Ludovic Courtès

GNU, Guix, Guile, reproducible research, etc.

Public Key

npub15teuvnz55q44z0xlq33dh02x7das02u79dxpah6fmaj9c5g70nwsqdzz7y

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs29u7xf322q2638n0sgckmh4r0x7c84w0zknq7maya7ezu2y08ehgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qp4z20s

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub15teuvnz55q44z0xlq33dh02x7das02u79dxpah6fmaj9c5g70nwsqdzz7y

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Last Notes

2024-07-09 15:31:19

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@npub19f9…jcyn Wait, you’re not talking about arbitrary collisions under /nix/store, are you?

2024-07-07 16:27:58

#Guix tip of the day: if you have a several TiB store on ext4, sooner or later you’ll want “tune2fs -O large_dir /dev/whatever”. (Otherwise guix-daemon will get ENOSPC when writing to the store even with tons of TiB and inodes free.)

2024-06-19 21:36:51

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@npub1xme…jv3w That’d be nice though, Debian & Guix progressing hand in hand.

2024-06-19 14:06:14

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I normally use Emacs + debbugs.el + Gnus, but I have to admit that ‘mumi search’ and ‘mumi am’ are doing a better job here.

2024-06-19 14:04:55

#Guix, if you haven’t tried it yet, take a look at the latest version of the mumi command-line interface:
https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Debbugs-User-Interfaces.html#Command_002dline-interface
It lets you not just browse but also apply patch series, reply to issues, etc. Very handy!

2024-06-18 23:59:52

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@npub1uuh…6c94 Feel free to chime in on the guix-devel mailing list. I’m not knowledgeable about R and Bioconductor, but I’m happy to provide guidance for the rest. We can meet halfway. :-)

2024-06-18 11:16:57

Gave a short talk about #Guix for #HPC at the InPEx workshop, followed by a talk on Spack by Todd Gamblin.
Half of the audience hadn’t heard about Guix but most were familiar with Spack, which led to interesting discussions.
https://toot.aquilenet.fr/system/media_attachments/files/112/636/866/958/096/424/original/ebf25841e95f3f1c.png

2024-06-17 23:36:57

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More about these two channels:
https://hpc.guix.info/channel/guix-cran
https://hpc.guix.info/channel/guix-bioc

2024-06-17 23:35:22

Wanna contribute to the future of #Rstats and #Bioconductor packages in #Guix?
Ricardo Wurmus is looking for successors to take care of the ‘guix-cran’ and ‘guix-bioc’ channels and explains the machinery that automatically keeps them up-to-date:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-06/msg00169.html
#ReproducibleResearch

2024-06-17 16:44:21

#Guix, the package manager that doesn’t need a SAT solver to figure out its dependency graph.

2024-06-17 12:00:02

Happy to join the InPEx workshop starting today:
https://inpex.science/workshop/the-2024-inpex-workshop/
I’ll be participating in sessions about software deployment and CI/CD in #HPC together with developers and practitioners who champion different approaches.

2024-06-16 22:45:26

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@npub1zae…fpj4 Milesker! :-)

2024-06-15 23:43:15

C’est devenu tellement banal qu’on n’y va plus par quatre chemins pour annoncer qu’on a largué dans la nature les données personnelles de ses adhérent·es/client·es.
Ici ma mutuelle. « OKLM », comme disent les jeunes. 🤷
https://toot.aquilenet.fr/system/media_attachments/files/112/622/813/020/066/640/original/a50daeaa71903b76.png

2024-06-15 00:04:41

Bien aimé cet entretien mardi avec Estelle Delaine, chercheuse en sciences sociales, sur la parfaite intégration des eurodéputés RN à Bruxelles :
https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/caroline-au-pays-des-27/caroline-au-pays-des-27-du-mardi-11-juin-2024-9900262
En gros, fachos héréditaires certes, mais aussi bourgeois·es qui « présentent bien » et n’ont aucun mal à s’intégrer au quotidien.

2024-06-14 22:16:23

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@npub14h4…hpj0 Looks like the inequality gets reversed when compiled.
https://toot.aquilenet.fr/system/media_attachments/files/112/616/810/886/192/346/original/4951ddd6113eade1.png

2024-06-14 19:11:06

The #Guix development images are back!
https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/latest/
Installer, GNU/Hurd virtual machine image, and more.
(They were unavailable for a while due to infra snafu.)

