Re: GNU Guix 0.4 released

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Further to my email below, I've just installed guix 0.4 from scratch
(release version) on a separate machine and it works bloody brilliant!

Best wishes,

Alex

Alex Sassmannshausen writes:

> Fantastic, congratulations to all involved and kudos to ludo, andreas and 
> nikita in particular for you commitment!
>
> Best wishes, 
>
> Alex
>
> On Fri Sep 27 16:17:42 2013 Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> wrote:
>> We are pleased to celebrate GNU’s 30th anniversary with the release of
>> GNU Guix version 0.4, representing 300 commits by 5 people over 2
>> months.
>> 
>> This release comes with a QEMU virtual machine image that demonstrates
>> preliminary work toward building a stand-alone GNU system with Guix.
>> The image uses the GNU Linux-Libre kernel and the GNU dmd init system.
>> It is console-only, and may be used primarily to try out Guix.
>> 
>> 
>> • About
>> 
>>   GNU Guix is a functional package manager and distribution of
>>   the GNU system.
>> 
>>   In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports
>>   transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package
>>   management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection.  Guix uses
>>   low-level mechanisms from the Nix package manager, with Guile Scheme
>>   programming interfaces.
>> 
>>   At this stage Guix can be used on top of an i686 or x86_64 GNU/Linux
>>   system, or in a virtual machine.  Future versions will stand alone.
>> 
>>   http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/
>> 
>> 
>> • Download
>> 
>>   Here are the compressed sources and QEMU virtual machine image, along
>>   with GPG detached signatures[*]:
>>     ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-0.4.tar.gz
>>     ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-0.4.tar.gz.sig
>> 
>>     ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/gnu-system-demo-0.4.img.gz
>>     ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/gnu-system-demo-0.4.img.gz.sig
>> 
>>   Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
>>     http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html
>> 
>>   Here are the MD5 and SHA1 checksums:
>> 
>>   263c0b05ac3978c98eab46ce1cd197bb  guix-0.4.tar.gz
>>   cbe4740523d5a9a4e11bac031ea4e1c4145f6b11  guix-0.4.tar.gz
>> 
>>   d48c22847ea9d7f3fb6b268ebb3aa020  gnu-system-demo-0.4.img.gz
>>   23472f17d94fc8e7f18fce28b6736668aa85859c  gnu-system-demo-0.4.img.gz
>> 
>>   [*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
>>   .sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
>>   and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:
>> 
>>     gpg --verify guix-0.4.tar.gz.sig
>> 
>>   If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
>>   then run this command to import it:
>> 
>>     gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys EA52ECF4
>> 
>>   and rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.
>> 
>>   This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
>>     Autoconf 2.69
>>     Automake 1.14
>>     Makeinfo 5.1
>> 
>>   Guix users can upgrade by running “guix pull”.
>> 
>> 
>>   To use the virtual machine image, run QEMU like this:
>> 
>>     qemu-system-x86_64 -m 256 -net nic,model=e1000 -net user \
>>          gnu-system-demo-0.4.img
>> 
>>   This enables networking support, which is useful when using Guix
>>   inside of it.
>> 
>> 
>> • Changes since version 0.3 (excerpt from the NEWS file)
>> 
>>   ** Package management
>> 
>>   *** New ‘--list-generations’ and ‘--delete-generations’ options
>> 
>>   The ‘guix package’ command has these two new options, which make it
>> easier to  deal with a profile’s generation.  See “Invoking guix
>> package” in the manual.
>> 
>>   *** New ‘guix-register’ program
>> 
>>   This program allows the meta-data of a new store to be initialized, by
>>   copying info from an existing store.  It is mostly an internal tool.
>> 
>>   ** Programming interfaces
>> 
>>   *** New API to bootstrap Autotools-based packages
>> 
>>   The (guix build-system gnu) has a new ‘dist-package’ procedure that
>> takes a  package object and source directory, and returns a new package
>> object that  runs ‘./bootstrap && make dist’ or anything similar.
>> 
