- 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.
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_Ref...
Opened up 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.
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 :)
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.
Personally, I avoid proprietary software where I can, but I've found myself in many situations where I'm made to use it. But that's really the point: the free software movement's goal is to create a world in which people are no longer compelled or coerced or forced into being mistreated by proprietary software. You don't need to subscribe to these values, of course, but it is unfortunate if you experience this goal as a personal judgment. Keep in mind that one of the four software freedoms is the freedom to use software for any purpose you want --- judgement of users would be a completely misdirected emotion.
Having said that, the Guix project's communication channels simply aren't for proprietary software. The Nonguix communication channels are. The HPC channels are. You will likely get redirected to those communication channels if you ask about proprietary software on Guix project channels.
Directions for using Guix in practice (i.e. with some non-free software) could definitely be easier to find, especially if you start green and don’t know what you’re meant to be looking for. But the system won’t get in your way.
Now, seemingly there are channels that would deal with this. But when I asked through the official channels, I was told not to do that -- that is, "don't use nvidia dummy", which really isn't an option. I was never pointed to the non-free channel.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
Is it like Devuan to Debian?
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.