10 ms·

Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

247 points by ingve 3y ago

teekert 3y ago
Is this Guix Nix but with a different language? How is it different? So far I only knew Nix, now I see more and more Guix popping up…
- deleted 3y ago
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- bheadmaster 3y ago
  It is inspired by Nix, but with a few key differences: - it is developed under the flag of the GNU Project, so you can expect the same standards of quality of both code and documentation as the rest of the GNU Project - it uses GNU Guile as the main language of the system instead of Nix, which (allegedly) allows you to extend or modify the behavior of the whole system - it uses GNU Shepherd as the service manager instead of systemd All the main goals of the projects are pretty much the same.
  - goosedragons 3y ago
    The other big thing is that being a FSF project they are much more committed to free software than Nix. It's harder to get stuff like Chrome, Steam, Nvidia drivers etc. Not impossible but you're definitely swimming against the current in trying.
    - pasc1878 3y ago
      Another big thing is Guix only works on GNU/Linux and not on macOS and other Unixes like FreeBSD which Nix does run on.
    - kdtsh 3y ago
      Important to note that it’s not hard or swimming against the current - you just use the nonguix channel, which has all of those things and is a perfectly acceptable use of the system (it’s what channels are for) - but it’s not in the default installation.
      - davexunit 3y ago
        Yeah I second this. I use the nonguix channel for my laptop. Very well supported and easy to use.
      - ducktective 3y ago
        >you just use the nonguix channel Opened up https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix. Literally the second sentence in the project information section, top of the page: "Please do NOT promote or refer to this repository on any official Guix communication channels." Weird thing to say something like this there. Too ideological for someone who wants to get stuff done.
        davexunit 3y ago
        I agree this policy should change but I and many others get stuff done just fine.
        bheadmaster 3y ago
        It makes sense to me. They don't want to compromize their mission - which is to provide a fully-free operating system. But they recognize that, at the current moment, non-free software is required for many users. So they maintain an unofficial repository for non-free software, and avoid endorsing or promoting it on the official channels. > Too ideological for someone who wants to get stuff done. The maintainers of Nonguix are mostly the same people working on Guix, so you can expect the same amount of ideology :)
        Modified3019 3y ago
        This is what ultimately bounced me away, along with seeing some negative interactions others had. Sure I might not end up with problems, but I’m going to choose to believe them when they tell me the official communication channels will be hostile to me if I do have problems that need the unclean fixes. Which is a shame, because I think there are some technical things which guix does better, but I find it’s more important to not have to worry about saying the wrong things in the wrong places when troubleshooting basic issues like what I get with the nix community.
  - teekert 3y ago
    So is it like “Nix isn’t free (as in RMS) enough?” Is it like Devuan to Debian? Is it like GNU Herd to Linux? (Surely not since it’s Linux ;))
    - davexunit 3y ago
      No it's not like that all. Free software is a component of it, but Guix is not a fork. It's a completely separate implementation of the functional package management model with many significant differences and advancements. It uses Scheme, a general purpose and extensible programming language, rather than a custom DSL like Nix. Scheme is used for build scripts as well and a lot of code can be shared between the host and build containers. Nix uses Bash. Having one language unifying all the layers makes it easier to hack on the entire stack. Guix has a stronger focus on reproducible and bootstrappable builds and is making notable advancements on the "software supply chain" security problem. OS service configuration is done through a graph extension system whereas Nix uses something more like a flat hash of config values. I could go on but I hope this makes the point that Guix isn't just taking Nix and removing proprietary stuff. It's its own thing.
    - rekado 3y ago
      > Is it like GNU Herd to Linux? (Surely not since it’s Linux ;)) You actually can use the Hurd as a kernel with Guix System. Or run a Hurd VM on your Linux-based Guix System with the childhurd.
  - operator-name 3y ago
    There's also been a greater focus on reproducibility: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-building-from-source-all-the-way-down/ https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-...
    - bheadmaster 3y ago
      Oh yes, I completely forgot to mention that monumental achievement :) For any readers unfamiliar with the importance of reproducible full-source boostrapping, please consider reading the paper "Reflections on Trusting Trust" by Ken Thompson [0], the creator of Unix. [0] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
  - viraptor 3y ago
    Same... Apart from the extreme view on freedom in guix. Loadable firmware? No. Microcode updates for your CPU? No. Not free enough! There's non-guix and all that, but really... if the main project tells you this is now what they want, you will run into issues one day.
  - hardwaresofton 3y ago
    > - it uses GNU Shepherd as the service manager instead of systemd I wish they didn't do this part. Despite the furor that was around systemd, it's actually quite nice to use day-to-day. But also, I realize that the FSF has to do what the FSF has to do, glad they're around.
    - rekado 3y ago
      The FSF is not involved in the project. The FSF had no say in what service manager we use. A common misconception is that we somehow don't like systemd. It just so happens that having a thing that's written in Guile (like the rest of Guix) allows for some code sharing. Hey, we've got the initrd in Guile, too. Might as well go all the way, eh?
      - hardwaresofton 3y ago
        Apologies, I assumed that being a GNU project (which is supported by the FSF), the project identified as an FSF project. > A common misconception is that we somehow don't like systemd. It just so happens that having a thing that's written in Guile (like the rest of Guix) allows for some code sharing. Hey, we've got the initrd in Guile, too. Might as well go all the way, eh? I didn't have this misconception, but let me correct my statement: But also, I realize that guix devs have to do what guix devs have to do, glad they're around.
    - amszmidt 3y ago
      GNU Shepherd (was aka DMD) predates systemd by many years. And many other “PID 1” efforts. It also had different goals when Wolfgang and I designed it, one might say even incompatible since we were targeting the GNU/Hurd specifically and wanted easy ways to manage translators there on a per user basis.
      - rekado 3y ago
        One thing that hasn't changed, though, is that compatibility with the Hurd is still a major goal. Sadly (but understandably) development pushes forward for Shepherd on Linux and then we aim to make it work on the Hurd, instead of letting Hurd-native facilities guide development. But this might change as there is considerable overlap between Guix contributors and Hurd enthusiasts.
  - rendaw 3y ago
    - All issue tracking and discussion happens on a mailing list/with custom tooling Also IIRC Shepherd was a simple 1-level service manager like runit. Is that correct? I played around with it for a while and came to the conclusion that it couldn't represent a service graph.
    - civodul 3y ago
      Shepherd takes a service graph as input. The `herd graph` command gives a GraphViz representation of that graph: https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/manual/html_node/Jump-Start.html https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/manual/html_node/Jump-...
- deleted 3y ago
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hansonpeter 3y ago
[dead]
jckahn 3y ago
My kingdom for Wayland fractional scaling that doesn’t make my apps blurry. It makes the feature a complete nonstarter for me.
- enriquto 3y ago
