guix-devel/README

-*- mode: org -*-

GNU Guix is Nix[0] from Guile[1]!

Concretely, it allows Nix package management to be done entirely in
Scheme. The goal is to investigate whether Scheme, and in particular
the ability to define EDSLs, would allow it to fulfill the role of the
Nix language.

[0] http://nixos.org/nix/
[1] http://gnu.org/software/guile/


* Hacking

Guix currently depends on the following packages:

  - [[http://gnu.org/software/guile/][GNU Guile 2.0.x]]
  - [[http://nixos.org/nix/][Nix]]
  - [[http://gnupg.org/][GNU libgcrypt]]

Optionally, packages from Nixpkgs may be transparently reused from Guix.
For this to work, you need to have a checkout of the Nixpkgs repository;
the `--with-nixpkgs' option allows you to let `configure' know where the
Nixpkgs checkout is.

  - [[http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/][Nixpkgs]]

When building Guix from a checkout, the following packages are also
required:

  - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/][GNU Autoconf]]
  - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/][GNU Automake]]
  - [[http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/][GNU Gettext]]

The "autoreconf -vi" command can be used to generate the build system
infrastructure; it reports an error if an inappropriate version of the
above packages is being used.

* How It Works

Guix does the high-level preparation of a /derivation/.  A derivation is
the promise of a build; it is stored as a text file under
=/nix/store/xxx.drv=.  The (guix derivations) module provides the
`derivation' primitive, as well as higher-level wrappers such as
`build-expression->derivation'.

Guix does remote procedure calls (RPCs) to the Nix daemon (the
=nix-worker --daemon= command), which in turn performs builds and
accesses to the Nix store on its behalf.  The RPCs are implemented in
the (guix store) module.

* Contact

The repository is at <https://gitorious.org/guix/>.

Please email <ludo@gnu.org> or <nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl>, or
join #guile or #nixos on irc.freenode.net or `civodul'.