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What are your opinions of Guix? (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 10 months ago by CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml
49 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Reposting because it looks like federation failed.

I was just reading about it, it sounds like a pretty cool OS and package manager. Has anyone actually used it?

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[–] Ramin_HAL9001@lemmy.ml 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

So I think Guix (and Nix) is the most technologically advanced package manager in existence, and I hope someday all package managers work like Guix.

One other very interesting feature about Guix ~~(which I don't think Nix is doing yet)~~ (which Nix also does) is that they have implemented a fully verifiable bootstrap, meaning every step of building the kernel, including the steps taken to build the C compiler toolchain, are produced by code that is simple enough for a group of humans to check for correctness and safety. Also, every step of the build process exists in the package repository, with no reliance on externally built binaries for anything, not even the C compiler toolchain. They accomplish this with a multi-phase bootstrap process, where a smaller, simpler C compiler is used to build GCC.

Do I use Guix? Well, no. Simply put, it is not quite to the point where it just works on a lot of the computer hardware that I own. With a bit more work, with a few more developers, and a bit more money invested, Guix could pretty soon become as reliable and useful as Debian or Fedora. But it is not quite there yet. And frankly, I have other more important things to do than worry about debugging problems with the operating system I am using.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

meaning every step of building the kernel, including the steps taken to build the C compiler toolchain, are produced by code that is simple enough to check for correctness and safety.

Full-source bootstrap isn't about just the kernel, it affects every piece of software. With GUIX and Nix, every single package can be fully traced back to the bootstrap seed.

Though it should be noted that you do require a running Linux kernel on an x86 machine in order to bootstrap.

it is not quite to the point where it /just works/ on a lot of the computer hardware that I own.

Unless we get some serious money, effort and/or regulation w.r.t. OSS firmware, that will likely never be the case.
That has nothing to do with its technology though, that's a political issue. GUIX is a GNU project and acts like proprietary software does not exist/is not a basic necessity in 2023.

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

GUIX is a GNU project and acts like proprietary software does not exist/is not a basic necessity in 2023.

Gross oversimplification, Guix absolutely knows that proprietary software exists, but also Guix is a project that values transparent build process (unlike Nix, which allows binaries and nonfree packages).

If you don't have the requisite bare metal to run Guix by itself, you can run it as a foreign package manager (on top of your existing distribution), in a virtual machine, or alongside package channels outside of guix that package nonfree software.

The linux-libre kernel is only an issue for Guix System (the analogue to NixOS for Nix) and for users who need that specific hardware to be used. Guix is a breath of fresh air in package managers who attempt to sweep nonfree software under the rug and try to make the issue invisible.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you don’t have the requisite bare metal to run Guix by itself

That's a bit disingenuous wording as modern hardware that can run without proprietary firmware is an absolute rarity at this point.

The vast majority of people on earth do not have access to such hardware.

The linux-libre kernel is only an issue for Guix System (the analogue to NixOS for Nix)

Point taken. I was talking about the OS aspect of both though, given that @Ramin_HAL9001@lemmy.ml compared it to Debian and Fedora.

The project should have really kept the GuixSD name. Much clearer separation and also sounds a lot better.

package managers who attempt to sweep nonfree software under the rug and try to make the issue invisible.

Which ones?

In Nix, you get a giant red error when you try to eval unfree software and need to explicitly opt-in.

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

That’s a bit disingenuous wording as modern hardware that can run without proprietary firmware is an absolute rarity at this point.

But it's not impossible, nor is it something that can't be solved in the future with CPU architectures like RISC-V.

The project should have really kept the GuixSD name. Much clearer separation and also sounds a lot better.

Agreed.

package managers who attempt to sweep nonfree software under the rug and try to make the issue invisible.

I should have been more clear, excluding nonfree blobs were widely decided to be a lost cause across the distribution space. The final being Debian very recently. Tbh I do sometimes wish that Guix took the Nix approach with hardware-configuration.nix, but the fact remains is that the Guix maintainers do not wish to maintain nonfree packages and I respect that decision as Guix doesn't go out of its way to prevent others from installing the nonfree blobs/packages themselves.

[–] OmnipotentEntity 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Nix is also working on reproducible builds. In fact, the minimal installation CD for NixOS last release was reproducible. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-reproducible-builds-minimal-installation-iso-successfully-independently-rebuilt/34756/

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Another interesting thing about Guix is that it compiles everything itself (with an option to outsource the heavy lifting in case you're on a Raspberry Pi or something). Layers of abstraction not talking to each other properly is a conceptual pet peeve of mine, so I like the idea of everything being visible to the compiler like that.

[–] Ramin_HAL9001@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

As far as I understand it, Guix will download pre-built binaries for most packages from a cache by default, and the Guix OS distribution makes sure the x86_64 binaries for the latest package descriptions are always cached, so you should usually not have to locally build packages.

But of course you can easily tweak the default configuration of packages you install and trigger a local re-build of those packages, since changing the configuration of any package causes a cache miss.

[–] ultra@feddit.ro 13 points 10 months ago

It's NixOS but more free and with scheme instead of nix

[–] cyclohexane@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Guix is almost like nix but with scheme, right? Any other differences?

I do like scheme. Nix is quite impressive. But my unpopular opinion is I am not convinced it's philosophy is necessary. Nix feels like a workaround to legacy baggage in POSIX to allow for all its features of full reproducibility of packages and the overall system. Although Gentoo is not exactly reproducible, I feel like the level of control is sufficient to give me the benefits I want.