  Fractional scaling, by definition, will make stuff blurry. Clean bitmap graphics and fractional scaling are incompatible requirements. Proof: consider a pattern of alternating black and white pixels: 0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255, etc. This pattern cannot be scaled to a non-integer factor without introducing gray colors (i.e., by blurring-out the pattern). If your app produces this pattern, then fractional scaling will blur your app.
  - throwaway11205 3y ago
    Fractional scaling works perfectly well on Xorg Linux and Windows, but looks blurry on Wayland Linux. Maybe it's not micrometer-scale crisp, but I can't see that. Text on Wayland is very visibly blurred. And it's not just text, but UI controls too. It looks like Wayland just renders the lower integer scale factor and then stretches the resulting bitmap image. That's bullshit.
    - jsheard 3y ago
      Doesn't macOS do it the other way, rendering at the next highest integer scale factor and then downscaling to fit the display? If you can't render fractional factors natively for tech debt reasons then that's the least bad way to do it.
      - throwaway11205 3y ago
        MacOS way is better, text is blurry, but much less. I still don't like it though, but can use it in an emergency. But there apparently is another way that Xorg and Windows uses. I have perfectly crisp (as far as my eyes can tell) UI and text on both systems at 150% scale (27" 4K display). > for tech debt reasons I thought Wayland was supposed to fix the tech debt - so now it introduced some that makes bare basic features impossible?
yawpitch 3y ago
> Privileging principle over praxis is generally a losing strategy. Unfortunately it’s also Stallman’s — and thus sadly by extension the FSF’s — entire shtick.
- pasc1878 3y ago
  Although if you look at FSFs major projects Emacs and gcc they do run on many OSs including non-free (e.g. Solaris, macOS, Windows, VMS and virtually anything that exists) and other free Unixes. GUIX is much much more restricted.
  - rekado 3y ago
    If you mean the Microsoft project called "GUIX": sure, it's rather restricted. Guix, however, goes out of its way to support extensions at different levels of its architecture. Not only can you extend it with channels, local files, and with Guile expressions, you can also rewrite the dependency graph of your environment with package transformations, e.g. to swap out any instance of Tensorflow with a CUDA-tainted variant of Tensorflow from the Guix Science Nonfree channel, recursively.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      I won't disagree that guix can be made to use nonfree packages. However, the claim: >> Although if you look at FSFs major projects Emacs and gcc they do run on many OSs including non-free (e.g. Solaris, macOS, Windows, VMS and virtually anything that exists) and other free Unixes. >> GUIX is much much more restricted. appears to hold up; https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/ https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/ says "Alternately, GNU Guix can be installed as an additional package manager on top of an installed Linux-based system." (emphasis mine) and although there's no explicit statement, https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Installation.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Installation.html implicitly reiterates that guix is only targeting Linux. Forget running on Solaris, Darwin, or NT; as far as I can tell guix doesn't even care about being usable on any open source unix other than Linux. Edit: Although now that I think about it, they also target HURD... which is no less niche, but does at least imply that it could work on non-Linux unixen.
bayindirh 3y ago
> Guix install media was not able to configure the network via the Ethernet expansion card nor an external USB-C ethernet adapter that I had; stuck at the DHCP phase. So my initial installation attempt failed. It's probably because of the hybrid structure of modern devices. Bare minimum hardware is implemented in solid state, to be able to detected by the OS, for the higher level of functionality (read: packet crafting and I/O), you need the firmware. This "hybridness" varies between device tiers though. Higher end Ethernet adapters generally work well without the firmware, but offloading and acceleration features are not enabled without the firmware. Better Realtek and Intel (IIRC) devices fall into that class, and some server class Broadcoms too.
einpoklum 3y ago
"Free Software Foundation position on firmware ... is that if a device has ... firmware ... in a form that users can’t modify, then the system as a whole is not free software. This is technically correct but doesn’t logically imply that the right strategy for advancing free software is to forbid firmware blobs" It may not be the convenient thing for novice users, but it is an important strategy to "dogfood" fully-free systems, i.e. obtain them, run them, and make efforts to get them to work as seamlessly as possible. This was done with OS-level-and-up software - for the most part - and we have been reaping great rewards all around from those efforts. If it can be done for the full stack of hardware and software, this will be very beneficial and in some aspects even liberating. Again, joe user is probably better off with a more pragmatic approach at the moment. But joe user can still choose a FOSS operating system, which a few decades ago was not realistic.
- kryptiskt 3y ago
  Since nearly everybody uses devices that require firmware blobs, the policy has a huge negative impact, it should have a corresponding benefit to motivate its existence. But what can possibly make up repelling all but the hardiest users, who most likely will have to work around it by installing firmware blobs anyway? There are plenty of alternatives that just work. Sure, the users that can run without blobs deserve a reward, so show them a congratulatory message on boot or something. There is precedent for not taking a hard line. Nearly all GNU software works on Windows, for entirely pragmatic reasons.
- davexunit 3y ago
  The thing is that the FSF's stance is already a pragmatic approach of sorts but the line is drawn in a strange place that doesn't really help advance the cause. The hard line approach of "all firmware must be free, too" would render basically every computer unusable, even RMS can see that's going too far to be practical. So, they make an abstraction boundary where "free" stops: If the kernel doesn't load the firmware then it's as if the chip is implemented completely in hardware. It's a practical decision because you have to stop somewhere otherwise you can't get anything done. I wish the FSF/GNU-aligned folks would just make a slightly different compromise that makes it a lot easier for people to start using free software distros. Not shipping CPU microcode updates is particularly harmful to users. 10 years ago it was not too hard to run a distro without firmware blobs on a laptop if you were cool with just getting a thinkpad, but modern intel hardware requires a blob for graphics so even that path is closed now. My 2022 thinkpad x1 needs blobs for graphics, wifi, bluetooth, and sound and I tried to find something modern that didn't need them and gave up eventually.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
Had a VM GUIX "system" (really I think its more of package manager overlay) for a while (18 months ago) but encountered some problems. The main feature AFAICS is that it maintains the state of the system and packages all very cleanly via it's own nix build system which is like a snapshot of everything. The sell is that it's very recoverable - in theory you can rebuild from a single file. That's very appealing for VMs that need to be moved about. Unfortunately I needed a couple of things that were available only through apt. Now, Guix said it was perfectly happy to mix package management, (a bit like mixing pkg and ports in BSD) - but don't do that. It all went horribly wrong with confusion over which binaries were running at any time and when I did try to port it, it broke. I like lispy things so will give Guix another try one day, but it needs you to fully embrace its philosophy and no half measures.
- Cu3PO42 3y ago
  > via its own nix build system Nix is conceptually extremely similar to Guix, but a different implementation! It uses its own programming language, also called Nix, and has a less strict stance on free software.
  - ingenieroariel 3y ago
    Guix uses Nix under the hood (learned this when trying to compile it). Perhaps learning Nix first will let the grandparent be more effective in Guix later.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - davexunit 3y ago
