bug#24993: Documentation: 'guix pull' needed during SD installation

[Christopher Howard]

The error is:

"
guix substitute: error: download from
'https://mirror.hydra.gnu.org/nar/zrwslk773<...snip...>e2fsck-static-1.42.13'
failed 410, "Gone"
killing process 859
guix system: error: build failed: some substitutes for the outputs of
derivation `/gnu/store/kjzga<...snip...>-e2fsck-static-1.42..13.drv'
failed (usually happens due to networking issues); try `--fallback' to
build derivation from source
"

Sorry for snipping the file names, but I have to type it all in manually
to this email.

On 11/23/2016 07:46 AM, Christopher Howard wrote:
> Hi. What I remember happening was that on some package I got an error
> something like "could not get package such-and-such, may be caused by
> network errors" which wasn't fixed by running the command again. Then I
> ran with --fallback as recommended, but then it seemed to be building
> the entire gnome desktop from source. After a few hours of this it was
> still compiling low-level gnome packages, so I gave up, and the folks at
> #guix irc suggested guix pull.
> 
> To be honest, I can't remember which package it was. I'll try again with
> a fresh installation.
> 
> On 11/22/2016 07:46 PM, Leo Famulari wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 01:25:57PM -0900, Christopher Howard wrote:
>>
>> Welcome Christopher!
>>
>>> In the online installation docs at
>>> <https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Proceeding-with-the-Installation.html#Proceeding-with-the-Installation>,
>>> please insert the command 'guix pull' before the "guix system init"
>>> command. Otherwise installation can fail due to missing binary packages,
>>> which creates confusion for newbie installers like myself. Thank you!
>>
>> Can you give more detail about the problems you ran into? We want `guix
>> system init` to "just work".
>>
>> In general, if some binary fails to be substituted [0], adding
>> --fallback to the command should cause the package to be built from
>> source, working around the issue.
>>
>> I think that running `guix pull` before `guix system init` is not the
>> right choice for newbies, although there are some trade-offs [1].
>>
>> Most new users will be installing from the binary GuixSD installer
>> offered on our web site. This installer is built from a Git commit that
>> we have tested to ensure that everything should work. We strive to keep
>> our master branch "deployable", but of course we make mistakes
>> sometimes. `guix pull` draws from the HEAD commit of the master branch,
>> and so new users might end up with a broken system as their first
>> experience.  GuixSD is extremely robust once installed — you can always
>> roll-back — so it's a good idea to initialize from a known good commit
>> and then update.
>>
>> Additionally, it's likely that we will not yet have built binary
>> substitutes for the most recent changes on the master branch, so new
>> users will end up building some things from source if they use `guix
>> pull`.
>>
>> [0] Guix is a hybrid of build-from-source and binary package management
>> systems. It's really a build-from-source distro, but we offer so-called
>> "binary substitutes", and they are transparently substituted for a
>> source build if they are available and the user has authorized our
>> substitutes server. But, if Guix expects a package to be substituted
>> and something goes wrong, the action will fail. Using --fallback works
>> around this and builds from source even when the substitution fails.
>>
>> [1] I think the main drawback of installing from the release tag without
>> `guix pull` is that the initial generation of the GuixSD system will be
>> lacking important upstream bug fixes. I think users should `guix pull &&
>> guix system reconfigure` immediately after initializing the system. Guix
>> actually nags users to do this:
>>
>> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/guix/scripts/system.scm?id=08b3e4a97066c9baaf39e3df7c2dd9c39e693ead#n577
>>
> 

-- 
Christopher Howard, Computer Assistant
Alaska Satellite Internet
3239 La Ree Way, Fairbanks, AK 99709
907-451-0088 or 888-396-5623 (toll free)
fax: 888-260-3584
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