[rb-general] Container-only Linux Distribution

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Paul Colomiets <paul at colomiets.name> skribis:

> I blogged about making a linux distribution for containers with
> reproducible builds.
> Hopefully you find it interesting.
>
> https://medium.com/p/container-only-linux-distribution-ff0497933c33

Regarding this paragraph:

  So to freeze a package version you need to lock the revision of git
  repository. And then you quickly run into the situation where the
  package cache you relied on is already replaced. So you need to build
  everything from scratch (including gcc, glibc, and so on). Which
  effectively means you can’t freeze a package without running your own
  build bot (called “hydra”) and a cache. Which is okay for larger
  organizations, but is too cumbersome for individual developers.

One doesn’t need to run Hydra, the full-blown CI server for this.  It’s
enough to simply build things locally.  If they’re in a user profile,
they’re protected from garbage collection, so it’s a one-time cost.

Guix provides ‘guix publish’ as a lightweight way to publish binaries
from your store.  So if there’s a group of people working on the same
set of packages, the binaries could effectively be shared this way.

My 2¢,
Ludo’.