Re: Porting to mips64el

[Ludovic Courtès]

Nikita Karetnikov <address@hidden> skribis:

>> With --localstatedir=/nix/var/nix (see store.scm and config.scm).
>
> Actually, it's '--localstatedir=/nix/var', but thanks anyway.

Oops, sorry.

>> Remember: to bootstrap things here, you’re using Nixpkgs.  Here it’s
>> Nixpkgs’s glibc that uses kernel.org Linux headers.
>
> Yes, I understand that I'm using Nixpkgs.  But is it possible to use
> Linux-libre?

Well, you could modify Nixpkgs for that.  But note that only the headers
are used, and they are bit-for-bit the same as those of the
corresponding Linux-Libre.  Furthermore, you will no longer need Nixpkgs
once you’ve built the bootstrap binaries for Guix, so I would not
bother.

An unrelated issue that just came to mind: MIPS code for libc is in
glibc-ports, right?  That means you’ll have to conditionally add that to
the inputs of glibc, in base.scm.

>> At this point, you don’t want to build Hello.  ;-)  Instead, you should
>> build the bootstrap binaries, as described in HACKING, that will allow
>> our distro to be self-contained.  Make sure to use ‘core-updates’ as a
>> starting point.
>
> Ah, I thought that Guix will bootstrap on the fly if there are no
> bootstrap binaries.

Well, in a way, yes.  That is, instead of using the statically-linked
binaries made via make-bootstrap.scm, it will use the dynamically-linked
tools provided by Nixpkgs, and then the rest of the procedure is the
same–i.e., you end up with binaries that don’t depend on those produced
using Nixpkgs.

> As far as I can tell, there are errors in 'HACKING'.  Here is a snippet:
>
>   ./pre-inst-env guix-build                                       \
>       -e '(@@ (distro packages base) %guile-bootstrap-tarball)'   \
>       --system=i686-linux
>
> There is no '%guile-bootstrap-tarball' in (distro packages base).  I
> think it should be changed to (distro packages make-bootstrap).

Right, will fix.

Thanks,
Ludo’.