      Guix forked and modified only the Nix build daemon which isn't user visible. Learning the Nix tools and language will not teach you very much about how to use Guix.
    - rekado 3y ago
      Guix includes a copy of the nix-daemon. It's a relatively small C++ program that manages the store. We reuse it because there was no point in writing a replacement for something as low-level as the daemon. Guix compiles its package definitions down to the same kind of file format that the old Nix daemon understands. (It's a bit funny to me that GNU has a reputation for NIH-ing projects, but when a GNU project doesn't reinvent the spokes on a wheel it also attracts various forms of criticism.)
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
I've been intrigued by Guix for a while; mainly because I like the idea of Nix but was very turned off by its language, when I was exposed to it through a job I had. One thing I liked about Nix was that it was possible to use its packaging and tools without actually using the NixOS. An old employer used this instead of Docker for managing build distribution. Can the Guix stuff be used the same way?
- rekado 3y ago
  Yes, see `guix pack` with its various backends.
- davexunit 3y ago
  You can use Guix as a package manager on top of another Linux distro. I used Guix on Ubuntu for several years.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Ok I'll give it a try. I like Lispy things. One thing I liked about nix in this capacity was the "nix-shell" facility, which could be used to create a whole hermetic dev environment with all the right versions of things and all the right environment variables set up, etc. Similar to similar uses of docker but more integrated with the rest of the system -- not as "sealed off" from the rest of the distribution, e.g. I could still use my emacs config inside it, etc.
    - slgeorge 3y ago
      Guix can create reproducible development environments that are "sealed off" from the rest of the distribution. It's called Guix shell and it's very flexible: * Guix Shell https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/29/guix-shell-virtual-environments-containers/ https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/29/guix-shell-virtual-envir... I did two specific posts about using it for 'development' environments. You can also 'fix' the environment (think a git hash) and use the declarative configuration to share it with others: * https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/30/guix-reproducible-dev-environments/ https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/30/guix-reproducible-dev-en... * https://www.futurile.net/2023/10/17/guix-time-travel-dev-environments/ https://www.futurile.net/2023/10/17/guix-time-travel-dev-env... Hope they help - if you have a play and get stuck the mailing list is really good and I posted about the Meetup further up.
Havoc 3y ago
>then it is kosher, otherwise it is haram Big fan of mixing & matching not just on hardware I see
- Gormo 3y ago
  That mixed metaphor popped out to me as well. What if what you're doing is analogous to a glass of wine? It's kosher and haram at the same time! Kosher is to treif as halal is to haram.
  - Havoc 3y ago
    TIL. Didn’t know trief
slgeorge 3y ago
For those that don't know Guix can be used as: * a package manager on top of an existing Linux distribution (think apt or rpm) * a development environment (think Python venv but for any language) * a VM system (like Docker but declarative) * a Linux distribution (similar to Nix) It's a small and friendly community - we recently started an English-speaking online user-group: https://www.meetup.com/guix-london/ Next meetup is Monday next week - please come along! I also did an Intro post to some of the advantages and challenges a couple of years ago: https://www.futurile.net/2021/09/26/guix-alternative-to-snap-or-flatpak-on-ubuntu/ https://www.futurile.net/2021/09/26/guix-alternative-to-snap...
- jcul 3y ago
  I used to attend a C++ meetup in my previous city, but since have moved. I sometimes think about setting something up in my new city. Do you have any advice for getting a meetup off the ground? I guess meetup is still the best thing to use (it was what my old C++ user group used).
  - slgeorge 3y ago
    We're a small group 5-10 people, so it's very informal and friendly. I'm sure Fabio (https://fabionatali.com/ https://fabionatali.com/) who organised it would have good advice! I'll say that from my perspective the fact that it's also virtual is really great as otherwise I couldn't attend!
- graemep 3y ago
  "Guix is a rolling release distribution, the versions of each application are updated continuously. The benefit of rolling releases is that enhancements are available immediately" The last time I looked at Guix a lot of packages were not up to date, and this included security updates for internet facing things (IIRC, one of the major web servers).
  - slgeorge 3y ago
    New packages and updates to packages come into the archive continuously. For example, in roughly the last 24 hours 40 packages were added or updated - https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/log/ https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/log/ . Advantage of this is that you can use new packages immediately and there's no big 'upgrade'. Challenges are that if you were an enterprise and wanted to stick on an 'old' version this wouldn't the right distribution. Guix does receive security updates, and those are added to the archive immediately. I haven't had any problems myself. It's definitely a 'community' project, so you have to enjoy doing a bit of hacking!
danecek912 3y ago
Fly
eecc 3y ago
HOWEVER, and I hope this is a transient situation, there is a problem: in GNOME, applications that aren’t native Wayland apps don’t scale nicely. It’s like the app gets rendered to a texture at the original resolution, which then gets scaled up in a blurry way. Unfortunately that's how it works on all Linux distros since "this will be the year of Wayland". Last time I tried it was 2020, and I gave up when it turned out there were no alternatives to the off-screen rendering and scaling hack for Chrome, IntelliJ and VSCode. Sorry but my eyesight is already bad as it is.
- zilti 3y ago
  It simply does not matter, because all DEs are on Wayland now, everything supports it, and honestly, I haven't seen an application not supporting Wayland for quite some time. Even Chrome is Wayland-native now.
  - Filligree 3y ago
    You don't run Discord, I take it... Meanwhile, it's apparently going to change soon, but Steam games generally use Xwayland.
    - tuetuopay 3y ago
      discord is electron and runs perfectly under wayland. a few flags to turn it on and you're good.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  This is largely a GNOME issue. KDE and Hyprland supports not scaling XWayland and a lot of X11 apps can scale themselves. VSCode and Chromium scales perfectly in Wayland now and IntelliJ can scale in X11.
Decabytes 3y ago
I really hope one day the Framework laptop will work with the major Linux Distributions with no asterisks. It will definitely require work on both Framework and the Distro maintainer's part, but it is getting better every month. Hopefully if Framework becomes more successful, they will have more say in the hardware manufacturing process, and they will be able to devote more resources to Linux compatibility. I have no need for a laptop now, but maybe a Framework will be in my future if this happens
- acomjean 3y ago
  I’m not sure they have the resources but shipping with Linux installed would be awesome. I’m always surprised at the lack of choice hardware with pre installed Linux. But the framework seems to have a lot of users running Linux so it’s probably a great choice.
- nrp 3y ago
  We focus on making sure that the most popular distros work smoothly. Currently, Ubuntu LTS and Fedora are the two that we provide official support for, since they are the most popular choices for folks who are either new to Linux or aren’t especially interested in tinkering with their OS: https://frame.work/linux https://frame.work/linux
  - aetherspawn 3y ago
    Whoops, accidentally downvoted when meaning to upvote. Sorry! Thank you for focusing on the mainstream distributions. If our company ever transitioned to Linux on laptops (it would be a stretch because of Office365… probably the best we could do is macOS), we would be targeting Fedora. This is because only the mainstream distros have MDM features.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    We have a couple of them and were quite happy with the exception of a few minor issues. However the lack of shipping (not beta) firmware updates on a regular schedule has given me pause to recommend framework to others, at least until that gets rectified.