2024-06-07 12:22:17

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@npub1pay…v4dp Woow, weird! Shepherd doesn’t do anything about suspend (currently it’s all taken care of by elogind), so I’m not sure what happens here (I always close the lid after ‘sudo halt’ has completed). I’ll try. :-)

2024-06-07 10:51:45

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@npub1w66…rc58 Oh, you mean your user shepherd, not PID 1, right?
Are there more details in ~/.local/state/log/shepherd.log as to which service is causing problems?

2024-06-07 08:49:06

I had a bug in shepherd (‘devel’ branch): ‘halt’ wouldn’t power off the machine. Turns out that bisecting it using ‘guix system vm’ to reproduce it is pretty convenient.

2024-06-06 10:38:26

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@npub1nxc…pa3h Yeah, I had the exact same reaction! I doubt it can be Guix-specific but who knows, that needs more investigation.

2024-06-06 10:32:32

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@npub1nxc…pa3h Long ago it seems? Just tried this:
ln -s /sdfs /tmp/t
guix time-machine --commit=v1.0.0 -q -- environment --ad-hoc coreutils -- ls --color -l /tmp/t
🤷

2024-06-06 10:21:42

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@npub1mvn…av7k It doesn’t distinguish between dangling and non-dangling symlinks.

2024-06-06 10:13:24

Once upon a time ‘ls -l’ (GNU Coreutils) would display dangling symlinks as red but it no longer does?

2024-06-04 14:59:09

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@npub1w66…rc58 I don’t have advice to give but I think it’s an interesting topic that I’m sure many are interested in here.

2024-06-03 17:09:49

From a garbage collection viewpoint, installing Nix on Guix is akin to embedding Guile in OCaml.

2024-06-01 22:56:45

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@npub1hc2…7065 Beautiful! 💯
I’m also a cake person. There’s much to be gained by following the cake approach, but as you write, it’s a long road and the benefits only materialize later during the journey.

2024-06-01 19:30:39

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Incidentally, two things are worth noting here IMO:
1. It’s great to send a heads-up before actually stepping down, with a list of projects up for grabs—as opposed to simply disappearing as is all too common. That’s a much appreciated sign of commitment and humanity.
2. It’s OK to retire or take a break in free software, we all do eventually; no volunteer should work 365 days a year until they experience burnout.

2024-06-01 17:47:08

Fellow hacker Ricardo Wurmus takes a break, maybe that’s an opportunity for you to help #Guix?
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-05/msg00227.html
If you’d like to give a hand on #CRAN and #Bioconductor packaging, on mentoring, #Python packaging, or Cuirass CSS+JS, get in touch with Ricardo!

2024-05-31 22:23:51

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@npub1w66…rc58 Fun! Can’t wait to see the result. :-)

2024-05-31 10:23:55

“Is Stack Overflow Obsolete? An Empirical Study of the Characteristics of ChatGPT Answers to Stack Overflow Questions”
https://arxiv.org/html/2308.02312v4
More evidence that ChatGPT & co. are, indeed, mansplaining-as-a-service—in addition to being a resource drain.

2024-05-30 21:15:51

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Autre extrait, spécial Fédiverse :
« Est-ce qu’il est légitime qu’on utilise les outils de l’ennemi, nous ? […] [Je] trouve qu’on devrait stopper toute présence sur les réseaux sociaux non libres. Donc, en gros, quitter YouTube pour aller sur PeerTube, Twitter pour Mastodon […] »
Fiction, vraiment ? :-)
https://toot.aquilenet.fr/system/media_attachments/files/112/531/627/741/804/925/original/f400af112fe97fd6.png

2024-05-30 21:09:06

Je viens de finir « Paresse pour tous » (Hadrien Klent, 2021) :
https://le-tripode.net/livre/hadrien-klent/paresse-pour-tous
Ça m’a fait un bien fou, je recommande.
C’est un roman de politique fiction, pas forcément mon genre a priori, mais c’est tellement rafraîchissant par rapport à ce qu’on vit que ça donne la pêche.
#VendrediLecture (jeudi aussi)

2024-05-28 15:58:36

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J’ai beaucoup aimé la présentation, et en plus elle est accompagnée d’un article qui résume tout :
https://felsoci.sk/blog/cafe-guix-presentation-des-commandes-guix-time-machine-et-guix-describe.html
#Guix

2024-05-28 09:45:08

Camarades, c’est jour de ☕ Café #Guix ! Marek Felšöci parlera de « guix describe » et « guix time-machine ».
📅 mardi 28 mai, 13h–14h CEST
▶ https://hpc.guix.info/events/2024/café-guix/

2024-05-25 14:42:29

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@npub1w66…rc58 Yes, we probably need that (thanks for your help!).
But first things first: we need to be able to spend the money we already have, and for that we need more people and a clearer organization.

