Pierre Neidhardt  wrote:

 > Not sure I can help much here because I personally run help cron from my user
 > session, i.e. with "mcron &" in my ".profile".  I declare the jobs in
 > "~/.config/cron/job.guile".

 > Maybe you could try that for the user-level jobs and see if it works in that 
 > condition?

Thanks, Pierre. What is the procedure for declaring jobs in
`~/.config/cron/job.guile` ? For the `/etc/config.scm` method, as far as
I understand it, the jobs need defining and then enabling/calling. Does
it work for the same for the user session cron in `~/.config/cron/job.guile` ?

thanks,
  ---Ben
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Re: LUKS-encrypted root and unencrypted /boot ?

[Benjamin Slade]

 > > Thanks, I'll look into that. For the moment I've just switched to
 > > having an unencrypted root and encrypted /home partition (where the
 > > swapfile also lives),

 > > ...which seems to me better from a security standpoint (I can
 > > use --iter 500, sha512,  without an issue).

 > But it's easier put a malware in an unencrypted root ;)

That's true, but if someone has the time/access to be putting malware in
the unencrypted root of an GuixSD install (will they know to put things
in /gnu/store ?) they could also install physical keyloggers and so on
(perhaps more efficiently). So while I'd prefer to have the whole thing
encrypted, realistically I'm mainly protecting my personal data if it's
stolen/taken from me (as long it's off, that is).

--
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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: LUKS-encrypted root and unencrypted /boot ?

[Benjamin Slade]

Thanks, Clément.

 > >  > Do you use Libreboot?
 > >
 > > Yes, I'm using Libreboot. Does this make a great difference over the
 > > manufacturer firmware in this case?

 > It might, because the GRUB used is the one shipped with Libreboot.
 > So it has nothing to do with Guix.  I think talking to the libreboot
 > people would help you more.  (Disclaimer: I have the same issue, I
 > find that pressing 'c' and typing 'cryptomount ahci0,gpt3' makes the
 > process faster.)

Thanks, I'll look into that. For the moment I've just switched to having
an unencrypted root and encrypted /home partition (where the swapfile
also lives), which seems to me better from a security standpoint (I can
use --iter 500, sha512,  without an issue).

 > >  > I'm unsure [using an unencrypted /boot] would help, because GRUB
 > >  > would still have to unencrypt / to access the kernel (the kernel
 > >  > is in /gnu/store).
 > >
 > > Ah, I see. Is this an immutable design decision?  It would seem
 > > good to be able to keep the kernel in a separate space in order to
 > > avoid the issue of extremely long unlocking times when booting.

 > Nothing is immutable, but it's a strong design decision that all
 > packages data are put in /gnu/store.  Linux is just one of them.
 > Plus, a characteristic of GuixSD is that you can revert to previous
 > configurations.  Those configurations appear as GRUB lines.  Each
 > configuration could have a different kernel and kernels take space,
 > so it wouldn't scale well.  Plus, I think some other stuff is needed
 > as well, like the initrd, which is large too, etc.

I mused briefly about mirroring of the relevant things (kernels, initrd)
from /gnu/store to /boot, but that's probably pretty hack-y.

--
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   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

mcron

[Benjamin Slade]

/or Xfce---we can choose at the log-in
  ;; screen with F1.  Use the "desktop" services, which
  ;; include the X11 log-in service, networking with
  ;; NetworkManager, and more.
  (packages (cons* sbcl-stumpwm  ;common lisp window manager
   ; awesome ;lua window manager
   nss-certs  ;for HTTPS access
   gvfs  ;for user mounts
   xset ; no beeps 
   tlp; NEED TO SET UP
   acpi  ; battery (still not accessible?)
   thinkfan ; controlling ThinkPad fans
   borg ; python-based backup
;  libchop; guile-based backup (chop-backup)    
NOT WORKING
   network-manager ; probably change to something else
   network-manager-applet  ; probably change to something else
;  mcron   ; guile-based cron
   %base-packages))


  ;; Use the "desktop" services, which include the X11
  ;; log-in service, networking with NetworkManager, and more.
  (services (cons* (mcron-service (list garbage-collector-job
   updatedb-job
   idutils-job
   mbsync-mail-fetch-emacsomancer
;  test-emacsomancer
   ))
   (service openssh-service-type)
   %desktop-services))
  
  ;; Allow resolution of '.local' host names with mDNS.
  (name-service-switch %mdns-host-lookup-nss))


I'm not sure why I can't get mcron to start.

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
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Re: LUKS-encrypted root and unencrypted /boot ?

[Benjamin Slade]

On 2018-08-02T02:24:31-0600, Chris Marusich  wrote:

 > > Doing a full LUKS-encryption on root, including /boot results in
 > > very slow unlocking at boot (about 30 secs even with --iter set to
 > > 1000). Is there any way to do an unencrypted /boot with an
 > > encrypted root?

 > At that stage, is it GRUB that is unlocking the encrypted volume?  If
 > so, I think this is normal.


