When you install guix using the binary installer on the guix website it will install a daemon that allows you to install packages.
guix -V guix (GNU Guix) 1.4.0 Copyright (C) 2022 the Guix authors
to really see the exact version, use
guix describe
guix a259069
repository URL: https://git.guix.gnu.org/guix.git
branch: master
commit: a2590694ae0350f9d7400f6f6f41fdbac2fa5340
Now that commit is critical information. It is a point in time. Any package you install with this program is the tree of packages that is tied against that commit.
If you do
guix package -A rust
You see rust with its packages at that moment in time. If you check that commit in the guix git repo, you'll see it is
git log a2590694ae0350f9d7400f6f6f41fdbac2fa5340
commit a2590694ae0350f9d7400f6f6f41fdbac2fa5340
Author: Hartmut Goebel <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com>
Date: Sun Oct 12 20:09:14 2025 +0200
gnu: python: Graft secure package.
So we know that exact time point and we can reinstall any software package *reproducibly* with its dependencies.
Now if you want a more recent version - and you often do - you'll need to updat guix with
mkdir ~/opt guix pull -p ~/opt/guix-pull --url=https://codeberg.org/guix/guix
Codeberg we use these days because it is faster than the default gnu http server. guix pull is a bit slow, but normally we only do this every 3 months or so.
Note you can do this as a *normal* user. The guix daemon in the background handles all software installation as it has permissions to do so. Guix only writes software into /gnu/store.
To install software, first activate the new guix and make sure we actually use it:
unset GUIX_PROFILE source ~/opt/guix-pull/etc/profile guix describe
now the guix describe should be recent. Now, at least, the packages should be aligned with the latest and greatest guix.
Note guix pull can install any hash in the history of guix, so to recreate the earlier guix we could have done with hash a259069
guix pull -p ~/opt/guix-a259069 --url=https://codeberg.org/guix/guix --commit=a259069
essentially rolling back in time. Being able to roll back in time at any point is very important for reproducibility. Not only can you exactly align (base) software installations between machines, developers and deployments, you can even reproduce scientific results using the exact same software stack. We use it for software development, testing, staging, end-user facing production and data analysis.
Anyway, we role forward and use above above 'source' command.
Channels are guix way of handling software packages outside the main guix tree. Channels are simply git repositories with a short metdata description. A channel does not have to reside on github(!) Any visible git repo will do.
We have a channel for our git repository at
The channel file is in
and, at time of writing, looks like
(channel
(version 0)
(dependencies
(channel
(name guix)
(url "https://codeberg.org/guix/guix")
(branch "master")
(introduction
(channel-introduction
(version 0)
(commit "9edb3f66fd807b096b48283debdcddccfea34bad")
(signer
"BBB0 2DDF 2CEA F6A8 0D1D E643 A2A0 6DF2 A33A 54FA"))))
(channel
(name guix-past)
(url "https://codeberg.org/guix-science/guix-past")
(introduction
(channel-introduction
(version 0)
(commit "c3bc94ee752ec545e39c1b8a29f739405767b51c")
(signer
"3CE4 6455 8A84 FDC6 9DB4 0CFB 090B 1199 3D9A EBB5"))))
(channel
(name guix-rust-past-crates)
(url "https://codeberg.org/guix/guix-rust-past-crates.git")
(branch "trunk")
(introduction
(channel-introduction
(version 0)
(commit "1db24ca92c28255b28076792b93d533eabb3dc6a")
(signer
"F4C2 D1DF 3FDE EA63 D1D3 0776 ACC6 6D09 CA52 8292"))))))
You can see it defines a specific version of guix itself, as well as two other repos for guix-past and guix-rust-past-crates that hold older versions of packages that disappeared from guix itself. Yes, we run some old packages.
In principle the guix channel should reflect a point in time that the guix-bioinformatics repo requires to run. To install the new guix with the channel you can download above file, but that won't give you guix-bioinformatics packages themselves. For that you need to (simply) define a channel that includes the repo.