2024-05-24 22:37:17

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@npub1evu…262n Neat. Sounds like this could be a great contribution: integrating these two services in the config of the two front-ends. 👍

2024-05-24 22:35:07

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@npub1vw0…n33q Both are useful to the community, I think it’s really a matter of finding a place that matches one’s tastes, availability, and expertise.

2024-05-24 16:16:26

Call for contributions to the #Guix infrastructure 👇
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-05/msg00183.html
Many areas where you can help, with different time commitments and prerequisites: funding & spending, hardware hosting, system administration, and coding.

2024-05-23 22:00:21

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@npub18g4…n4gd Here we go:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-05/msg00177.html

2024-05-23 21:39:05

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@npub1pay…v4dp Think of all the things you never thought you’d learn! The journey matters more than the destination.
:-)

2024-05-23 18:34:23

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@npub15ts…ej76 J’ai l’impression oui (je compte dessus parce que je n’ai finalement pas pu y assister en direct).

2024-05-23 09:29:32

Marc Feeley (de Gambit #Scheme) parle à 14h CEST au séminaire Codes Sources de l’IRILL :
https://codesource.hypotheses.org/1267
« Nous présenterons les stratégies et astuces employées pour atteindre des compilateurs et interprètes compacts, culminant en une implémentation complète de la norme R4RS en 7 KiB de code. » 😮

2024-05-21 20:13:00

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@npub18g4…n4gd Yes, that’s a good idea, we should write a postmortem, and also call for contributions (prolly not today…).

2024-05-21 15:50:07

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@npub1pay…v4dp You can’t imagine what it’s like to go to that dark, scary-looking data center, with its remote-controlled door locks that threaten first to not let you in, then to not let you out.
It’s always an adventure. And, I guess, the price to pay for autonomy. :-)

2024-05-21 15:46:21

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@npub138x…q7x0 It’s called “Paresse pour tous” (I’m still into it but it’s great so far!).

2024-05-21 15:45:16

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#Guix services and web sites are back, except qa.guix.gnu.org and packages.guix.gnu.org.
To be continued…

2024-05-20 15:51:47

« Marguerite, je parie que tu essaies de refourguer une Debian instable à cette pauvre Éva ! »
Embardée libriste inattendue (ou pas ?) dans ce roman.
https://toot.aquilenet.fr/system/media_attachments/files/112/473/736/798/734/957/original/7e6bda906c72fe06.png

2024-05-20 15:18:26

Public Service Announcement: Several #Guix web sites and services are currently down.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-guix/2024-05/msg00000.html

2024-05-20 15:16:48

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@npub1nus…6s6c Nope, we’re looking into it!

2024-05-19 22:45:27

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I can feel the appeal of the searchable and mmap’able binary format of journald, but I very much enjoy the simplicity of log files.

2024-05-19 22:42:59

✨ Log rotation service for the 🐑 #Shepherd:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2024-05/msg00159.html
Like in the early Unix of the 70’s, but with 2024 vibes! (And parens!)

2024-05-16 22:38:12

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@npub1zae…fpj4 Sometimes it’s rewarding, sometimes it’s discouraging because of that impression that I don’t control the use of my time (even though I do: I could ignore those stimuli).

2024-05-16 22:13:36

I realize that for years, it’s been hard for me to answer questions like “what are you working on these days?”.
I feel like a large part of my day-to-day activity has been responding to stimuli: patches, support requests from work, emergency community/technical/infra support, conferences, meetings, the occasional academic paper, etc.
There’s still a long-term theme (several, even), but my everyday activity is largely chaotic.

2024-05-16 17:28:48

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@npub1vw0…n33q I’m afraid we can’t: sooner or later, the innermost ring starts depending on some outer ring (glibc depending on Python, librsvg on Rust, etc.), and you end up with a single ring.

2024-05-16 14:41:51

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Of course I’m joining remotely, but from a place that’s at least as rainy as London. ☔

2024-05-16 11:36:20

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How much should the package collection in Guix proper grow, though?
There are consistency, QA, and sustainability challenges.

2024-05-16 11:32:20

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Third-party channels bring tens of thousands more packages.
For scientific usage: https://hpc.guix.info/channels
General purpose: https://toys.whereis.xn--q9jyb4c/channels

2024-05-16 11:29:27

Recently (past week?), #Guix proper passed the 30K package limit, all free software!
https://repology.org/repository/gnuguix

2024-05-14 14:08:40

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@npub1stn…3829 If the set of authorized committers is taken from the current commit, then anyone can add themself to the committers file and the change is considered authentic.

