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Interesting,after all this criticism of systemd. This makes me wonder about the GuixSD distribution. Is this distro ready for prime-time. Suppose I switched fr

Interesting,after all this criticism of systemd. This makes me wonder about the GuixSD distribution. Is this distro ready for prime-time. Suppose I switched from Linux Mint to GuixSD, what would be the advantages and disadvantages? I like Lisp and program in Racket, so Guile wouldn't be far from that. I just wonder about experiences of other. How much does switching to such a lesser known free distro as the main OS "constrain" you?

rhabarba 8y ago
> Suppose I switched from Linux Mint to GuixSD, what would be the advantages and disadvantages? You'd lose a lot of software choices. Actually, the restriction to "GNU-friendly software" was what made me skip GuixSD so far. I guess that my WiFi wouldn't work.
- serhart 8y ago
  Not true. You can write your own packages in the same high level interface. Including the mainline Linux kernel and broadcom drivers. I have GuixSd running on my 2013 MBP
  - tacolizard 8y ago
    can you tell me how you got that running in some more detail? I also have a 2013 MBP and would like to try out GuixSD
    - serhart 8y ago
      I don't have access to it now. When I do I can put the package definitions and OS config up somewhere. When you first boot GuixSD most of the core stuff should work fine. Wireless will not work but you should have ethernet. I created mainline linux kernel and firmware packages [1]. Then you need to get the broadcom b43 firmware to get wireless support. I think I made 2 packages. One for b43-fwcutter and one the broadcom-wl firmware which uses b43-fwcutter to cut and install it. I think just about everything on my MBP was working after that. [1] example linux package https://github.com/wingo/guix-nonfree/blob/master/gnu/packages/linux-nonfree.scm https://github.com/wingo/guix-nonfree/blob/master/gnu/packag... [2] http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/ http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/
    - serhart 8y ago
      Here is a gist of the relevant packages and configs I have for my MBP. https://gist.github.com/steve-ayerhart/81c9dfc773472e08002cd890216de481 https://gist.github.com/steve-ayerhart/81c9dfc773472e08002cd...
  - noobermin 8y ago
    Is there a...non official repository of these somewhere?
    - serhart 8y ago
      None that I know of currently. The OS is version 0.15.0. It's very young and doesn't have a huge user base. I'm sure there will be non gnu repositories that will eventually spring up. I've even toyed with the idea of setting one up.
      - nerdponx 8y ago
        Even as a toy example, a blog post and code that demonstrates setting up a 3rd-party package repository would be helpful. I'm just afraid of the GUIX team deciding they don't want to support 3rd-party repos because it encourages non-free software use, and deliberately stonewalling development of related features.
        rekado 8y ago
        Guix has had support for external package definitions for a long time (via GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH) and recently gained a channels feature, which makes this even easier. At the institute where I work we use this feature to provide package variants that aren't going to be added to Guix proper (e.g. because they are no longer supported upstream or because they are only useful on obscure systems). This mechanism can be used to include package definitions for non-free software, of course, but this doesn't mean that the Guix project encourages the use of non-free software. You have the freedom to package up and use non-free software, but we won't make them part of Guix, build them on our build farms, and we won't hold back changes to the mechanism even if that might break 3rd-party collections of non-free software. You don't really need a blog post about how to set up a package repository, because it's right there in the Guix manual. PS: It's "Guix", not "GUIX" ;)