e12e 3y ago
> ... good compilation speed ... And earlier: > open /etc/config.scm, add the needed lines as described in the operating-system part of the nonguix README, reconfigure, and reboot. Building Linux takes a little less than an hour on this machine. This is for a system bootstrap of guix/Linux - not just the kernel and modules, surely?
- thelopa 3y ago
  They needed to compile the kernel because they were using the full kernel. The main package repository (and thus the main binary caches) only include a de-blobbed version of the kernel. To get standard Linux including all the blobs, you need to use the “nonguix” package repository. The nonguix folks do have a binary cache server, but using it during install is slightly annoying. I currently have a guix vm compiling Linux for exactly this reason. Since you likely won’t be installing much else from nonguix during system setup, you only need to compile the kernel and other bloby things you choose to include (e.g. firmware, microcode).
  - e12e 3y ago
    Isn't an hour a long time for a kernel compile?
bsimpson 3y ago
Wow, the Free Software people can be insufferable. From the README on the attached Nonguix escape hatch: > Please do NOT promote this repository on any official Guix communication channels, such as their mailing lists or IRC channel, even in response to support requests! This is to show respect for the Guix project’s strict policy against recommending nonfree software, and to avoid any unnecessary hostility. > This channel does not endorse any non-free application. We believe it is non-ethical, harmful to software development and restricts the users freedom. See the GNU philosophy for a more thorough discussion. So it's Nix, but on extra-hard mode because of some impractical restrictions outlined by the author?
- rekado 3y ago
  I'm used to being called "insufferable" for working on free software. Still a bit harsh judgment of people who at the end of the day still produce software that you are free to use for any purpose or ignore, no? > So it's Nix, but on extra-hard mode because of some impractical restrictions outlined by the author? It's not Nix, and no, there are no impractical restrictions, nor is it hard to extend Guix with a wealth of third-party channels. See other comments here that attempt to address this and other misconceptions surrounding Guix.
orangetuba 3y ago
[flagged]
tombert 3y ago
I haven't ever used Guix, but I am a huge fan of NixOS, and my understanding is the Guix is trying for a similar experience. The reason that I've never attempted to really use Guix is because I'm a bit worried that I'd have driver trouble because of the LibreLinux kernel and no non-free stuff in the core repos. To anyone that has used both Guix and NixOS, how do they compare? Do you feel like Guix is a better experience if you get past the driver problems?
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  You can add the nonguix channel to Guix which gives you normal linux kernel, nvidia drivers, etc. Check out the system-crafters distribution, IIRC it includes nonguix by default.
mmcnl 3y ago
> HOWEVER, and I hope this is a transient situation, there is a problem: in GNOME, applications that aren’t native Wayland apps don’t scale nicely. Transient situations are almost permanent in Linux land. This has been a problem for a long time and I don't see a solution coming in the near future. But maybe I'm wrong (I hope so!).
- stebalien 3y ago
  This is an issue with any software that tries to maintain backwards compatibility, not Linux. Windows has: - Many years worth of different control panels. - Little consistency with respect to toolkits in general. - Fractional scaling issues in applications using older toolkits (e.g., open up the policy editor and notice the blurry fonts). Microsoft is actually giving up here and has been experimenting with ML-based scaling for old applications (an approach I expect we'll eventually see in Linux as well). Apple handles this by breaking compatibility every so often, forcing old software out of the picture.
  - alwayslikethis 3y ago
    I notice that even the blurry scaling on Windows looks better than what we have on Linux. It seems that they have some special algorithm for that. Anyone who knows how it is implemented can chime in here?
    - marwis 3y ago
      It's definitely better than bilinear and bicubic. Looks like Lanczos but with some optimization for ClearType.
  - Eduard 3y ago
    Window's backward compatibility is way better though. There are plenty of GNOME extensions and applications that just don't work anymore under modern GNOME Wayland. Example: all the redshift applications and extensions for lowering the screen brightness.
bandrami 3y ago
Linux-libre makes some... odd... choices in deblobbing. The most recent one that bit me was the new rtw driver which includes literal GPL licensed blobs as C files full of binary arrays. Users are absolutely free to modify and reveng these but lin-lib got rid of them because their purpose is opaque. It is, obviously, but that is just poorly documented free software and if we're going to start ripping that out there isn't going to be much at all left. As it is if you want wifi you have to find an older Atheros (pre ath10k) or older realtek (pre 88XX) device, and these are decidedly thin on the ground; I just spent two days crawling through stacks of laptops at Sim Lim in Singapore before I found one.
jamesbfb 3y ago
My work laptop just rolled over 3 years which means it’s new laptop time. After spending some time convincing the higher ups at work, I have a new Framework 13 coming my way (and not HP whateverbook). I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a bit of hardware in a long time.
- Tmpod 3y ago
  Unless the device is malfunctioning or otherwise damaged in a meaningful way, I don't see why it would be time for new a laptop, after only 3 years. I bought mine with the prospect of it lasting at least 6 years (and it's going strong 2/3 in already), but I don't plan on replacing it unless it breaks down or prevents me from working on my stuff for other reasons. Anyway, good choice on the new laptop. My next device will likely be a FrameWork or similar (who knows how the landscape will be then).
  - jamesbfb 3y ago
    This is a fair call, and normally I would run my laptop into the ground, but my HP Elite Book has this habit of thinking it’s still charging when it’s not. The only way around this is to let it drain to 0% battery and all would be good for another few weeks. Luckily all I need to do is let PyCharm index a project and it’ll drain to 0% within an hour.
  - rowanG077 3y ago
    I haven't ever had a laptop USB ports last more then 3 years. In fact my last laptop, an XPS 13, had failing USB-C ports within 1.5 years. I admit I probably connect an USB device 5-10 times per day.
    - heyoni 3y ago
      Same here. I use two USB c ports multiple times per day…but never had one fail.
    - fransje26 3y ago
      Use a cheap dock to plug/unplug your devices into 5-10 times per day, and change that when the USB port fails?
mise_en_place 3y ago
I would use Guix but it just doesn’t seem to be stable nor polished. If you enjoy running on bleeding edge it seems to be the distro for you.
- mrh57 3y ago
  How do you mean? If you're talking not stable as in it's rolling release, then yes that's true although it isn't unique to Guix. But if you mean leaves your system vulnerable to breakages, large unwanted changes, system entropy, or inconsistencies, then surely Guix (and Nix) are more stable than virtually every other distro (and maybe even MacOS or Windows)? I'm also not sure I would say Guix is particularly unpolished compared to other distros. The project is 10 years old at this point, has a very active (albeit not huge) community, and has some of the clearest/most extensive documentation I've read for a distro. Perhaps 5-ish years ago it had some rough edges, but I'd say now they're quite comparable to other mainstream distros. As someone who has been using Guix as my primary OS for the past ~2 years on a <5 year old laptop (with a proprietary wifi card) for programming, media, web stuff, and light games, I'd say it's a great experience. Not that the learning curve is not large or that community resources couldn't be better, but if you're already using GNU/Linux I don't think it will feel any less stable/polished.