2024-05-14 11:10:07

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@npub1stn…3829 What I mean is that it’s useless as an authentication mechanism, because it’s a fact in life that the set of authorized committers changes over time.

2024-05-13 21:59:51

« Aux élu·es du Parlement à propos de la Nouvelle-Calédonie » (mars 2024)
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/aisdpk-kanaky/blog/150324/aux-elu-es-du-parlement-propos-de-la-nouvelle-caledonie
Une bonne mise en perspective qui manque aux présentations partiales entendues sur France Inter.
#Kanaky #colonialisme

2024-05-13 12:00:00

Finn Landweber wrote a pretty cool variant of the ‘guix git authenticate’ method:
https://codeberg.org/flandweber/git-verify
Highlights: Haskell instead of Scheme, JSON instead of sexps, SSH instead of OpenPGP, additional features such as per-file authorizations and unsigned merge commits.
👍
#Git

2024-05-13 10:19:55

Damaged Earth Catalog
https://damaged.bleu255.com/

2024-05-13 10:12:35

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@npub1fwu…hwp7 Excellent. Thanks for your feedback and clarifications! It’s great to see efforts in that direction.

2024-05-13 10:11:19

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@npub1fwu…hwp7 Hi! :-)
So whoever publishes a repo would publish those root keys, and someone cloning the repo for the first time would refer to it?

2024-05-11 00:38:46

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Given its US corporate backing (Linux Foundation, OpenSSF), we’ll probably keep hearing about it. Curious to learn more about it and to see how it evolves.
10/10

2024-05-11 00:38:14

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I also think that the TUF analogy is a bit of a stretch, as I wrote for instance here:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2016-06/msg00001.html
The gittuf design document tries to map TUF roles to Git but that doesn’t quite sound natural:
https://github.com/gittuf/gittuf/blob/main/docs/design-document.md
9/

2024-05-11 00:37:32

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I like that gittuf is versatile, to the point that authorization is shown as just one of many applications (weird!).
But to some extent, some of the advanced applications that are mentioned look to me like technical solutions to social issues—e.g., ensuring that a change has been reviewed by X and Y, or that tests were run before committing. Machine-readable bureaucracy?
7/

2024-05-11 00:36:48

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Statements like “has been reviewed by X and Y” and their attestations are implemented via in-toto, which is quite a beast:
https://in-toto.io/
6/

2024-05-11 00:36:36

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I’m unclear about trust establishment: how do users authenticate their initial clone? (Anything equivalent to Guix “introductions”?)
5/

2024-05-11 00:36:18

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The RSL also tracks applicable policies. An example policy is specifying authorized signing keys for a given branch.
Signing keys themselves are stored out of band, as can be seen in this demo:
https://github.com/gittuf/demo
Not great for off-line checks and durability, which is why in Guix keys are part of the repo.
4/

2024-05-11 00:35:40

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The goals of the project go beyond checkout authentication; it’s about describing policies: who is authorized to create tags (incl. multi-party authorization), to push to a given branch, attesting that a given commit has been reviewed by relevant parties, that tests have passed before merging, etc.
It’s very broad!
2/

2024-05-11 00:34:58

I learned about gittuf via LWN’s recent coverage of this talk:
https://ossna2024.sched.com/event/1aBPF/securing-git-repositories-with-gittuf-aditya-sirish-a-yelgundhalli-new-york-university-billy-lynch-chainguard
Happy to see another project in this space, especially TUF-inspired!
https://gittuf.dev/
🧵

2024-05-10 21:58:10

Just stumbled upon this great explanation of #Guix records by @npub19g2…zg7d (2022):
https://lepiller.eu/en/a-deep-dive-into-guix-records.html
#Guile #Scheme

2024-05-10 15:11:34

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@npub10lz…0jhs The key owner or another authorized person would remove it from ‘.guix-authorizations’, that’s all.
(The commit that removes the key, like any other commit, needs to be signed by an authorized key.)

2024-05-09 22:49:05

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@npub1hyz…gswq Truly excited with the 🐑 Shepherd + Goblins perspective, but really: that’s a whole bunch of exciting news in this post!! (Kudos, NLnet!)

2024-05-09 19:12:33

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@npub13gj…lq2d Yes, I learned about gittuf yesterday and started looking into it. Good that there are more initiatives!

