Hi again, How about adding these notes/disclaimers to prevent users breaking their Guix or existing packs on foreign distributions? --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- doc: Add a note and warning regarding the usage of deb packs. * doc/guix.texi (Invoking guix pack): Move to the end of the table, and add a note and warning regarding the usage of deb packs. 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) doc/guix.texi | 26 +++++++++++++++++++++----- modified doc/guix.texi @@ -6028,11 +6028,6 @@ This produces a SquashFS image containing all the specified binaries and symlinks, as well as empty mount points for virtual file systems like procfs. -@item deb -This produces a Debian archive (a package with the @samp{.deb} file -extension) containing all the specified binaries and symbolic links, -that can be installed on top of any dpkg-based GNU/Linux distribution. - @quotation Note Singularity @emph{requires} you to provide @file{/bin/sh} in the image. For that reason, @command{guix pack -f squashfs} always implies @code{-S @@ -6047,6 +6042,27 @@ If you forget the @code{bash} (or similar) package, @command{singularity run} and @command{singularity exec} will fail with an unhelpful ``no such file or directory'' message. @end quotation + +@item deb +This produces a Debian archive (a package with the @samp{.deb} file +extension) containing all the specified binaries and symbolic links, +that can be installed on top of any dpkg-based GNU/Linux distribution. + +@quotation Note +Because archives produced with @command{guix pack} contain a collection +of store items and because each @command{dpkg} package must not have +conflicting files, in practice that means you likely won't be able to +install more one such archive on the same system. +@end quotation + +@quotation Warning +@command{dpkg} will assume ownership of any files contained in the pack +that it does @emph{not} know about. It is unwise to install +Guix-produced @samp{.deb} files on a system where @file{/gnu/store} is +shared by other software, such as a Guix installation or other, non-deb +packs. +@end quotation + @end table @cindex relocatable binaries --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Thanks, Maxim