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?
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.
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.
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.
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" ;)
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!
This[1] is the one I used as a reference for my kernel build which includes brcmfmac
There is also a feature called 'channels' (not widely documented AFAIK) which allows you to describe an outside repository of code you can reference to install packages. There is one[2] that provides Chromium (though I cannot get the build to succeed).
The downside to all of these not being provided in mainline is the amount of time and energy to build them. I suspect there are more people than I would like curating their build of the linux kernel, manually specifying drivers included in the kernel. I really wish the community were a little less hard-set on the principle of 'freedom' and a little more pragmatic; I am sure the community is smaller due to people being turned away at the sheer amount of effort required to get their machine to a usable state.
[1]: https://github.com/wingo/guix-nonfree [2]: https://gitlab.com/mbakke/guix-chromium
They actually don't draw it exactly where I would. I don't care so much for games if they're open/free or not (it's nice when they are of course), but I am concerned with unauditable code on, for instance, the SATA controllers in my machine, even if it 'read only' code. Where the FSF is more concerned with the first and less with the second.
On the other topic, I think the ability to create (and share) your own recipes/channels for software on Guix allows for people to create fairly easy ways to install non-free software (or using Nix on top of GuixSD) without the Guix team having to support unethical software.
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/packag... [2] http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/
https://gist.github.com/steve-ayerhart/81c9dfc773472e08002cd...
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 .
> I guess that my WiFi wouldn't work.
Maybe, maybe not; see 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.