2024-05-08 00:35:04

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@npub1wv0…ar9a There’s an NVPTX backend (for NVIDIA GPUs) and one for AMD GPUs, which can be used when writing OpenMP/OpenACC code:
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-14.1.0/libgomp/Offload-Target-Specifics.html

2024-05-08 00:12:50

Horror.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/05/onslaught-violence-against-women-and-children-gaza-unacceptable-un-experts

2024-05-07 23:26:35

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@npub1pay…v4dp Wo0t, great to see you experiment with Guix! :-)
I’m sure you’ll have a lot of insight from the perspective someone familiar with NixOS.

2024-05-07 23:23:22

GCC 14.1 is out and, as always, the list of changes is impressive:
https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-14/changes.html
The text art diagrams are amazing. :-)

2024-05-07 15:30:10

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Update: When getting public money $1,000 at a time is inefficient, there’s always the option of getting the money at its source, right from the academic institutions.
Example: French research institutions give ACM an undisclosed amount of money in exchange for “unlimited* open access publication” 👇
https://www.couperin.org/non-classe/acm-association-for-computing-machinery/
* unlimited for two years

2024-05-07 14:32:25

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If it’s not good for you: let’s talk!
Maybe we can standardize Git checkout authentication? Maybe you can come up with an alternative implementation? Maybe this can become part of Git proper?

2024-05-07 14:30:41

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There’s this Guix command that you can use today on any Git repo:
https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-git-authenticate.html

2024-05-07 14:29:15

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It baffles me that the problem is still largely ignored.
No, it’s not enough to just sign commit. No, those ✔ “verified” badges on Git{Hub,Lab} won’t save you.

2024-05-07 14:27:57

“Authenticate your #Git checkouts!”
https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2024/authenticate-your-git-checkouts/
Yup! Time to consider doing it!

2024-05-07 10:08:56

It’s 2024. The ACM and its friends are still ripping public money, asking authors for $1,000 to make their paper “open access”.
One word: parasites.

2024-05-04 12:20:18

Detecting holes so we don’t store zeros on disk:
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/70770
#Guix

2024-05-02 22:23:34

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Ma prestation sur le thème « Performance et reproductibilité : pourquoi choisir ? »
https://www.youtube.com/embed/gzF1IMLBRLw&t=1h36m1s
Avec du #HPC et du #Guix dedans, ça va sans dire.

2024-05-02 22:20:40

Les vidéos du forum ORAP sur #HPC & #reproductibilité de mars sont en ligne 👇
http://orap.irisa.fr/52ieme-forum-reproductibilite/

2024-04-30 15:14:35

Mapping upstream source code tarballs back to downstream distros:
https://whatsrc.org/
👍 to #ReproducibleBuilds hacker kpcyrd for developing this!

2024-04-30 13:40:41

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@npub1xme…jv3w Thumbs up for making this happen!

2024-04-29 18:10:53

Les vidéos des journées du réseau de #RechercheReproductible sont en ligne 👇
https://jrfrr-2024.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/1

2024-04-29 15:49:26

Camarade, si tu veux tout savoir sur les G-expressions, ne manque pas @npub1p5f…u6aj au ☕ Café #Guix demain !
📅 30 avril, 13h–14h CEST
📺 https://hpc.guix.info/events/2024/café-guix/

2024-04-19 15:41:41

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@npub1vw0…n33q I guess they had to pick from the existing errno constants and this was considered the least terrible option?

2024-04-19 12:31:47

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Concrete result:
$ sudo sysctl user.max_net_namespaces=0
user.max_net_namespaces = 0
$ guix shell -C coreutils
guix shell: error: clone: 2114060305: No space left on device
(‘guix shell -CN’ works fine since it doesn’t create a separate net namespace.)

2024-04-19 11:45:24

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Incidentally, that’s another illustration that retrofitting namespaces in an ambient-authority monolithic kernel is tricky.
This is on contrast with the Hurd, where per-process views are an inherent part of the design.

2024-04-19 11:42:17

Recommendation is now to disable network namespaces to mitigate vulnerabilities due to their interaction with unprivileged user namespaces:
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/04/14/1
That’s a sad outcome.

2024-04-17 15:10:34

Good news for declarative config fans: finally there’s a #Guix System service to deploy home environments!
https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Guix-Services.html#Guix-Home-Service
Thanks to Richard Sent for implementing it, based on code by @npub1zgl…rqd7.

2024-04-15 18:32:19

Playing tricks to reduce the size of #Guile object files in #Guix:
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/70398