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doc: Document the features and `guix-package'.

* doc/guix.texi: Change the category to "Package management".  Add an
  @direntry for "Invoking guix-package".
  (Package Management): New chapter.
master
Ludovic Courtès 2012-11-07 19:24:03 +01:00
parent 9518856b9b
commit eeaf44276c
1 changed files with 132 additions and 2 deletions

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@ -9,9 +9,11 @@
@include version.texi
@dircategory Development
@dircategory Package management
@direntry
* guix: (guix). Guix, the functional package manager.
* guix-package: (guix)Invoking guix-package
Managing packages with Guix.
* guix-build: (guix)Invoking guix-build
Building packages with Guix.
@end direntry
@ -61,6 +63,7 @@ This document describes Guix version @value{VERSION}.
@menu
* Introduction:: What is Guix about?
* Package Management:: Package installation, upgrade, etc.
* Programming Interface:: Using Guix in Scheme.
* Utilities:: Package management commands.
@ -106,12 +109,139 @@ input yields a different directory name.
This approach is the foundation of Guix's salient features: support for
transactional package upgrades and rollback, per-user installation, and
garbage collection of packages.
garbage collection of packages (@pxref{Features}).
Guix has a command-line interface allowing users to build, install,
upgrade, and remove packages, as well as a Scheme programming interface.
The remainder of this manual describes them.
@c *********************************************************************
@node Package Management
@chapter Package Management
The purpose of Guix is to allow users to easily install, upgrade, and
remove software packages, without having to know about their build
procedure or dependencies. Guix also goes beyond this obvious set of
features.
This chapter describes the main features of Guix, as well as the package
management tools it provides.
@menu
* Features:: How Guix will make your life brighter.
* Invoking guix-package:: Package installation, removal, etc.
@end menu
@node Features
@section Features
When using Guix, each package ends up in the @dfn{package store}, in its
own directory---something that resembles
@file{/nix/store/xxx-package-1.2}, where @code{xxx} is a base32 string.
Instead of referring to these directories, users have their own
@dfn{profile}, which points to the packages that they actually want to
use. That profile is normally stored in @code{$HOME/.guix-profile}, and
each user has its own profile.
For example, if @code{alice} installed GCC 4.7.2, then
@file{/home/alice/.guix-profile/bin/gcc} points to
@file{/nix/store/xxx-gcc-4.7.2/bin/gcc}; on the same machine, @code{bob}
may have installed GCC 4.8.0, in which case its profile refers to these
particular package installation. Both coexist, without any
interference.
The @command{guix-package} command is the central tool to manage
packages. It operates on those per-user profiles, and can be used
@emph{with normal user privileges}.
The command provides the obvious install, remove, and upgrade
operations. Each invocation is actually a @emph{transaction}: either
the specified operations succeed, or nothing happens. Thus, if the
@command{guix-package} processed is terminated during the transaction,
or if a power outage occurs during the transaction, then the user's
profile remains in its previous state, and remains usable.
In addition, any package transaction may be @emph{rolled back}. So, if,
for example, an upgrade installs a new version of a package that turns
out to have a serious bug, users may roll back to the previous instance
of their profile, which was known to work well.
All those packages in the package store may be @emph{garbage-collected}.
Guix can determine which packages are still referenced by the user
profiles, and remove those that are provably no longer referenced.
Users may also explicitly remove old generations of their profile so
that the packages they refer to can be collected.
Finally, Guix takes a @dfn{purely functional} approach to package
management, as described in the introduction (@pxref{Introduction}).
Each @file{/nix/store} package directory name contains a hash of all the
inputs that were used to build that package---compiler, libraries, build
scripts, etc. This direct correspondence allows users to make sure a
given package installation matches the current state of their
distribution.
This foundation allows Guix to support @dfn{transparent binary/source
deployment}. When a pre-built binary for a @file{/nix/store} path is
available from an external source, Guix just downloads it; otherwise, it
builds the package from source, locally.
@node Invoking guix-package
@section Invoking @command{guix-package}
The @command{guix-package} command it the tool that allows users to
install, upgrade, and remove packages, as well as rolling back to
previous configurations. It operates only on the user's own profile,
and works with normal user privileges (@pxref{Features}). Its syntax
is:
@example
guix-package @var{options}
@end example
Primarily, @var{options} specify the operations to be performed during
the transaction. Upon completion, a new profile is created, but
previous generations of the profile remain available, should the user
want to roll back.
@table @code
@item --install=@var{package}
@itemx -x @var{package}
Install @var{package}.
@var{package} may specify either a simple package name, such as
@code{guile}, or a package name followed by a hyphen and version number,
such as @code{guile-1.8}. In addition, @var{package} may contain a
colon, followed by the name of one of the outputs of the package, as in
@code{gcc:doc} or @code{libsigsegv-2.10:lib}.
@item --remove=@var{package}
@itemx -r @var{package}
Remove @var{package}.
@item --upgrade=@var{REGEXP}
@itemx -u @var{REGEXP}
Upgrade all the installed packages matching @var{regexp}.
@item --profile=@var{profile}
@itemx -p @var{profile}
Use @var{profile} instead of the user's default profile.
@item --dry-run
@itemx -n
Show what would be done without actually doing it.
@item --bootstrap
Use the bootstrap Guile to build the profile. This option is only
useful to distribution developers.
@end table
@c *********************************************************************
@node Programming Interface
@chapter Programming Interface