Re: Guix System video review on YouTube

[Jonathan Brielmaier]

On 27.04.20 11:08, zimoun wrote:
>> * There is no /etc/os-release file. I think it was proposed a while ago,
>> but the patch was rejected.
>
> Naive question: what is useful for?
> And what does it mean on rolling-release distro?

If you log into a system, its a canonical way to find out which system
it is. It does fit also on rolling-release distros, we show the output
the results from `guix system describe` there.

>> * While installing packages via `guix install` you can't scroll in the
>> terminal, you always get reset to the bottom.
>
> I missed what it mean. Could you quickly extend a bit?

$ echo "hello"
hello
$ guix install emacs

Then while installing emacs, try to reach the hello. It will be tricky
as every new output line from `guix install emacs` will reset you to the
bottom of your terminal. That's annoying.

>> * guix show/search does not show if a package is installed.
>
> Installed where? In which profile?
> I am not sure that "installed" make sense at the level of "guix show/search".

It definitely does. It could show packages installed to the profile,
such coming from the config.scm etc.

>> * `guix search ... | less can be confusing at the beginning.
>
> There is room of improvements for "guix search". ;-)
>
> There is 3 behaviours
>  1. return the N packages fitting the screen size (current: default)
>  2. display all the list in PAGER (current: |less)
>  3. display all the list in stdout (current: |cat)
>
> The feature request is: be able to configure which behaviour by
> default for "guix search". Maybe via an environment variable.
> (as discussed elsewhere by Ricardo and Tobias, if I understand correctly)
>
>
> WDYT?

To be honest I would like the search to behave more like `guix package
-A`. Then we don't need this `less` thing. And we could add something
like `guix search --expanded` which behaves like the current search.

>
> What user expect by default is complicated and depends on the users
> themself. :-)
> For example, I always pipe with 'recsel' because coming from Debian
> and used to 'aptitude', I only want the name of the package and then
> show more if I need; i.e.,
>
>    guix search crypto library | recel -C -P name
>    # optional: time to time I pipe the result with 'grep'
>    guix show libb2
>
> Well, I find more confusing that "guix search" displays
> name,synopsis,description,etc. than to pipe. So, taste and colour...
> ;-)

I don't think a proper search is something against KISS. And people are
lazy, I don't want to type in some "| foo" stuff.

$ zypper search vim | wc -l
84
$ guix package -A vim | wc -l
22
$ guix search vim | less
828 lines and you have to search again in less because you are overwhelmed

So I would propose an interface like:
$ guix search vim
| Name          | Synopsis                       | Version  | Outputs |
+---------------+--------------------------------+----------+---------+
| vim           | Text editor based on vi        | 8.2.0411 | out     |
| vim-airline   | ...
[...]

The the search command would fulfill it's function by giving you an
overview about the available options.

>> * Multi user package concept not clear (root as different packages then
>> normal user).
>
> This is related to expectation about "installed", IMHO.

Yes. But can be confusing for all the people coming from traditional
package managers where root and user share the same packages.