Re: [V2 PATCH 1/1] services: Add agetty service.

[Leo Famulari]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 01:35:44PM -0500, myglc2 wrote:
> Hi Leo,
> 
> I think that what you have is great. With this in my system config ...
> 
>     (agetty-service (agetty-configuration
>                    (tty "ttyS1")
>                    (baud-rate "115200")))
>
> ... it works painlessly on a headless GuixSD server over IPMI.  I think
> you can put a brief example in the doc, refer the user to the code and
> the agetty man page for more info, and declare victory.

Awesome!

Veering off-topic, I wonder what created that device node /dev/ttyS1? I
have 32 of them, but (gnu build linux-boot) appears to only create the
first one:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/build/linux-boot.scm#n160

> But let me digress a bit on this topic. What if, in situations like
> this, Guix provided an easy way to export the "native config" generated
> by Guix?
> 
> Then we could tell the user ...
> 
> 1) If you want to know exactly what we are doing, export the native
> config and read the native doc.
> 
> 2) If you want features we don't support, export the native config, read
> the doc, modify it, and feed it into the "native config hatch."
> 
> With this approach, we could implement and document only "key features"
> with a clear conscience.  When we haven't implemented a feature the user
> needs they will be no worse off that they were before. In fact, they
> will usually be ahead, because Guix has taken care of the general
> requirements and provided a sound starting point for a native config.

An interesting idea! I guess the implementation would vary based on
services that use a configuration file (like nginx) and those that are
configured on the command-line (like agetty). But I'm still finding my
way around services, in general, so I'm not sure.