Re: package management

[Marcus Möller]

Hi again.

>> 
>> I managed to install the latest version of GuixSD on my Libreboot Laptop.
>> 
>> Everything works fine, but I got a few questions:
>> 
>> 1. I would like to install Icecat and some additional packages. My first
>> try was to run guix package -i icecat which installed icecat into
>> /gnu/store/...
>> 
>> When I now start the binary directly from that directory, it works fine,
>> but it does not appear in path nor in the Xfce menu.
>> 
>> Do I need to run any additional command to make it visible?
> 
> See the following mail:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2015-08/msg00006.html
> 
> (and the follow-up mail making a correction; I had the paths wrong).
> 
> /gnu/store is merely a "cache" of packages.  They are really installed
> into "profiles" (by generating symlinks into the store).
> 
>> 2. Is this the way to handle package installation or should I instead
>> modify the system configuration and run
>> 
>> sudo guix system reconfigure /path/to/config.scm
>> 
>> afterwards?
> 
> Packages declared in the system configuration will be available to all
> users of the system (there's a system-wide profile in
> /run/current-system).  Running 'guix package -i' will install a package
> to your per-user profile.

I thought installing it as root would make it available system-wide? But root 
is also treated as a user in this context, right?

>> 3. How can I modify configuration files of services like ntp? I guess
>> this does not work the way I know it by just placing the relevant files
>> into /etc. Can this be done via system configuration as well? If so,
>> could you please provide an example, e.g. to set a custom time server to
>> poll?
> 
> Each "service" declared in your system configuration might take an
> optional configuration-file argument, or some other "configuration"
> argument.  See the documentation of each service you want to configure.

Ok, I am going to check that. Where can I find the relevant documentation, e.g. 
for ntpd?

Greets
Marcus