247 points by ingve 3y ago

Is this Guix Nix but with a different language? How is it different? So far I only knew Nix, now I see more and more Guix popping up…

deleted 3y ago
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bheadmaster 3y ago
It is inspired by Nix, but with a few key differences: - it is developed under the flag of the GNU Project, so you can expect the same standards of quality of both code and documentation as the rest of the GNU Project - it uses GNU Guile as the main language of the system instead of Nix, which (allegedly) allows you to extend or modify the behavior of the whole system - it uses GNU Shepherd as the service manager instead of systemd All the main goals of the projects are pretty much the same.
- goosedragons 3y ago
  The other big thing is that being a FSF project they are much more committed to free software than Nix. It's harder to get stuff like Chrome, Steam, Nvidia drivers etc. Not impossible but you're definitely swimming against the current in trying.
  - pasc1878 3y ago
    Another big thing is Guix only works on GNU/Linux and not on macOS and other Unixes like FreeBSD which Nix does run on.
  - kdtsh 3y ago
    Important to note that it’s not hard or swimming against the current - you just use the nonguix channel, which has all of those things and is a perfectly acceptable use of the system (it’s what channels are for) - but it’s not in the default installation.
    - davexunit 3y ago
      Yeah I second this. I use the nonguix channel for my laptop. Very well supported and easy to use.
    - ducktective 3y ago
      >you just use the nonguix channel Opened up https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix. Literally the second sentence in the project information section, top of the page: "Please do NOT promote or refer to this repository on any official Guix communication channels." Weird thing to say something like this there. Too ideological for someone who wants to get stuff done.
      - davexunit 3y ago
        I agree this policy should change but I and many others get stuff done just fine.
      - bheadmaster 3y ago
        It makes sense to me. They don't want to compromize their mission - which is to provide a fully-free operating system. But they recognize that, at the current moment, non-free software is required for many users. So they maintain an unofficial repository for non-free software, and avoid endorsing or promoting it on the official channels. > Too ideological for someone who wants to get stuff done. The maintainers of Nonguix are mostly the same people working on Guix, so you can expect the same amount of ideology :)
      - Modified3019 3y ago
        This is what ultimately bounced me away, along with seeing some negative interactions others had. Sure I might not end up with problems, but I’m going to choose to believe them when they tell me the official communication channels will be hostile to me if I do have problems that need the unclean fixes. Which is a shame, because I think there are some technical things which guix does better, but I find it’s more important to not have to worry about saying the wrong things in the wrong places when troubleshooting basic issues like what I get with the nix community.
- teekert 3y ago
  So is it like “Nix isn’t free (as in RMS) enough?” Is it like Devuan to Debian? Is it like GNU Herd to Linux? (Surely not since it’s Linux ;))
  - davexunit 3y ago
    No it's not like that all. Free software is a component of it, but Guix is not a fork. It's a completely separate implementation of the functional package management model with many significant differences and advancements. It uses Scheme, a general purpose and extensible programming language, rather than a custom DSL like Nix. Scheme is used for build scripts as well and a lot of code can be shared between the host and build containers. Nix uses Bash. Having one language unifying all the layers makes it easier to hack on the entire stack. Guix has a stronger focus on reproducible and bootstrappable builds and is making notable advancements on the "software supply chain" security problem. OS service configuration is done through a graph extension system whereas Nix uses something more like a flat hash of config values. I could go on but I hope this makes the point that Guix isn't just taking Nix and removing proprietary stuff. It's its own thing.
  - rekado 3y ago
    > Is it like GNU Herd to Linux? (Surely not since it’s Linux ;)) You actually can use the Hurd as a kernel with Guix System. Or run a Hurd VM on your Linux-based Guix System with the childhurd.
- operator-name 3y ago
  There's also been a greater focus on reproducibility: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-building-from-source-all-the-way-down/ https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-...
  - bheadmaster 3y ago
    Oh yes, I completely forgot to mention that monumental achievement :) For any readers unfamiliar with the importance of reproducible full-source boostrapping, please consider reading the paper "Reflections on Trusting Trust" by Ken Thompson [0], the creator of Unix. [0] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
- viraptor 3y ago
  Same... Apart from the extreme view on freedom in guix. Loadable firmware? No. Microcode updates for your CPU? No. Not free enough! There's non-guix and all that, but really... if the main project tells you this is now what they want, you will run into issues one day.
- hardwaresofton 3y ago
  > - it uses GNU Shepherd as the service manager instead of systemd I wish they didn't do this part. Despite the furor that was around systemd, it's actually quite nice to use day-to-day. But also, I realize that the FSF has to do what the FSF has to do, glad they're around.
  - rekado 3y ago
    The FSF is not involved in the project. The FSF had no say in what service manager we use. A common misconception is that we somehow don't like systemd. It just so happens that having a thing that's written in Guile (like the rest of Guix) allows for some code sharing. Hey, we've got the initrd in Guile, too. Might as well go all the way, eh?
    - hardwaresofton 3y ago
      Apologies, I assumed that being a GNU project (which is supported by the FSF), the project identified as an FSF project. > A common misconception is that we somehow don't like systemd. It just so happens that having a thing that's written in Guile (like the rest of Guix) allows for some code sharing. Hey, we've got the initrd in Guile, too. Might as well go all the way, eh? I didn't have this misconception, but let me correct my statement: But also, I realize that guix devs have to do what guix devs have to do, glad they're around.
  - amszmidt 3y ago
    GNU Shepherd (was aka DMD) predates systemd by many years. And many other “PID 1” efforts. It also had different goals when Wolfgang and I designed it, one might say even incompatible since we were targeting the GNU/Hurd specifically and wanted easy ways to manage translators there on a per user basis.
    - rekado 3y ago
      One thing that hasn't changed, though, is that compatibility with the Hurd is still a major goal. Sadly (but understandably) development pushes forward for Shepherd on Linux and then we aim to make it work on the Hurd, instead of letting Hurd-native facilities guide development. But this might change as there is considerable overlap between Guix contributors and Hurd enthusiasts.
- rendaw 3y ago
  - All issue tracking and discussion happens on a mailing list/with custom tooling Also IIRC Shepherd was a simple 1-level service manager like runit. Is that correct? I played around with it for a while and came to the conclusion that it couldn't represent a service graph.
  - civodul 3y ago
    Shepherd takes a service graph as input. The `herd graph` command gives a GraphViz representation of that graph: https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/manual/html_node/Jump-Start.html https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/manual/html_node/Jump-...
deleted 3y ago
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hansonpeter 3y ago

[dead]

jckahn 3y ago

My kingdom for Wayland fractional scaling that doesn’t make my apps blurry. It makes the feature a complete nonstarter for me.