 > For what it's worth, GRUB is slow in unlocking my encrypted volumes,
 > too.  It takes about 30 seconds for me, too.  If you're concerned,
 > you can try using cryptsetup's --iter-time option to lower the number
 > of iterations, but keep in mind that will also make it easier to
 > crack your passphrase.

Originally I had --iter set to '5000' and it took about 4 minutes to
unlock!  I've shifted to using an unencrypted root and an encrypted
/home as a compromise that boots faster (and only requests the password once).

--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: LUKS-encrypted root and unencrypted /boot ?

[Benjamin Slade]

 > Do you use Libreboot?

Yes, I'm using Libreboot. Does this make a great difference over the
manufacturer firmware in this case?

 > I'm unsure [using an unencrypted /boot] would help, because GRUB
 > would still have to unencrypt / to access the kernel (the kernel is
 > in /gnu/store).

Ah, I see. Is this an immutable design decision?  It would seem good to
be able to keep the kernel in a separate space in order to avoid the
issue of extremely long unlocking times when booting.

--
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

Re: difficulty getting networking working on new install

[Benjamin Slade]

 > at the very least you could fire up a terminal and use "nmcli" or
 > "nmtui", which should be installed in your system profile by default
 > when you have the NetworkManager service installed.

Thanks, Chris, this did help immensely. I've used other tools in the
commandline and NetworkManager as an applet in the gui, but I've never
used NetworkManager via the commandline and so I didn't even realise
that the relevant applications were called "nmcli" & "nmtui" (I was
trying to run `NetworkManager` in the terminal). (I wonder if this is
worth throwing into the manual somewhere [unless it's there already and
I missed it], since these seem to be the default networking tools
included in the 'desktop package'.)

-- 
Benjamin Slade - https://babbagefiles.xyz
  `(pgp_fp: ,(21BA 2AE1 28F6 DF36 110A 0E9C A320 BBE8 2B52 EE19))
'(sent by mu4e on Emacs running under GNU/Linux . https://gnu.org )
   `(Choose Linux ,(Choose Freedom) . https://linux.com )

difficulty getting networking working on new install

[Benjamin Slade]

I'm having some trouble getting networking up on my new GuixSD
install. Using the livecd (which I installed with), I used
wpa_supplicant+dhclient (as per
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Preparing-for-Installation.html)
and that worked without issue, but the same method didn't work on my
actual install. (it seems to try to use IPv6?) I ultimately want to use
NetworkManager, but I just wanted to get some sort of connection working
to start with.

I have included in my `config.scm` the "%desktop-services" bit, so I
thought this should provide NetworkManager, but I don't seem able to use
it (I'm not sure how to configure it in guixsd, and I also find no
applet.)

This is the config.scm I've ended up with:

;; This is an operating system configuration template
;; for a "desktop" setup with GNOME and Xfce where the
;; root partition is encrypted with LUKS.

(use-modules (gnu) (gnu system nss) (gnu packages lisp) (gnu packages wm))
(use-service-modules desktop)
(use-package-modules certs gnome wm)

(operating-system
  (host-name "guixy")
  (timezone "US/Mountain")
  (locale "en_GB.utf8")

  ;; Use the UEFI variant of GRUB with the EFI System
  ;; Partition mounted on /boot/efi.
  ;; -> actually using BIOS because guixsd 0.15 live usb didn't probe efi
;  (bootloader (grub-configuration (device "/dev/sda")))
  (bootloader (bootloader-configuration
(bootloader grub-bootloader)
(target "/dev/sda")))

  ;; Specify a mapped device for the encrypted root partition.
  ;; The UUID is that returned by 'cryptsetup luksUUID'.
  (mapped-devices
   (list (mapped-device
  (source (uuid "79c67b23-d4ac-4be9-a617-9d83beed9694"))
  (target "guiksdelux")
  (type luks-device-mapping))
  ))

  (file-systems (cons* (file-system
(device "/dev/mapper/guiksdelux")
(mount-point "/")
(type "ext4")
(dependencies mapped-devices))
   %base-file-systems))

  (users (cons (user-account
(name "emacsomancer")
(comment "E. Max O'Mancer")
(group "users")
(supplementary-groups '("wheel" "netdev"
"audio" "video"))
(home-directory "/home/slade"))
   %base-user-accounts))

  ;; Add GNOME and/or Xfce---we can choose at the log-in
  ;; screen with F1.  Use the "desktop" services, which
  ;; include the X11 log-in service, networking with
  ;; NetworkManager, and more.
  (packages (cons* sbcl-stumpwm awesome ;window managers
   nss-certs  ;for HTTPS access
   gvfs  ;for user mounts
   %base-packages))


  ;; Use the "desktop" services, which include the X11
  ;; log-in service, networking with NetworkManager, and more.
(services (cons*  (xfce-desktop-service)
   %desktop-services))

  ;; Allow resolution of '.local' host names with mDNS.
  (name-service-switch %mdns-host-lookup-nss))