Tutorial: Add Beaver Labs' Channel to Guix

In this tutorial, we will follow alice as she configures Guix to use Beaver Labs' channel. This channel contains code needed by many other tutorials and howtos.

Channels add to GNU Guix's available packages, system services, etc.

1. Checking your current channels

alice runs

guix describe

She looks for Beaver Labs' channel in the output and does not find it.

2. Adding the channel

As it is missing, she edits her ~/.config/guix/channels.scm file so that it looks like this:

(cons*
 (channel
  (name 'beaverlabs)
  (url "https://gitlab.com/edouardklein/guix")
  (branch "beaverlabs"))
 %default-channels)

and she then runs

guix pull

to download the channel's code, and runs guix describe again to make sure she now has added Beaver Labs' channel:

guix describe

3. Common channels

On top of Beaver Labs', popular channels include:

Non free software (bad for your karma):

Guix Gaming

https://gitlab.com/guix-gaming-channels/games

(channel
 (name 'guix-gaming-games)
 (url "https://gitlab.com/guix-gaming-channels/games.git")
 ;; Enable signature verification:
 (introduction
  (make-channel-introduction
   "c23d64f1b8cc086659f8781b27ab6c7314c5cca5"
   (openpgp-fingerprint
    "50F3 3E2E 5B0C 3D90 0424  ABE8 9BDC F497 A4BB CC7F"))))

Non Guix

https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix

(channel
 (name 'nonguix)
 (url "https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix")
 ;; Enable signature verification:
 (introduction
  (make-channel-introduction
   "897c1a470da759236cc11798f4e0a5f7d4d59fbc"
   (openpgp-fingerprint
    "2A39 3FFF 68F4 EF7A 3D29  12AF 6F51 20A0 22FB B2D5"))))

Free software:

Guix'R Us

https://git.sr.ht/~whereiseveryone/guixrus

(channel
   (name 'guixrus)
   (url "https://git.sr.ht/~whereiseveryone/guixrus")
   (introduction
    (make-channel-introduction
     "7c67c3a9f299517bfc4ce8235628657898dd26b2"
     (openpgp-fingerprint
      "CD2D 5EAA A98C CB37 DA91  D6B0 5F58 1664 7F8B E551"))))

4. See also

Steve Goerge's lists some more Guix Channels: https://www.futurile.net/2022/12/04/proprietary-apps-on-guix-using-nonguix-channel/
The reference manual page about channels: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/guix.html#Channels

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