Subject: Re: bug#44437: Best way to install package in Guix System

From: Danny Milosavljevic <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2020 14:36:23 +0100

Hi,

On Wed, 4 Nov 2020 08:25:05 +0100 (CET)
musics--- via Bug reports for GNU Guix <[email-masked]> wrote:

> What is the best way to install a package in Guix System? For installation (network-manager-openvpn), I put "guix install network-manager-openvpn" then "guix pull" and then "sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm" to complete the installation, but the package Not installed!

That is the correct way to install a package into your default user profile.

If you want to install a system service, however, that needs to be declared in
/etc/config.scm instead.

In this case, the operating-system's network-manager-service-type has a
<network-manager-configuration> record containing a field VPN-PLUGINS which
should list the packages you want as VPN plugins.  The default is the empty
list.

If your "services" field in operating-system in /etc/config.scm has
%desktop-services (which is likely), then you need to replace the
text %desktop-services by

            (modify-services %desktop-services
              (network-manager-type config =>
                (network-manager-configuration
                  (inherit config)
                  (vpn-plugins
                   (list network-manager-openvpn)))))

after you added

(use-package-modules gnome)

at the top of /etc/config.scm .

After that, invoke

  sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

.

I checked and saw that this is documented in our info manual.

However, long term it would be better if the system installer or a system
configurer could do that via a text or graphical user interface.