6 ms·

If I could trouble you for the common discourse here, would you mind summarizing why one may prefer to use Guix in the place of Nix? They seem to be based on th

If I could trouble you for the common discourse here, would you mind summarizing why one may prefer to use Guix in the place of Nix? They seem to be based on the very same ideas and Guix even admits to being inspired by Nix.

kragen 7y ago
Scheme instead of a bespoke programming language, and more focus on reducing the bootstrap set that compromises the goal of reproducibility shared by both systems.
- svd4anything 7y ago
  But the bespoke language has some benefits. It’s concise and specifically designed for the problem. Also Nix has more contributors and that is very important to have a large collection of recipes to start from.
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    Scheme, being a Lisp, is exceptionally well-suited to serve as a base for DSLs.
    - svd4anything 7y ago
      Ok I’ll give another reason. Nix community is more relaxed and doesn’t downvote just because they don’t like some comment or somebody disagrees with them.
      - celticmusic 7y ago
        I bet you the irony of your downvotes is lost on the people downvoting.
        svd4anything 7y ago
        For sure they are pilling on ... for what I don’t get. Relax people.
  - kragen 7y ago
    Yes, Scheme is a bit verbose for my taste.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      There are obviously some differences between the two, but I'm not really perceiving any real verbosity gap between the two, one way or the other. Here is a guix package declaration for tmux: [Edit: fixed indentation] (define-module (gnu packages tmux) #:use-module ((guix licenses) #:prefix license:) #:use-module (guix packages) #:use-module (guix download) #:use-module (guix git-download) #:use-module (guix build-system gnu) #:use-module (guix build-system trivial) #:use-module (gnu packages) #:use-module (gnu packages bash) #:use-module (gnu packages libevent) #:use-module (gnu packages ncurses)) (define-public tmux (package (name "tmux") (version "3.0a") (source (origin (method url-fetch) (uri (string-append "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/" version "/tmux-" version ".tar.gz")) (sha256 (base32 "1fcdbw77nz918f7gqc1ga7zlkp1g112in1h8kkjnkadgnhldzlaa")))) (build-system gnu-build-system) (inputs `(("libevent" ,libevent) ("ncurses" ,ncurses))) (home-page "https://tmux.github.io/") (synopsis "Terminal multiplexer") (description "tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals (or windows), each running a separate program, to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen. tmux may be detached from a screen and continue running in the background, then later reattached.") (license license:isc))) Here is (roughtly) the equivalent in Nix: { stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, autoreconfHook, ncurses, libevent, pkgconfig, makeWrapper }: let bashCompletion = fetchFromGitHub { owner = "imomaliev"; repo = "tmux-bash-completion"; rev = "fcda450d452f07d36d2f9f27e7e863ba5241200d"; sha256 = "092jpkhggjqspmknw7h3icm0154rg21mkhbc71j5bxfmfjdxmya8"; }; in stdenv.mkDerivation rec { pname = "tmux"; version = "2.9a"; outputs = [ "out" "man" ]; src = fetchFromGitHub { owner = pname; repo = pname; rev = version; sha256 = "040plbgxlz14q5p0p3wapr576jbirwripmsjyq3g1nxh76jh1ipg"; }; nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgconfig autoreconfHook ]; buildInputs = [ ncurses libevent makeWrapper ]; configureFlags = [ "--sysconfdir=/etc" "--localstatedir=/var" ]; postInstall = '' mkdir -p $out/share/bash-completion/completions cp -v ${bashCompletion}/completions/tmux $out/share/bash-completion/completions/tmux ''; meta = { homepage = http://tmux.github.io/; description = "Terminal multiplexer"; longDescription = '' tmux is intended to be a modern, BSD-licensed alternative to programs such as GNU screen. Major features include: * A powerful, consistent, well-documented and easily scriptable command interface. * A window may be split horizontally and vertically into panes. * Panes can be freely moved and resized, or arranged into preset layouts. * Support for UTF-8 and 256-colour terminals. * Copy and paste with multiple buffers. * Interactive menus to select windows, sessions or clients. * Change the current window by searching for text in the target. * Terminal locking, manually or after a timeout. * A clean, easily extended, BSD-licensed codebase, under active development. ''; license = stdenv.lib.licenses.bsd3; platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.unix; maintainers = with stdenv.lib.maintainers; [ thammers fpletz ]; }; }
  - geofft 7y ago
    Do Nix and Guix expressions not interoperate? Is that a fundamental limitation of the system (at lest as fundamental as, say, dpkg and rpm) or could one write a source-level translator?
    - kragen 7y ago
      It's a good question. They don't interoperate now.
dragonsh 7y ago
Guix is a GNU project which underpins today’s largest eco-system of OS, utilities, tools, apps and language related work. It has larger community as well. So although it’s inspired by Nix, I personally will chose it as it has evolved quickly and if you look at all three aspects Guix, Guix System and documentation it’s now better than Nix. Also last but not the least I work with emacs lisp, so I feel at home with Guile Scheme so I will prefer Guix over Nix. Personally I will like Nix also to flourish and being a non GNU project it will be able to provide closed source proprietary packages which is not part of core Guix. I think a healthy competition between the two is good, and whichever gets popular is overall good for advances in OS eco-system. Guix System is a new OS, not just package manager. But by making Guix package manager available to other systems, it might move people who see benefits to move to transactional, predictable, secure OS like NixOS or Guix System.
- XMPPwocky 7y ago
  > Guix is a GNU project which underpins today’s largest eco-system of OS, utilities, tools, apps and language related work. It has larger community as well. To be clear, this is talking about the entire GNU project compared to just Nix? All metrics I can find show Nix's adoption is significantly above that of Guix. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16490027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16490027 seems like a pretty interesting comment on the benefits of Guix, albeit old.

