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I think much like how there's Nix and NixOS, it's important to draw a line between Guix (the package manager) and GuixSD (the Linux distribution). Guix the pac

I think much like how there's Nix and NixOS, it's important to draw a line between Guix (the package manager) and GuixSD (the Linux distribution). Guix the package manager, while still not usable at work for me (lack of MacOS support - just 4 of my eng org's ~25 folks use Linux), is full of interesting ideas and features that work well in Linux settings, and can do useful things. It could make interesting dev shells, for example, much like nix-shell (or Flakes). GuixSD without `nonguix`? Yeah, I unfortunately share your "it's dead in the water" opinion here. I'm not aware of much, if any, modern hardware that can fully boot to a usable-framerate GUI with networking (and that is also safe to use for such) without at least linux-firmware, which I believe is only available in nonguix. If there's exceptions to this, I'd genuinely love to hear them in a thread here.

rekado 4y ago
The importance of proprietary software is quite overstated in my opinion. I've used stock Guix System on a large number of off-the-shelf servers and not once did I encounter missing drivers. I've used Guix System with linux-libre on old Sun hardware and the newest Dell servers --- never once did I have a problem due to the linux-libre kernel. "dead in the water" looks different.
- colordrops 4y ago
  It sounds like the person you are replying to is talking about the desktop use case rather than servers.
  - klardotsh 4y ago
    Correct, I was, though I think it's fair to split GuixSD into server and desktop usecases and consider them separately. If it works for one and not the other, cool, maybe doing what Alpine did and billing Guix System for specifically server cases could work? (I still have outstanding questions in that realm in parent thread)
- klardotsh 4y ago
  My understanding is that linux-libre strips CPU microcode as well, which is often used to patch hardware vulnerabilities - what's the recourse for such issues on servers like these, on GuixSD?
b3n 4y ago
> not usable at work for me (lack of MacOS support - just 4 of my eng org's ~25 folks use Linux) In case you're not aware, you can easily create a Guix pack[1] in the Docker image format that can be run on MacOS. [1] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-pack.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-pack....

rekado 4y ago

The importance of proprietary software is quite overstated in my opinion. I've used stock Guix System on a large number of off-the-shelf servers and not once did I encounter missing drivers. I've used Guix System with linux-libre on old Sun hardware and the newest Dell servers --- never once did I have a problem due to the linux-libre kernel. "dead in the water" looks different.

colordrops 4y ago
It sounds like the person you are replying to is talking about the desktop use case rather than servers.
- klardotsh 4y ago
  Correct, I was, though I think it's fair to split GuixSD into server and desktop usecases and consider them separately. If it works for one and not the other, cool, maybe doing what Alpine did and billing Guix System for specifically server cases could work? (I still have outstanding questions in that realm in parent thread)
klardotsh 4y ago
My understanding is that linux-libre strips CPU microcode as well, which is often used to patch hardware vulnerabilities - what's the recourse for such issues on servers like these, on GuixSD?

b3n 4y ago

> not usable at work for me (lack of MacOS support - just 4 of my eng org's ~25 folks use Linux) In case you're not aware, you can easily create a Guix pack[1] in the Docker image format that can be run on MacOS. [1] https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-pack.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-pack....