(list (channel
(name 'gn-bioinformatics)
(url "https://git.genenetwork.org/guix-bioinformatics")
(branch "master")))
Copy/paste that and try
guix pull -C channel.scm -p ~/opt/guix-bioinformatics
unset GUIX_PROFILE
source ~/opt/guix-bioinformatics/etc/profile
guix describe
~/opt/guix-bioinformatics/bin/guix describe
hint: Consider installing the `glibc-locales' package and defining `GUIX_LOCPATH', along these lines:
guix install glibc-locales
export GUIX_LOCPATH="$HOME/.guix-profile/lib/locale"
See the "Application Setup" section in the manual, for more info.
Generation 1 Jan 24 2026 08:50:54 (current)
gn-bioinformatics 6534ac1
repository URL: https://git.genenetwork.org/guix-bioinformatics
branch: master
commit: 6534ac19a201cb4b2880b6bda110324adf08949b
guix 6c6e7ad
repository URL: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix
branch: master
commit: 6c6e7ada010b1f7195253967dfbd8419549f6997
guix-past be79976
repository URL: https://codeberg.org/guix-science/guix-past
branch: master
commit: be7997692e81a89817c7fa2d6e36aee71c8e6916
guix-rust-past-crates 20997cc
repository URL: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix-rust-past-crates.git
branch: trunk
commit: 20997ccc759799c19709fdde729d67e470fa5bcf
It did pull in 'guix-past' and other information from that .guix-channel file in the remote repo, but it pulled in the latest versions of the repos themselves. If we were to specify exact commits it would tie it down.
Now you should be able to *also* see and install the packages in the channel. E.g.
guix package -A gemma
When installing packages you can use a profile again. I tend to use different profiles for everything as a profile essentially describes a dependency graph.
~/opt/guix-bioinformatics/bin/guix install gemma-gn2 -p ~/opt/gemma-gn2
Note I am using a profile here to create a profile(!) Now you can run
~/opt/gemma-gn2/bin/gemma GEMMA 0.98.6 (2022-08-05) by Xiang Zhou, Pjotr Prins and team (C) 2012-2022
Or pull that into your path with
source ~/opt/gemma-gn2/etc/profile gemma GEMMA 0.98.6 (2022-08-05) by Xiang Zhou, Pjotr Prins and team (C) 2012-2022
So, just a quick recap: the hash values are key. Always check the hashes:
You can use
~/opt/guix-bioinformatics/bin/guix describe -f channels
to show the current channels that are included in that guix.
See also
Guix load paths are a way of importing packages from source, without using channels. This is a very useful feature when you writing new guix packages. It generally should not be a replacement for channels.
List of many channels:
Q: Why does guix ignore the hashes .guix-channels in a repo?
A: by Claude:
This is a common source of confusion with Guix. The issue is that **Guix doesn't actually ignore the hashes** — the behavior you're seeing is likely due to how channel specifications work and when they're evaluated.
Here's what's typically happening:
**1. The `.guix-channel` file (singular) vs. `channels.scm`**
The `.guix-channel` file in a repo defines metadata *about* that channel (its name, dependencies, etc.), not which commit to use. The commit/hash is specified in the *consumer's* `channels.scm` file (usually in `~/.config/guix/channels.scm`).
**2. Channel dependencies and pinning**
If your `.guix-channel` file specifies dependencies with commits like:
(channel
(name 'my-channel)
(dependencies
(channel
(name 'guix)
(url "https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git")
(commit "abc123..."))))
Guix may still pull a *newer* commit if your local `channels.scm` specifies a different (or no) commit for that dependency. The local channels file takes precedence.
**3. To actually pin commits**, you need to:
- Use `guix describe -f channels` to get the exact commits currently in use - Put that output in your `channels.scm` - Or use `guix time-machine --channels=channels.scm` for reproducible builds
**4. Common gotcha**: If you're running `guix pull` without specifying channels, it uses your default `~/.config/guix/channels.scm`, which may not respect the hashes in the repo's files.