Guix pull and GUIX_PROFILE variable

Guix
1

In the getting started documentation (and in daviwil’s article) I can see that:

1- I should set my GUIX_PROFILE path (usually to the default $HOME/.guix-profile) and source the $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile so all env vars are well set and pointing to my packages (e.g in the default profile). These lines are added to .bash_profile also.

2- But also, the first time I run guix pull, the documentations sayd after that I should change the GUIX_PROFILE path - since the freshest guix instance is elsewhere in .config/guix/current, and source from there the env vars (etc/profile). Finally, it is said these two lines should be added to bash_profile.

I don’t get why in the second step I should add these lines to bash_profile:

  • now in my bash profile I have 2 competing/colliding definitions of GUIX_PROFILE and of course the second one overrides the first.

  • Shouldn’t I choose which profile I want to use by default?

  • Isn’t the new guix command that was just pulled by guix pull to be pointed only once for the guix upgrade?

Finally I would understand if I temporarily misdirect the GUIX_PROFILE variable to .config/guix/current, e.g by inserting the two lines in my shell, but I do not get why these lines should go into bash_profile.

Any hints on this?

2

Few things I found:

  • PATH already contains both $HOME/.guix-profile and $HOME/.config/guix/current, both are set by /etc/profile.d/zzz.guix.sh.

  • $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile prepends $GUIX_PROFILE/bin to PATH, giving it “higher priority”.

I can’t really test what was guix first install path, but I guess this first setting for guix pull is linked to that (I might check in the guix-install.sh).

Anyway it all comes to where the guix command is located, and where PATH lookups first.

I prefer not really adding the .config/guix/current in my bash_profile, but I’ll see on other guix pull if I really need to. I guess also putting both values of GUIX_PROFILE in .bash_profile but current first and default next (or your profile of choice) would be another good default for me.

3

Hello Juan,

Heads up, I’m actually starting the usage of guix in my workflow, and using only as package manager, so I’m also not 100% sure on what I’ll say.

As far as I understood, the default “$HOME/.guix-profile” is where the packages are installed when using guix package. The “$HOME/.config/guix/current” is where the latest pulled repository information is saved as well as the latest guix binary, that is updated with a guix pull.

That’s why the “$HOME/.config/guix/current/bin” should be the highest priority in PATH, to use the latest guix, and the default profile the “$HOME/.guix-profile”, where the installed packages are.

4

When starting out with guix this was very confusing to me. It seems that GUIX_PROFILE is just a variable that is used to source the profiles.

Here is my bash_profile. As you can see I’m using extra profiles, GUIX_PROFILE is used to source each one and then it is set to .guix-profile to source it. Previously in .profile guix home sources its own profile in setup-environment.

# Set up the system, user profile, and related variables.
# /etc/profile will be sourced by bash automatically
# Set up the home environment profile.

if [ -z "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" ]; then
	XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/tmp/$(id -u)-runtime-dir"

	mkdir -pm 0700 "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"
	export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
fi

if [ -f ~/.profile ]; then
   source ~/.profile;
fi

# Honor per-interactive-shell startup file
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
   source ~/.bashrc;
fi

PS1='\u@\h \w${GUIX_ENVIRONMENT:+ [env]}\$ '

export GUIX_EXTRA_PROFILES="$HOME/.guix-extra-profiles"

# Source extra profiles
for i in $GUIX_EXTRA_PROFILES/*; do
  profile=$i/$(basename "$i")
  if [ -f "$profile"/etc/profile ]; then
    GUIX_PROFILE="$profile"
   . "$GUIX_PROFILE"/etc/profile
  fi
  unset profile
done

# Source guix-profile
export GUIX_PROFILE=~/.guix-profile
. $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile

[ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ] && exec sway -d