>>   *** ‘derivation’ and related procedures have a #:references-graphs
>> parameter
>> 
>>   This parameter instructs the build daemon to populate the derivation’s
>> build  tree with files containing the list of references of the given
>> store files.  This is useful to write code that copies a packages and
>> all its dependencies  to another storage device, such as a QEMU disk
>> image.
>> 
>>   *** Extended API to build a GNU system virtual machine image
>> 
>>   The (gnu system vm) module has been augmented in many ways: the
>> ‘qemu-image’  procedure can now populate and initialize the image’s
>> store; the new  ‘system-qemu-image’ procedure returns a QEMU image that
>> runs dmd as its init  system, has ‘login’ running on several consoles,
>> has a set of installed  packages, and where Guix can be used.
>> 
>>   New (gnu system …) modules have been added to handle the configuration
>> of the  various parts of a GNU/Linux system.  For instance, (gnu system
>> dmd) provides  support for instantiating dmd services; (gnu system
>> linux) helps with Linux  PAM configuration; and so on.
>> 
>>   *** <derivation> objects supersede .drv file names in the API
>> 
>>   ‘derivation’ and similar procedures no longer return two values (a
>>   <derivation> and a .drv file name); they now return a single value,
>> which is  a <derivation> object.  The <derivation> object embeds the
>> corresponding .drv  file name.  See “Derivations” in the manual for
>> details.
>> 
>>   ** GNU distribution
>> 
>>   *** 60 new packages
>> 
>>   apr, apr-util, cdparanoia, dbus-glib, dfc, dmd, dvdisaster, exiv2,
>> fetchmail,  freefont-ttf, freeglut, geeqie, git, gkrellm, glu,
>> gnome-doc-utils,  gst-plugins-base, gstreamer, guile-cairo, guile-lib,
>> guile-xcb, guix, htop,  itstool, lame, libextractor, libmicrohttpd,
>> lightning, lzip, mingetty, mutt,  net-base, net-tools, ocrad, pspp,
>> python-babel, python-dateutil, python-pytz,  python-setuptools,
>> python-simplejson, python-wrapper, python2-babel,  python2-dateutil,
>> python2-mechanize, python2-pyicu, python2-pysqlite,  python2-pytz,
>> python2-setuptools, python2-simplejson, qemu-system-initrd, 
>> qemu-with-multiple-smb-shares, ripperx, shadow, ttf-bitstream-vera,
>> units,  valgrind, xmlto, xnee, yasm
>> 
>>   *** 27 package updates
>> 
>>   bigloo 4.0b, cairo 1.12.16, ddrescue 1.17, fontconfig 2.10.93, fplll
>> 4.0.4,  gcc 4.7.3, gcc 4.7.3, glibc 2.18, glibc 2.18,
>> glibc-stripped-tarball 2.18,  gnupg 2.0.21, gnutls 3.2.4, guile 2.0.9,
>> guile 2.0.9, harfbuzz 0.9.21,  imagemagick 6.8.6-9, libdrm 2.4.46,
>> libgcrypt 1.5.3, libjpeg 9, libksba 1.3.0,  linux-libre 3.11, m4 1.4.17,
>> mpfrcx 0.4.2, pari-gp 2.5.4, python 2.7.5, python  3.3.2, texlive 2013
>> 
>>   *** Fontconfig font search path made more convenient
>> 
>>   Fontconfig, the library used by many graphical applications, such as
>> those  based on GTK+, now knows where to find the default set of fonts. 
>> Additional  fonts installed in the user profile are automatically picked
>> up.
>> 
>>   *** More GUI applications
>> 
>>   The ‘emacs’ and ‘racket’ packages are now linked against GTK+.  New
>> GTK+  applications have been added (see above.)
>> 
>>   *** Packaging guidelines
>> 
>>   The documentation of packaging guidelines has been augmented.  See the
>> manual  under “GNU Distribution”.
>> 
>>   *** Support for Python 3 along with Python 2
>> 
>>   Python 3 has been added to the distribution, and Python packages that
>> support  it are now built for both Python 2 and Python 3.  See the
>> “Python Modules”  section of the manual for details.
>> 
>>   ** Internationalization
>> 
>>   Updated translations: eo.
>> 
>>   ** Bugs fixed
>> 
>>   *** Workarounds for Guile 2.0.5 now work on Debian derivatives
>>   *** The dependency graph image has correct size in PDF output
>>   *** 'ldd' now works correctly on x86_64
>>   *** Xorg server test suite no longer fails (http://bugs.gnu.org/15392)
>>   *** module-init-tools now builds (http://bugs.gnu.org/15182,
>> http://bugs.gnu.org/15187)  *** Hop 2.4 builds with newer Bigloo
>> (http://bugs.gnu.org/15194)
>> 
>> 
>> Please report bugs to address@hidden
>> Join address@hidden for discussions.
>> 
>> Join the #guix channel of the Freenode IRC network on Sep. 28 and 29
>> for a celebration hackathon.
>> 
>> Happy birthday, GNU!
>> 
>> Ludovic, on behalf of the Guix team.