Instructions
This guide turns a DigitalOcean Debian 9.5 Droplet into a GuixSD install.
Set-up
In order for Guix to complete all source compilation successfully, we need at least 2GB of memory. If you don’t need 2GB of memory, I suggest to start with a 1GB Droplet, which you temporarily resize to 2GB for the installation.
- Create a new Debian 9.5 Droplet with SSH key
- (optional) resize to 2GB now
- SSH into your Droplet
ssh -i ~/.ssh/privatekey.pem root@... - Get the current network details
ifconfig - Create a new file
nano install.shwith the following content:
Replace 3x 000.000.000.000 with the Droplet network settings.
apt-get update
apt-get install xz-utils -y
wget https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-binary-0.15.0.x86_64-linux.tar.xz
cd /tmp
tar --warning=no-timestamp -xf ~/guix-binary-0.15.0.x86_64-linux.tar.xz
mv var/guix /var/ && mv gnu /
ln -sf /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/guix-profile ~root/.guix-profile
GUIX_PROFILE="`echo ~root`/.guix-profile" ; source $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile
groupadd --system guixbuild
for i in `seq -w 1 10`; do useradd -g guixbuild -G guixbuild -d /var/empty -s `which nologin` -c "Guix build user $i" --system guixbuilder$i; done
cp ~root/.guix-profile/lib/systemd/system/guix-daemon.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl start guix-daemon && systemctl enable guix-daemon
guix archive --authorize < ~root/.guix-profile/share/guix/hydra.gnu.org.pub
guix pull
guix package -i openssl
cd ~/
cat <<EOF >system-config.scm
(use-modules (gnu))
(use-service-modules networking ssh)
(use-package-modules screen ssh)
;; Update your hostname and timezone
(operating-system
(host-name "guix")
(timezone "Asia/Tehran")
(locale "en_US.UTF-8")
(bootloader (bootloader-configuration
(bootloader grub-bootloader)
(target "/dev/vda")))
(file-systems (cons (file-system
(device "/dev/vda1")
(mount-point "/")
(type "ext4"))
%base-file-systems))
;; Add your user account
(users (cons (user-account
(name "username")
(group "users")
(supplementary-groups '("wheel"))
(home-directory "/home/username"))
%base-user-accounts))
;; Globally-installed packages.
(packages (cons* screen openssh %base-packages))
;; Set your Droplet, static network configuration
(services (cons* (static-networking-service "eth0" "000.000.000.000"
#:netmask "000.000.000.000"
#:gateway "000.000.000.000"
#:name-servers '("84.200.69.80" "84.200.70.40"))
(service openssh-service-type
(openssh-configuration
(permit-root-login 'without-password)))
%base-services)))
EOF
guix system build system-config.scm
Now make it executable chmod u+x install.sh and run it ./install.sh.
Once this completes, we rebuild the system with:
$ guix system reconfigure digitalocean-config.scm
This will fail after a couple of minutes due to guix system: error: symlink: File exists: "/etc/ssl".
Now it’s time to move /etc out of the way, and run the rebuild again.
$ mv /etc /old-etc
$ mkdir /etc
$ cp -r /old-etc/{passwd,group,shadow,gshadow,mtab,guix} /etc/
$ guix system reconfigure digitalocean-config.scm
If this completes successfully, you should get a Installation finished. No error reported.. Now, simply reboot and SSH into your Droplet again. You should be greeted with a bash command line. At this point, GuixSD is running and you may clean-up the remaining Debian pieces.
Finally, reference Guix in your profile again:
GUIX_PROFILE="`echo ~root`/.guix-profile" ; source $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile
References
Guix is a package manager that runs on virtually any Linux.
GuixSD is the GNU System Distribution with Guix at it’s core.
This guide was inspired by Andy Wingo and the experience he shared on the guix-devel mailing list.
Update: 2022-04-09
We’ve published updated scripts on our Gitlab server:
These support both Ubuntu 21.04 and Debian 11, and usually finish the job within 5-10 minutes.