Any idea how much RAM is required for installing (x86_64) (non-)Guix System?
I’m attempting an install on an old netbook with 1 GB of RAM, but my first install attempt ended up hanging while installing a package (boost). I’m not entirely sure what the problem was, but given that the system was completely unresponsive (Ctrl+C did nothing) and my USB drive’s light was constantly showing activity, I’m wondering if I ran out of memory.
I just initiated another install, so I should know eventually if it hangs at the same point or not.
Tried another time and it got stuck on the same package (boost), at a different percent (7.8% instead of 15%).
Then I tried again, but this time I didn’t select disk encryption, and it got past boost (but I ended up aborting before completion, because I actually did want to have an encrypted disk).
Next up, I will try increasing my RAM from 1 → 4 GB and see if that helps or not…
Are you referring to the “Important note for 1.4.0” section of the README? I thought that referred to editing the config post-installation, but if I’m supposed to edit the config while going through the guided installer, that would be something I haven’t tried yet. I’m not sure why that would cause a hang only when using an encrypted file system, but I guess it’s worth a try!
Actually, it turns out that my motherboard can only handle PC3 RAM and not PC3L (both DDR3), so I don’t actually have a RAM upgrade available at the moment. I’ll try modifying the substitutes config and see if that helps…
No, I was referring to the section “Substitutes for nonguix”.
With them enabled it will download prebuilt package derivations, used to avoid compiling software locally (which otherwise is problematic given your low RAM).
Ah, clearly I need to go back and read (and actually understand this time) that entire README. From the UI, I thought the installer was just downloading prebuilt binaries (since it was showing a transfer rate), but if it is actually downloading source and compiling somewhere in the background, then yeah, it’s very likely I could be running out of memory during compilation. Thanks!
Maybe not the entire README It is quite a common problem, for example I learned about it while trying to install firefox using the nonguix channel.
To get started it might be easier for you to try and install regular Guix first, so without the nonguix channel. (If you only need nonguix for something like wifi and it is otherwise possible of course)
Can confim that this is a memory issue; Once I tried installing on a Compute Stick, also with 1-2GBs of RAM and it always froze because the RAM-Disk ran full. (I confirmed this by having memory monitor open while installing in another terminal).
But you might be able to get away with it by following the above comments and only installing a very minimal system, waiting with installing the bigger packages for later (e.g. there is no need to install firefox at this point, you can do that just fine after booting into the system).
It is quite a common problem, for example I learned about it while trying to install firefox using the nonguix channel.