Guix: A most advanced operating system | Hacker News Reader

Guix: A most advanced operating system

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43 pointspodiki12 comments

I've just put Guix on a new desktop and have been really enjoying it. Required a bit of work, but I love anything Lisp related so it has been a joy to do the hacking. Also, a great and active community for its size, very helpful group.

I think Guix is amazing, but I went for Nix because I want nothing to do with GNU Guile and the terrible activism and bullying associated with it.

> the terrible activism and bullying associated with it.

Could you please elaborate on that, or give some examples? I never heard of Guile besides it's used in Guix, so I'm an ignorant of the subject.

Look up Andy Wingo, one of the Guile developers, and his woke crusade against Stallman. It's a mess and I haven't collected all the historical references, but some of it is referenced here: https://gnu.support/richard-stallman/Ludovic-Court%C3%A8s-Gu...

The GUIX maintainers crusade against RMS is even bigger. You can easily classify him as the worst RMS defamer in recent history

I’m just getting started with Nix, as it seems more mature than Guix. The argument the article makes is that using a real language (Guile Scheme) over a proprietary DSL (Nix Language) is a better proposition. Can anyone offer any anecdata on that, having used both or either? Does Nix’s inertia overcome its DSL which, while I find a bit ugly, doesn’t strike me as hard to work with?

Nix's DSL is just that - domain-specific.

Its laziness + it's record system and all the sugar around it are perfect for a package manager config language.

I love Nix-the-language even as someone who loves Scheme.

Now if Nix-the-language had an s-expression frontend..I would always prefer that. But the core language is great.

Indeed; from what I’ve played with it, it does everything it needs to. I’m a big Scheme fan too, but if Nix does the job, then why overcomplicate it?

It reminds me of HCL, which I know people love to hate on, but I’ve always found eminently useable.

Agreed, I wonder how Guix can manage to work the same (does it?) as Nix if the language is not restricted in this way. (PS: I too would prefer parens over semicolons :))

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2018/multi-dimensional-transact... discusses some deeper ways that Guix and NixOS differ, beyond the syntax. See the "On coupling" section.

I have briefly tried Guix, and like it, but NixOS works well enough for me that I don't see a strong reason to look more into Guix.

That's a broken link, here's the correct link http://guix.gnu.org/blog/2018/multi-dimensional-transactions...

Do I have to use emacs if I was to try out Guix?

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