        nerdponx 8y ago
        Thanks for the reply. As long as it's easy to mix free and non-free packages at my discretion, I'm willing to give it a shot. Also, thank you for the capitalization correction. It grinds my gears when people capitalize things unnecessarily and I wouldn't want to be one of them!
- anon789125 8y ago
  When possible, a lazy alternative to packaging non-free software in guile would be using containerization software. I run dropbox in docker under GuixSD and works flawlessly.
  - rhabarba 8y ago
    Can you dockerize drivers?
    - lvh 8y ago
      You can't dockerize kernel modules, no. Though Linux mainline wifi support is pretty great these days, coming from someone who vividly remembers using wpa_supplicant with Windows drivers :-)
- civodul 8y ago
  > You'd lose a lot of software choices. Actually, the restriction to "GNU-friendly software" was what made me skip GuixSD so far. Guix includes free software packages of all sorts (more than 8k today), be it "GNU-friendly" (whatever that means) or not; you can browse them at https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse . > I guess that my WiFi wouldn't work. Maybe, maybe not; see https://gnu.org/s/guix/manual/en/html_node/Hardware-Considerations.html https://gnu.org/s/guix/manual/en/html_node/Hardware-Consider... (the same issue applies to other distros that value user freedom.) Note that you're talking about GuixSD here, not Guix, which can be installed on top of other distros. In the end the choice is up to each one of us. It's also up to us to determine what to do with hardware companies that deny us, collectively and individually, the right to control the devices they sell us.
rufugee 8y ago
I use nixos, not GuixSD, but I can speak to "what would be the advantages and disadvantages", particularly since guix is a reimplementation of nix. The benefits to me are immense, because I travel between around six machines on a daily or weekly basis. Prior to moving to NixOS, I'd have to manually keep those machines in sync in terms of software installs, etc. However, after switching to NixOS, I have a set of files I version control which will declaratively build the system the way I want it. So, if I install a new package and I'd like it be the same across all machines, I simply configure it, commit to git, and then pull down the config on the other machines and do "nixos-rebuild switch". Everything becomes exactly the same. It's saved me so much time in terms of managing my computing life. I really couldn't see going back to a regular distro after using one which is declarative. The drawbacks? Well, for one, Nix and Guix have various tricks with symlinking, etc, to make it appear to applications as if it's a typical Linux filesystem, but it's not. E.g. there's no /lib, etc. It's a little weird getting used to. And with nix, there's the nix language, which isn't that difficult to learn but it's not my favorite. If the underlying language needs to be functional, I'd prefer a lisp over nix. Also, with nixos, there are too many different commands required to learn when you get deeper into it, but work is underway to improve that story. At least for me...the benefits far outweigh the risks. I don't think I can ever go back. I think there's a real opportunity for a commercially-backed declarative Linux os...it really is a game changer and would do well in the enterprise.
- xfer 8y ago
  For me, the problem isn't so much with the nix language(it's very similar to haskell), but the lack of discoverability for docs of library. The manual is mostly incomplete and i often have to look at sources. My most favourite thing is that i can just override the packages to compile and install a new version/extra configure flags of a package that's not yet upstream.
  - rufugee 8y ago
    Interesting... I've found the manuals to be ok so far. Can you share what you've had problems finding?