enriquto 3y ago
Fractional scaling, by definition, will make stuff blurry. Clean bitmap graphics and fractional scaling are incompatible requirements. Proof: consider a pattern of alternating black and white pixels: 0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255, etc. This pattern cannot be scaled to a non-integer factor without introducing gray colors (i.e., by blurring-out the pattern). If your app produces this pattern, then fractional scaling will blur your app.
- throwaway11205 3y ago
  Fractional scaling works perfectly well on Xorg Linux and Windows, but looks blurry on Wayland Linux. Maybe it's not micrometer-scale crisp, but I can't see that. Text on Wayland is very visibly blurred. And it's not just text, but UI controls too. It looks like Wayland just renders the lower integer scale factor and then stretches the resulting bitmap image. That's bullshit.
  - jsheard 3y ago
    Doesn't macOS do it the other way, rendering at the next highest integer scale factor and then downscaling to fit the display? If you can't render fractional factors natively for tech debt reasons then that's the least bad way to do it.
    - throwaway11205 3y ago
      MacOS way is better, text is blurry, but much less. I still don't like it though, but can use it in an emergency. But there apparently is another way that Xorg and Windows uses. I have perfectly crisp (as far as my eyes can tell) UI and text on both systems at 150% scale (27" 4K display). > for tech debt reasons I thought Wayland was supposed to fix the tech debt - so now it introduced some that makes bare basic features impossible?

yawpitch 3y ago

> Privileging principle over praxis is generally a losing strategy. Unfortunately it’s also Stallman’s — and thus sadly by extension the FSF’s — entire shtick.

pasc1878 3y ago
Although if you look at FSFs major projects Emacs and gcc they do run on many OSs including non-free (e.g. Solaris, macOS, Windows, VMS and virtually anything that exists) and other free Unixes. GUIX is much much more restricted.
- rekado 3y ago
  If you mean the Microsoft project called "GUIX": sure, it's rather restricted. Guix, however, goes out of its way to support extensions at different levels of its architecture. Not only can you extend it with channels, local files, and with Guile expressions, you can also rewrite the dependency graph of your environment with package transformations, e.g. to swap out any instance of Tensorflow with a CUDA-tainted variant of Tensorflow from the Guix Science Nonfree channel, recursively.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    I won't disagree that guix can be made to use nonfree packages. However, the claim: >> Although if you look at FSFs major projects Emacs and gcc they do run on many OSs including non-free (e.g. Solaris, macOS, Windows, VMS and virtually anything that exists) and other free Unixes. >> GUIX is much much more restricted. appears to hold up; https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/ https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/ says "Alternately, GNU Guix can be installed as an additional package manager on top of an installed Linux-based system." (emphasis mine) and although there's no explicit statement, https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Installation.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Installation.html implicitly reiterates that guix is only targeting Linux. Forget running on Solaris, Darwin, or NT; as far as I can tell guix doesn't even care about being usable on any open source unix other than Linux. Edit: Although now that I think about it, they also target HURD... which is no less niche, but does at least imply that it could work on non-Linux unixen.

bayindirh 3y ago

> Guix install media was not able to configure the network via the Ethernet expansion card nor an external USB-C ethernet adapter that I had; stuck at the DHCP phase. So my initial installation attempt failed. It's probably because of the hybrid structure of modern devices. Bare minimum hardware is implemented in solid state, to be able to detected by the OS, for the higher level of functionality (read: packet crafting and I/O), you need the firmware. This "hybridness" varies between device tiers though. Higher end Ethernet adapters generally work well without the firmware, but offloading and acceleration features are not enabled without the firmware. Better Realtek and Intel (IIRC) devices fall into that class, and some server class Broadcoms too.

einpoklum 3y ago

"Free Software Foundation position on firmware ... is that if a device has ... firmware ... in a form that users can’t modify, then the system as a whole is not free software. This is technically correct but doesn’t logically imply that the right strategy for advancing free software is to forbid firmware blobs" It may not be the convenient thing for novice users, but it is an important strategy to "dogfood" fully-free systems, i.e. obtain them, run them, and make efforts to get them to work as seamlessly as possible. This was done with OS-level-and-up software - for the most part - and we have been reaping great rewards all around from those efforts. If it can be done for the full stack of hardware and software, this will be very beneficial and in some aspects even liberating. Again, joe user is probably better off with a more pragmatic approach at the moment. But joe user can still choose a FOSS operating system, which a few decades ago was not realistic.

kryptiskt 3y ago
Since nearly everybody uses devices that require firmware blobs, the policy has a huge negative impact, it should have a corresponding benefit to motivate its existence. But what can possibly make up repelling all but the hardiest users, who most likely will have to work around it by installing firmware blobs anyway? There are plenty of alternatives that just work. Sure, the users that can run without blobs deserve a reward, so show them a congratulatory message on boot or something. There is precedent for not taking a hard line. Nearly all GNU software works on Windows, for entirely pragmatic reasons.
davexunit 3y ago
The thing is that the FSF's stance is already a pragmatic approach of sorts but the line is drawn in a strange place that doesn't really help advance the cause. The hard line approach of "all firmware must be free, too" would render basically every computer unusable, even RMS can see that's going too far to be practical. So, they make an abstraction boundary where "free" stops: If the kernel doesn't load the firmware then it's as if the chip is implemented completely in hardware. It's a practical decision because you have to stop somewhere otherwise you can't get anything done. I wish the FSF/GNU-aligned folks would just make a slightly different compromise that makes it a lot easier for people to start using free software distros. Not shipping CPU microcode updates is particularly harmful to users. 10 years ago it was not too hard to run a distro without firmware blobs on a laptop if you were cool with just getting a thinkpad, but modern intel hardware requires a blob for graphics so even that path is closed now. My 2022 thinkpad x1 needs blobs for graphics, wifi, bluetooth, and sound and I tried to find something modern that didn't need them and gave up eventually.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

Had a VM GUIX "system" (really I think its more of package manager overlay) for a while (18 months ago) but encountered some problems. The main feature AFAICS is that it maintains the state of the system and packages all very cleanly via it's own nix build system which is like a snapshot of everything. The sell is that it's very recoverable - in theory you can rebuild from a single file. That's very appealing for VMs that need to be moved about. Unfortunately I needed a couple of things that were available only through apt. Now, Guix said it was perfectly happy to mix package management, (a bit like mixing pkg and ports in BSD) - but don't do that. It all went horribly wrong with confusion over which binaries were running at any time and when I did try to port it, it broke. I like lispy things so will give Guix another try one day, but it needs you to fully embrace its philosophy and no half measures.

Cu3PO42 3y ago
> via its own nix build system Nix is conceptually extremely similar to Guix, but a different implementation! It uses its own programming language, also called Nix, and has a less strict stance on free software.
- ingenieroariel 3y ago
  Guix uses Nix under the hood (learned this when trying to compile it). Perhaps learning Nix first will let the grandparent be more effective in Guix later.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - davexunit 3y ago
    Guix forked and modified only the Nix build daemon which isn't user visible. Learning the Nix tools and language will not teach you very much about how to use Guix.
  - rekado 3y ago
    Guix includes a copy of the nix-daemon. It's a relatively small C++ program that manages the store. We reuse it because there was no point in writing a replacement for something as low-level as the daemon. Guix compiles its package definitions down to the same kind of file format that the old Nix daemon understands. (It's a bit funny to me that GNU has a reputation for NIH-ing projects, but when a GNU project doesn't reinvent the spokes on a wheel it also attracts various forms of criticism.)

