Copying whole /gnu/store from USB does not work

[Pjotr Prins]

Hi all,

A binary install should be easy because all properly installed Guix
packages are independent from the underlying distribution - a package
can be created which contains a package with all its dependencies. The
only real dependency is the (Linux) kernel - which should have a
compatible API. Fortunately the fundamental API does not change that
often, so a binary distribution can be copied from machine to
machine. Of course, also the build target archicture has to match.
With a binary distribution it is possible to simply unpack the
package, create the build group and permissions.

I thought I would be able to bootstrap using a USB image and copy
/gnu/store to a local hard disk.

To bootstrap I have successfully downloaded a GNU Guix tarball 

    wget http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/gnu-usb-install-0.8.x86_64-linux.xz
    xz -d gnu-usb-install-0.8.x86_64-linux.xz 

mount it with kpartx

    kpartx -v -a gnu-usb-install-0.8.x86_64-linux
    mkdir mnt 
    mkdir tmp
    mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 mnt
    cp -vau mnt/gnu tmp
    mv tmp/gnu/ /

and should be able to run Guix with

    /gnu/store/(...)-guix-0.8(...)/bin/guix --help

Actually this now works the first time.

There is a problem currently: right after copying the files to /gnu
they work find, e.g. 

    /gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin/bash --version
    GNU bash, version 4.3.33(1)-release (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)

Nice! 

when I run, however,

    /gnu/store/wnsbzddp3izv3xr3gqf2rar4fyd4shl7-guix-0.8.1.f1082ec/bin/guix 
package -i bash

it runs and I get

    The following package will be installed:     
       bash 4.3.33  /gnu/store/7cc229218glj3kzp6zafzs5mc4241wqk-bash-4.3.33
    substitute-binary: updating list of substitutes from 
'http://hydra.gnu.org'...

    The following derivations will be built:
    /gnu/store/gkfzdr01ga0m1c2vl8dh6p3cspjik7pp-profile.drv
    /gnu/store/kw632ijb16nracg8kbd2z3qqarv72b9c-info-dir.drv
    The following files will be downloaded:
    /gnu/store/7cc229218glj3kzp6zafzs5mc4241wqk-bash-4.3.33
    /gnu/store/1j6njwwhcqr04c2m0868400p74pv36k2-module-import-compiled
    /gnu/store/z2mbq8915vvh0fj6sz3iqiifrdm9k7np-guile-2.0.11
    (...)
    substitute error: executing 
`/gnu/store/wnsbzddp3izv3xr3gqf2rar4fyd4shl7-guix-0.8.1.f1082ec/libexec/guix/substitute-binary':
 No such file or directory
    guix package: error: build failed: unexpected EOF reading a line

Looking at

    head -1 
/gnu/store/wnsbzddp3izv3xr3gqf2rar4fyd4shl7-guix-0.8.1.f1082ec/libexec/guix/substitute-binary
#!/gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin/bash

it calls bash and now check

    /gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin/bash
    bash: /gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin/bash: No 
such file or directory

while

    ldd /gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin/bash
        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff739ec000)
        libreadline.so.6 => 
/gnu/store/fznw2a1ig05jkc2yrw8knzcb99akcjx7-readline-6.3/lib/libreadline.so.6 
(0x00007f0084bd5000)
        libhistory.so.6 => 
/gnu/store/fznw2a1ig05jkc2yrw8knzcb99akcjx7-readline-6.3/lib/libhistory.so.6 
(0x00007f00849cc000)
        libncursesw.so.5 => 
/gnu/store/ksnhghfy6hkk8mmxd4nacyd8c1smdp6p-ncurses-5.9/lib/libncursesw.so.5 
(0x00007f008476a000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f008455b000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f008419b000)
        
/gnu/store/q2mm1wv4a3g0b29yv0rjybfjh8kr07qi-glibc-2.20/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 
=> /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f0084e1d000)

Oooops. Where does libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 come from? 

Also the other bash stopped working too

    /gnu/store/nx4zd42igyb7ghmv4mxv6ncg8wr7ypa1-bash-4.3.33/bin/bash --version

and ldd shows links outside /gnu (when it worked they are all linked inside 
/gnu).

Also the guix binary stopped working. Same issue.

Can anyone explain this? I tried multiple USB images and it is all the same.

Note I am not building, only installing binaries.

Pj.