Re: [PATCH 1/2] doc: Symlink daemon start-up files.

[Marius Bakke]

Leo Famulari <address@hidden> writes:

> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 03:31:24PM -0500, Leo Famulari wrote:
>> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 12:00:33PM +0100, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
>> > This patch ensures that always the current profile's daemon will be used.
>> > 
>> > The .service file contains the path to the guix-daemon within the store. 
>> > Thus
>> > when copying the file, it will point to the very version of guix-daemon 
>> > used
>> > at the time of copying – even after system upgrade or when this version has
>> > been garbage collected from the store.
>
> I think we should go back to the "old way" of instructing users to copy
> the file...
>
>> I'd argue it should point to /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/...
>
> ... and make the service file execute this path.
>
>> >  @example
>> > -# cp ~root/.guix-profile/lib/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service \
>> > +# ln -s ~root/.guix-profile/lib/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service \
>> >          /etc/systemd/system/
>> >  # systemctl start guix-daemon && systemctl enable guix-daemon
>
> Debian Jessie (their current stable release) doesn't support symlinked
> systemd service files yet [0], and we are frequently having to explain
> to new users why this step doesn't work for them. And, we also have to
> explain that the ExecStart value that contains the absolute store path
> must be changed to point to '/var/guix/profiles...'.
>
> Doing it that way has the same effect of a symlinked file that is
> updated automatically: the daemon is always the latest in root's
> profile.
>
> It feels like we having to walk new users through this on IRC or
> help-guix every day.
>
> It takes our time and makes their first experience with Guix harder than
> it should be.
>
> WDYT?

This seems reasonable to me. I've started using /var/guix/profiles.. on
foreign distros as well, even those with recent systemd. In addition to
the above, using that path also avoids having to call 'systemctl
daemon-reload' before restarting guix-daemon after updates...

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