Re: Update on distro bootstrapping with Guix

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> skribis:

> Perhaps there could be a prebuilt binary for package A that
> corresponds to a given set of other installed packages.
> There could be many prebuilt binaries for package A
> to correspond to various different sets of other installed packages.
> When you upgrade one of those packages, maybe it would
> look for a binary package for A corresponding to the new
> set of other installed packages.
>
> In effect, this would be a cache of binaries, used to
> optimize installation.  Certain trusted people could be
> allowed to feed binaries up to the cache, when they install
> a package.  Cached binaries that go unused for a certain period
> of time could be deleted.

Unless I misunderstood something, that’s how Nix & Guix work.

The Nix-based distro is continuously built at hydra.nixos.org.  When
users want to upgrade packages, Nix automatically checks for
corresponding pre-built binaries at nixos.org, and uses them when
available.  The set of servers trusted to provide valid binaries is
configured by root.

At nixos.org, the cache of binaries is regularly garbage-collected, such
that only current binaries are kept.

Does it correspond to what you had in mind?

Thanks,
Ludo’.