kragen 7y ago

Scheme instead of a bespoke programming language, and more focus on reducing the bootstrap set that compromises the goal of reproducibility shared by both systems.

svd4anything 7y ago
But the bespoke language has some benefits. It’s concise and specifically designed for the problem. Also Nix has more contributors and that is very important to have a large collection of recipes to start from.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  Scheme, being a Lisp, is exceptionally well-suited to serve as a base for DSLs.
  - svd4anything 7y ago
    Ok I’ll give another reason. Nix community is more relaxed and doesn’t downvote just because they don’t like some comment or somebody disagrees with them.
    - celticmusic 7y ago
      I bet you the irony of your downvotes is lost on the people downvoting.
      - svd4anything 7y ago
        For sure they are pilling on ... for what I don’t get. Relax people.
- kragen 7y ago
  Yes, Scheme is a bit verbose for my taste.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    There are obviously some differences between the two, but I'm not really perceiving any real verbosity gap between the two, one way or the other. Here is a guix package declaration for tmux: [Edit: fixed indentation] (define-module (gnu packages tmux) #:use-module ((guix licenses) #:prefix license:) #:use-module (guix packages) #:use-module (guix download) #:use-module (guix git-download) #:use-module (guix build-system gnu) #:use-module (guix build-system trivial) #:use-module (gnu packages) #:use-module (gnu packages bash) #:use-module (gnu packages libevent) #:use-module (gnu packages ncurses)) (define-public tmux (package (name "tmux") (version "3.0a") (source (origin (method url-fetch) (uri (string-append "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/" version "/tmux-" version ".tar.gz")) (sha256 (base32 "1fcdbw77nz918f7gqc1ga7zlkp1g112in1h8kkjnkadgnhldzlaa")))) (build-system gnu-build-system) (inputs `(("libevent" ,libevent) ("ncurses" ,ncurses))) (home-page "https://tmux.github.io/") (synopsis "Terminal multiplexer") (description "tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals (or windows), each running a separate program, to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen. tmux may be detached from a screen and continue running in the background, then later reattached.") (license license:isc))) Here is (roughtly) the equivalent in Nix: { stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, autoreconfHook, ncurses, libevent, pkgconfig, makeWrapper }: let bashCompletion = fetchFromGitHub { owner = "imomaliev"; repo = "tmux-bash-completion"; rev = "fcda450d452f07d36d2f9f27e7e863ba5241200d"; sha256 = "092jpkhggjqspmknw7h3icm0154rg21mkhbc71j5bxfmfjdxmya8"; }; in stdenv.mkDerivation rec { pname = "tmux"; version = "2.9a"; outputs = [ "out" "man" ]; src = fetchFromGitHub { owner = pname; repo = pname; rev = version; sha256 = "040plbgxlz14q5p0p3wapr576jbirwripmsjyq3g1nxh76jh1ipg"; }; nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgconfig autoreconfHook ]; buildInputs = [ ncurses libevent makeWrapper ]; configureFlags = [ "--sysconfdir=/etc" "--localstatedir=/var" ]; postInstall = '' mkdir -p $out/share/bash-completion/completions cp -v ${bashCompletion}/completions/tmux $out/share/bash-completion/completions/tmux ''; meta = { homepage = http://tmux.github.io/; description = "Terminal multiplexer"; longDescription = '' tmux is intended to be a modern, BSD-licensed alternative to programs such as GNU screen. Major features include: * A powerful, consistent, well-documented and easily scriptable command interface. * A window may be split horizontally and vertically into panes. * Panes can be freely moved and resized, or arranged into preset layouts. * Support for UTF-8 and 256-colour terminals. * Copy and paste with multiple buffers. * Interactive menus to select windows, sessions or clients. * Change the current window by searching for text in the target. * Terminal locking, manually or after a timeout. * A clean, easily extended, BSD-licensed codebase, under active development. ''; license = stdenv.lib.licenses.bsd3; platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.unix; maintainers = with stdenv.lib.maintainers; [ thammers fpletz ]; }; }
- geofft 7y ago
  Do Nix and Guix expressions not interoperate? Is that a fundamental limitation of the system (at lest as fundamental as, say, dpkg and rpm) or could one write a source-level translator?
  - kragen 7y ago
    It's a good question. They don't interoperate now.

dragonsh 7y ago

Guix is a GNU project which underpins today’s largest eco-system of OS, utilities, tools, apps and language related work. It has larger community as well. So although it’s inspired by Nix, I personally will chose it as it has evolved quickly and if you look at all three aspects Guix, Guix System and documentation it’s now better than Nix. Also last but not the least I work with emacs lisp, so I feel at home with Guile Scheme so I will prefer Guix over Nix. Personally I will like Nix also to flourish and being a non GNU project it will be able to provide closed source proprietary packages which is not part of core Guix. I think a healthy competition between the two is good, and whichever gets popular is overall good for advances in OS eco-system. Guix System is a new OS, not just package manager. But by making Guix package manager available to other systems, it might move people who see benefits to move to transactional, predictable, secure OS like NixOS or Guix System.

XMPPwocky 7y ago
> Guix is a GNU project which underpins today’s largest eco-system of OS, utilities, tools, apps and language related work. It has larger community as well. To be clear, this is talking about the entire GNU project compared to just Nix? All metrics I can find show Nix's adoption is significantly above that of Guix. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16490027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16490027 seems like a pretty interesting comment on the benefits of Guix, albeit old.