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

I've been intrigued by Guix for a while; mainly because I like the idea of Nix but was very turned off by its language, when I was exposed to it through a job I had. One thing I liked about Nix was that it was possible to use its packaging and tools without actually using the NixOS. An old employer used this instead of Docker for managing build distribution. Can the Guix stuff be used the same way?

rekado 3y ago
Yes, see `guix pack` with its various backends.
davexunit 3y ago
You can use Guix as a package manager on top of another Linux distro. I used Guix on Ubuntu for several years.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Ok I'll give it a try. I like Lispy things. One thing I liked about nix in this capacity was the "nix-shell" facility, which could be used to create a whole hermetic dev environment with all the right versions of things and all the right environment variables set up, etc. Similar to similar uses of docker but more integrated with the rest of the system -- not as "sealed off" from the rest of the distribution, e.g. I could still use my emacs config inside it, etc.
  - slgeorge 3y ago
    Guix can create reproducible development environments that are "sealed off" from the rest of the distribution. It's called Guix shell and it's very flexible: * Guix Shell https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/29/guix-shell-virtual-environments-containers/ https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/29/guix-shell-virtual-envir... I did two specific posts about using it for 'development' environments. You can also 'fix' the environment (think a git hash) and use the declarative configuration to share it with others: * https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/30/guix-reproducible-dev-environments/ https://www.futurile.net/2023/04/30/guix-reproducible-dev-en... * https://www.futurile.net/2023/10/17/guix-time-travel-dev-environments/ https://www.futurile.net/2023/10/17/guix-time-travel-dev-env... Hope they help - if you have a play and get stuck the mailing list is really good and I posted about the Meetup further up.

Havoc 3y ago

>then it is kosher, otherwise it is haram Big fan of mixing & matching not just on hardware I see

Gormo 3y ago
That mixed metaphor popped out to me as well. What if what you're doing is analogous to a glass of wine? It's kosher and haram at the same time! Kosher is to treif as halal is to haram.
- Havoc 3y ago
  TIL. Didn’t know trief

slgeorge 3y ago

For those that don't know Guix can be used as: * a package manager on top of an existing Linux distribution (think apt or rpm) * a development environment (think Python venv but for any language) * a VM system (like Docker but declarative) * a Linux distribution (similar to Nix) It's a small and friendly community - we recently started an English-speaking online user-group: https://www.meetup.com/guix-london/ Next meetup is Monday next week - please come along! I also did an Intro post to some of the advantages and challenges a couple of years ago: https://www.futurile.net/2021/09/26/guix-alternative-to-snap-or-flatpak-on-ubuntu/ https://www.futurile.net/2021/09/26/guix-alternative-to-snap...

jcul 3y ago
I used to attend a C++ meetup in my previous city, but since have moved. I sometimes think about setting something up in my new city. Do you have any advice for getting a meetup off the ground? I guess meetup is still the best thing to use (it was what my old C++ user group used).
- slgeorge 3y ago
  We're a small group 5-10 people, so it's very informal and friendly. I'm sure Fabio (https://fabionatali.com/ https://fabionatali.com/) who organised it would have good advice! I'll say that from my perspective the fact that it's also virtual is really great as otherwise I couldn't attend!
graemep 3y ago
"Guix is a rolling release distribution, the versions of each application are updated continuously. The benefit of rolling releases is that enhancements are available immediately" The last time I looked at Guix a lot of packages were not up to date, and this included security updates for internet facing things (IIRC, one of the major web servers).
- slgeorge 3y ago
  New packages and updates to packages come into the archive continuously. For example, in roughly the last 24 hours 40 packages were added or updated - https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/log/ https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/log/ . Advantage of this is that you can use new packages immediately and there's no big 'upgrade'. Challenges are that if you were an enterprise and wanted to stick on an 'old' version this wouldn't the right distribution. Guix does receive security updates, and those are added to the archive immediately. I haven't had any problems myself. It's definitely a 'community' project, so you have to enjoy doing a bit of hacking!

danecek912 3y ago

Fly

eecc 3y ago

HOWEVER, and I hope this is a transient situation, there is a problem: in GNOME, applications that aren’t native Wayland apps don’t scale nicely. It’s like the app gets rendered to a texture at the original resolution, which then gets scaled up in a blurry way. Unfortunately that's how it works on all Linux distros since "this will be the year of Wayland". Last time I tried it was 2020, and I gave up when it turned out there were no alternatives to the off-screen rendering and scaling hack for Chrome, IntelliJ and VSCode. Sorry but my eyesight is already bad as it is.

zilti 3y ago
It simply does not matter, because all DEs are on Wayland now, everything supports it, and honestly, I haven't seen an application not supporting Wayland for quite some time. Even Chrome is Wayland-native now.
- Filligree 3y ago
  You don't run Discord, I take it... Meanwhile, it's apparently going to change soon, but Steam games generally use Xwayland.
  - tuetuopay 3y ago
    discord is electron and runs perfectly under wayland. a few flags to turn it on and you're good.
alwayslikethis 3y ago
This is largely a GNOME issue. KDE and Hyprland supports not scaling XWayland and a lot of X11 apps can scale themselves. VSCode and Chromium scales perfectly in Wayland now and IntelliJ can scale in X11.

Decabytes 3y ago

I really hope one day the Framework laptop will work with the major Linux Distributions with no asterisks. It will definitely require work on both Framework and the Distro maintainer's part, but it is getting better every month. Hopefully if Framework becomes more successful, they will have more say in the hardware manufacturing process, and they will be able to devote more resources to Linux compatibility. I have no need for a laptop now, but maybe a Framework will be in my future if this happens

acomjean 3y ago
I’m not sure they have the resources but shipping with Linux installed would be awesome. I’m always surprised at the lack of choice hardware with pre installed Linux. But the framework seems to have a lot of users running Linux so it’s probably a great choice.
nrp 3y ago
We focus on making sure that the most popular distros work smoothly. Currently, Ubuntu LTS and Fedora are the two that we provide official support for, since they are the most popular choices for folks who are either new to Linux or aren’t especially interested in tinkering with their OS: https://frame.work/linux https://frame.work/linux
- aetherspawn 3y ago
  Whoops, accidentally downvoted when meaning to upvote. Sorry! Thank you for focusing on the mainstream distributions. If our company ever transitioned to Linux on laptops (it would be a stretch because of Office365… probably the best we could do is macOS), we would be targeting Fedora. This is because only the mainstream distros have MDM features.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  We have a couple of them and were quite happy with the exception of a few minor issues. However the lack of shipping (not beta) firmware updates on a regular schedule has given me pause to recommend framework to others, at least until that gets rectified.

