wiki/2020-09-14-22-25-10.org

#+title: GNU Guix packaging
#+author: "Gabriel Arazas"
#+email: "foo.dogsquared@gmail.com"
#+date: "2020-09-14 22:25:10 +08:00"
#+date_modified: "2020-09-14 23:53:35 +08:00"
#+language: en
#+options: toc:t
#+property: header-args  :exports both


Practicing [[file:2020-09-13-19-42-06.org][Software packaging]] in [[file:2020-08-19-08-21-44.org][GNU Guix]] is pretty straightforward with several tools that the package manager provides.
With things like importers, build systems, and light abstractions, it can spark joy packaging with Guix.




* Getting started

The following instructions assumes you have Guix installed.

To start hacking into Guix packages, clone the Git repo of the Guix packages (i.e., <GUIX_GIT_REPO>).
Once you have the Git repo ready, you may want to develop in an isolated environment.
This is a perfect use case for Guix with ~guix environment~ command.

The following is an example of an environment created with the Guix package manager:

#+begin_src shell
guix environment --pure guix --ad-hoc coreutils ripgrep neovim emacs
#+end_src

This creates a =virtualenv=-like environment with the packages listed with ~--ad-hoc~ (e.g., GNU Coreutils, Neovim, Emacs).

To start making changes, you need to create a branch first to avoid conflicts in the master branch (e.g., ~git checkout -b $BRANCH~).

The project structure brings all of the things together: Guix package manager implementation, package definitions, and documentation.
The packages are located in =gnu/packages= conveniently due to how Guile modules work.
(If you're not familiar with GNU Guile, the rule of thumb is that one module per file and the module name must match the location it's in (e.g., ~gnu packages rust-apps~ is in =gnu/packages/rust-apps.scm=).
Furthermore, all items inside of a module are private by default unless declared to be public.)