rhabarba 8y ago

> Suppose I switched from Linux Mint to GuixSD, what would be the advantages and disadvantages? You'd lose a lot of software choices. Actually, the restriction to "GNU-friendly software" was what made me skip GuixSD so far. I guess that my WiFi wouldn't work.

serhart 8y ago
Not true. You can write your own packages in the same high level interface. Including the mainline Linux kernel and broadcom drivers. I have GuixSd running on my 2013 MBP
- tacolizard 8y ago
  can you tell me how you got that running in some more detail? I also have a 2013 MBP and would like to try out GuixSD
  - serhart 8y ago
    I don't have access to it now. When I do I can put the package definitions and OS config up somewhere. When you first boot GuixSD most of the core stuff should work fine. Wireless will not work but you should have ethernet. I created mainline linux kernel and firmware packages [1]. Then you need to get the broadcom b43 firmware to get wireless support. I think I made 2 packages. One for b43-fwcutter and one the broadcom-wl firmware which uses b43-fwcutter to cut and install it. I think just about everything on my MBP was working after that. [1] example linux package https://github.com/wingo/guix-nonfree/blob/master/gnu/packages/linux-nonfree.scm https://github.com/wingo/guix-nonfree/blob/master/gnu/packag... [2] http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/ http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/
  - serhart 8y ago
    Here is a gist of the relevant packages and configs I have for my MBP. https://gist.github.com/steve-ayerhart/81c9dfc773472e08002cd890216de481 https://gist.github.com/steve-ayerhart/81c9dfc773472e08002cd...
- noobermin 8y ago
  Is there a...non official repository of these somewhere?
  - serhart 8y ago
    None that I know of currently. The OS is version 0.15.0. It's very young and doesn't have a huge user base. I'm sure there will be non gnu repositories that will eventually spring up. I've even toyed with the idea of setting one up.
    - nerdponx 8y ago
      Even as a toy example, a blog post and code that demonstrates setting up a 3rd-party package repository would be helpful. I'm just afraid of the GUIX team deciding they don't want to support 3rd-party repos because it encourages non-free software use, and deliberately stonewalling development of related features.
      - rekado 8y ago
        Guix has had support for external package definitions for a long time (via GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH) and recently gained a channels feature, which makes this even easier. At the institute where I work we use this feature to provide package variants that aren't going to be added to Guix proper (e.g. because they are no longer supported upstream or because they are only useful on obscure systems). This mechanism can be used to include package definitions for non-free software, of course, but this doesn't mean that the Guix project encourages the use of non-free software. You have the freedom to package up and use non-free software, but we won't make them part of Guix, build them on our build farms, and we won't hold back changes to the mechanism even if that might break 3rd-party collections of non-free software. You don't really need a blog post about how to set up a package repository, because it's right there in the Guix manual. PS: It's "Guix", not "GUIX" ;)
        nerdponx 8y ago
        Thanks for the reply. As long as it's easy to mix free and non-free packages at my discretion, I'm willing to give it a shot. Also, thank you for the capitalization correction. It grinds my gears when people capitalize things unnecessarily and I wouldn't want to be one of them!
anon789125 8y ago
When possible, a lazy alternative to packaging non-free software in guile would be using containerization software. I run dropbox in docker under GuixSD and works flawlessly.
- rhabarba 8y ago
  Can you dockerize drivers?
  - lvh 8y ago
    You can't dockerize kernel modules, no. Though Linux mainline wifi support is pretty great these days, coming from someone who vividly remembers using wpa_supplicant with Windows drivers :-)
civodul 8y ago
> You'd lose a lot of software choices. Actually, the restriction to "GNU-friendly software" was what made me skip GuixSD so far. Guix includes free software packages of all sorts (more than 8k today), be it "GNU-friendly" (whatever that means) or not; you can browse them at https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/browse . > I guess that my WiFi wouldn't work. Maybe, maybe not; see https://gnu.org/s/guix/manual/en/html_node/Hardware-Considerations.html https://gnu.org/s/guix/manual/en/html_node/Hardware-Consider... (the same issue applies to other distros that value user freedom.) Note that you're talking about GuixSD here, not Guix, which can be installed on top of other distros. In the end the choice is up to each one of us. It's also up to us to determine what to do with hardware companies that deny us, collectively and individually, the right to control the devices they sell us.

rufugee 8y ago

I use nixos, not GuixSD, but I can speak to "what would be the advantages and disadvantages", particularly since guix is a reimplementation of nix. The benefits to me are immense, because I travel between around six machines on a daily or weekly basis. Prior to moving to NixOS, I'd have to manually keep those machines in sync in terms of software installs, etc. However, after switching to NixOS, I have a set of files I version control which will declaratively build the system the way I want it. So, if I install a new package and I'd like it be the same across all machines, I simply configure it, commit to git, and then pull down the config on the other machines and do "nixos-rebuild switch". Everything becomes exactly the same. It's saved me so much time in terms of managing my computing life. I really couldn't see going back to a regular distro after using one which is declarative. The drawbacks? Well, for one, Nix and Guix have various tricks with symlinking, etc, to make it appear to applications as if it's a typical Linux filesystem, but it's not. E.g. there's no /lib, etc. It's a little weird getting used to. And with nix, there's the nix language, which isn't that difficult to learn but it's not my favorite. If the underlying language needs to be functional, I'd prefer a lisp over nix. Also, with nixos, there are too many different commands required to learn when you get deeper into it, but work is underway to improve that story. At least for me...the benefits far outweigh the risks. I don't think I can ever go back. I think there's a real opportunity for a commercially-backed declarative Linux os...it really is a game changer and would do well in the enterprise.

xfer 8y ago
For me, the problem isn't so much with the nix language(it's very similar to haskell), but the lack of discoverability for docs of library. The manual is mostly incomplete and i often have to look at sources. My most favourite thing is that i can just override the packages to compile and install a new version/extra configure flags of a package that's not yet upstream.
- rufugee 8y ago
  Interesting... I've found the manuals to be ok so far. Can you share what you've had problems finding?