e12e 3y ago

> ... good compilation speed ... And earlier: > open /etc/config.scm, add the needed lines as described in the operating-system part of the nonguix README, reconfigure, and reboot. Building Linux takes a little less than an hour on this machine. This is for a system bootstrap of guix/Linux - not just the kernel and modules, surely?

thelopa 3y ago
They needed to compile the kernel because they were using the full kernel. The main package repository (and thus the main binary caches) only include a de-blobbed version of the kernel. To get standard Linux including all the blobs, you need to use the “nonguix” package repository. The nonguix folks do have a binary cache server, but using it during install is slightly annoying. I currently have a guix vm compiling Linux for exactly this reason. Since you likely won’t be installing much else from nonguix during system setup, you only need to compile the kernel and other bloby things you choose to include (e.g. firmware, microcode).
- e12e 3y ago
  Isn't an hour a long time for a kernel compile?

bsimpson 3y ago

Wow, the Free Software people can be insufferable. From the README on the attached Nonguix escape hatch: > Please do NOT promote this repository on any official Guix communication channels, such as their mailing lists or IRC channel, even in response to support requests! This is to show respect for the Guix project’s strict policy against recommending nonfree software, and to avoid any unnecessary hostility. > This channel does not endorse any non-free application. We believe it is non-ethical, harmful to software development and restricts the users freedom. See the GNU philosophy for a more thorough discussion. So it's Nix, but on extra-hard mode because of some impractical restrictions outlined by the author?

rekado 3y ago
I'm used to being called "insufferable" for working on free software. Still a bit harsh judgment of people who at the end of the day still produce software that you are free to use for any purpose or ignore, no? > So it's Nix, but on extra-hard mode because of some impractical restrictions outlined by the author? It's not Nix, and no, there are no impractical restrictions, nor is it hard to extend Guix with a wealth of third-party channels. See other comments here that attempt to address this and other misconceptions surrounding Guix.

orangetuba 3y ago

[flagged]

tombert 3y ago

I haven't ever used Guix, but I am a huge fan of NixOS, and my understanding is the Guix is trying for a similar experience. The reason that I've never attempted to really use Guix is because I'm a bit worried that I'd have driver trouble because of the LibreLinux kernel and no non-free stuff in the core repos. To anyone that has used both Guix and NixOS, how do they compare? Do you feel like Guix is a better experience if you get past the driver problems?

School-Cotton 3y ago
You can add the nonguix channel to Guix which gives you normal linux kernel, nvidia drivers, etc. Check out the system-crafters distribution, IIRC it includes nonguix by default.

mmcnl 3y ago

> HOWEVER, and I hope this is a transient situation, there is a problem: in GNOME, applications that aren’t native Wayland apps don’t scale nicely. Transient situations are almost permanent in Linux land. This has been a problem for a long time and I don't see a solution coming in the near future. But maybe I'm wrong (I hope so!).

stebalien 3y ago
This is an issue with any software that tries to maintain backwards compatibility, not Linux. Windows has: - Many years worth of different control panels. - Little consistency with respect to toolkits in general. - Fractional scaling issues in applications using older toolkits (e.g., open up the policy editor and notice the blurry fonts). Microsoft is actually giving up here and has been experimenting with ML-based scaling for old applications (an approach I expect we'll eventually see in Linux as well). Apple handles this by breaking compatibility every so often, forcing old software out of the picture.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  I notice that even the blurry scaling on Windows looks better than what we have on Linux. It seems that they have some special algorithm for that. Anyone who knows how it is implemented can chime in here?
  - marwis 3y ago
    It's definitely better than bilinear and bicubic. Looks like Lanczos but with some optimization for ClearType.
- Eduard 3y ago
  Window's backward compatibility is way better though. There are plenty of GNOME extensions and applications that just don't work anymore under modern GNOME Wayland. Example: all the redshift applications and extensions for lowering the screen brightness.

bandrami 3y ago

Linux-libre makes some... odd... choices in deblobbing. The most recent one that bit me was the new rtw driver which includes literal GPL licensed blobs as C files full of binary arrays. Users are absolutely free to modify and reveng these but lin-lib got rid of them because their purpose is opaque. It is, obviously, but that is just poorly documented free software and if we're going to start ripping that out there isn't going to be much at all left. As it is if you want wifi you have to find an older Atheros (pre ath10k) or older realtek (pre 88XX) device, and these are decidedly thin on the ground; I just spent two days crawling through stacks of laptops at Sim Lim in Singapore before I found one.

jamesbfb 3y ago

My work laptop just rolled over 3 years which means it’s new laptop time. After spending some time convincing the higher ups at work, I have a new Framework 13 coming my way (and not HP whateverbook). I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a bit of hardware in a long time.

Tmpod 3y ago
Unless the device is malfunctioning or otherwise damaged in a meaningful way, I don't see why it would be time for new a laptop, after only 3 years. I bought mine with the prospect of it lasting at least 6 years (and it's going strong 2/3 in already), but I don't plan on replacing it unless it breaks down or prevents me from working on my stuff for other reasons. Anyway, good choice on the new laptop. My next device will likely be a FrameWork or similar (who knows how the landscape will be then).
- jamesbfb 3y ago
  This is a fair call, and normally I would run my laptop into the ground, but my HP Elite Book has this habit of thinking it’s still charging when it’s not. The only way around this is to let it drain to 0% battery and all would be good for another few weeks. Luckily all I need to do is let PyCharm index a project and it’ll drain to 0% within an hour.
- rowanG077 3y ago
  I haven't ever had a laptop USB ports last more then 3 years. In fact my last laptop, an XPS 13, had failing USB-C ports within 1.5 years. I admit I probably connect an USB device 5-10 times per day.
  - heyoni 3y ago
    Same here. I use two USB c ports multiple times per day…but never had one fail.
  - fransje26 3y ago
    Use a cheap dock to plug/unplug your devices into 5-10 times per day, and change that when the USB port fails?

mise_en_place 3y ago

I would use Guix but it just doesn’t seem to be stable nor polished. If you enjoy running on bleeding edge it seems to be the distro for you.

mrh57 3y ago
How do you mean? If you're talking not stable as in it's rolling release, then yes that's true although it isn't unique to Guix. But if you mean leaves your system vulnerable to breakages, large unwanted changes, system entropy, or inconsistencies, then surely Guix (and Nix) are more stable than virtually every other distro (and maybe even MacOS or Windows)? I'm also not sure I would say Guix is particularly unpolished compared to other distros. The project is 10 years old at this point, has a very active (albeit not huge) community, and has some of the clearest/most extensive documentation I've read for a distro. Perhaps 5-ish years ago it had some rough edges, but I'd say now they're quite comparable to other mainstream distros. As someone who has been using Guix as my primary OS for the past ~2 years on a <5 year old laptop (with a proprietary wifi card) for programming, media, web stuff, and light games, I'd say it's a great experience. Not that the learning curve is not large or that community resources couldn't be better, but if you're already using GNU/Linux I don't think it will feel any less stable/polished.