Nix works for maybe 95% of cases, but the 5% where its workarounds do not work sre annoying to deal with. Gentoo on the other hand doesn't break so much from the traditional unix way of doing things, but still grants the user a great load of freedom and choice.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Based on what I've heard so far: GNU Shepard instead of systemd, a package manager that compiles things from source and allows user-defined compiler options, a totally different way of arranging system files, and Guile-Scheme is used for everything; it sounds like there's no other kind of configuration anywhere.

It also uses Linux-libre by default, although you can go back to plain Linux, and they're working on Hurd.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago

The biggest difference between Nix and Guix is that Guix doesn’t support non-foss software, meaning you can’t use it as a package manager on other operating systems. I originally wanted to use Guix but use a Mac for work, so that became a deal breaker.

Nix is pretty awesome as a package manager, I’ve been happy with it after the truly unnecessary learning curve brutality. I do not imagine I would ever use the full OS though.

[–] axelf@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Using Scheme instead of a purely functional language like Nix as the Nix/Guix expression language is a bold choice I am not sure I agree with.

[–] Ramin_HAL9001@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Using Scheme instead of a purely functional language like Nix as the Nix/Guix expression language is a bold choice I am not sure I agree with.

Scheme is the most functional of all non-purely-functional languages that I know of. What's more, the parts of Guix in which packages are defined are quite pure, even using monads for some things, so it is really not too different from the Nix language.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

the parts of Guix in which packages are defined are quite pure, even using monads for some things

Monads have nothing to do with purity. In fact, one of the most infamous usages of them is Haskell's IO monad which is probably the most impure construct in the entire language.

it is really not too different from the Nix language.

Hm, I can't help but think that a lisp dialect can never really be similar to any language except another lisp.

[–] Spore@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

No, monadic interface is used to programmatically access the store instead of being used to define packages. Packages are pure in Guix.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So I guess they just wanted to use an established language?

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Guile Scheme is the official extensions language for the GNU Project. Guile and Guix's history often intersect as Guix is seen as the shining poster child of Guile and contributes to a lot of Guile's development.

When you say "Scheme" you should also refer to what type of Scheme you're referring to as there are multiple with different feature sets/goals.

[–] Spore@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Guix uses Guile everywhere. Nix uses string interpolated Bash and Perl for anything impure.

Now what do you think?

[–] Octorine@midwest.social 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I tried and failed to install it on my laptop last year. Couldn't figure out the problem and went back to pop. I'm messing around with it in a vm, though, and liking it a lot. I may try again when I have some more time to troubleshoot.

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

OP didn't clarify whether they were talking about Guix System or Guix the package manager, but a great use case for Guix (and for Nix as well) is it can be installed on top of a stable distro (or a distro that provides binary blobs) like Debian or POP!_OS to get the latest versions of desired packages.

Just wanted to mention that.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago

OP didn’t clarify whether they were talking about Guix System or Guix the package manager

That was actually deliberate. I pretty much figured it's niche enough to discuss them all together without confusion.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

it may be because you were using the default libre kernel, which is missing lots of microcode for your drivers. You need to add a substitute binary server that points to non-guix, which you can then use to supplant the libre kernel with the mainline one.

[–] Octorine@midwest.social 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I thought that, but I had identical results using the stock install media and the modified nonguix one from systemcrafters.

The weird thing was that the initial install went fine, even after the first reboot. The problem was the next boot after my first system reconfigure.

Not only could I not boot my system after that, but I couldn't boot the install media either. The only thing that would work was the installer for the most recent pop os.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That sounds like a BIOS issue. I sometimes get these on my laptop where I installed an EFI partition but my laptop was in some legacy mode, and I need to fiddle with my boot options and disable various features until the system "sees" the boot partition in the same way the OS "saw" it

[–] Octorine@midwest.social 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was thinking something to do with nonvolitile memory.

The real problem was that the guided install - guix pull - system reconfigure - reboot process took about three to four hours each time, so I gave up after a few iterations.

I did try playing around with bios settings a little, but I'm sure I missed some possibilities.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

guix pull - system reconfigure - reboot process took about three to four hours each time,

That's exceptionally long. Could it be that you were building every tool from scratch, and weren't using any binary servers?

[–] Octorine@midwest.social 2 points 10 months ago

I'm pretty sure I was set up for substitutes, but this was a while ago.

I did end up replacing my router a few months after that, so it may have just been that my connection was very slow.

Also, every time I tried it and it didn't work, I had to do a full Pop Os install in order for myguix install media to start working again, which added a few minutes to the process.

[–] Spore@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nobody has mentioned that Guix is readily available on NixOS right now? Add a line to your config and it's ready to go. Compatible with everything else.

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[–] Sims@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

I absolutely love it, and I'm never going back to an ordinary distribution again. I do fine regarding software. I use standard channels, non-free channel, flatpaks and a few appimages. I can't think of anything i'm missing atmo..

[–] LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol 3 points 10 months ago

It looks like a cool distro if you want/need a highly configurable package manager that makes your system easily reproducible.

But if you're just looking to learn more about Linux and learn more about how your system is set up then your average distro you might just want to go with Arch, Void, or Gentoo.

[–] urfavlaura@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's like Nix but has some extra features and uses Scheme instead of a custom language.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That's barely an opinion, haha! That's pretty much just what it is.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I tried it out one single time and it failed to install or update or something. Had to then find all the places it had inserted itself into in my system. Later I found out it's based on some LISP variant. Even later I found out you can't install firefox with it because of gnu or something?
That all combined dissuaded me from touching it again.

nix has terrible documentation, but it's kinda worked for me, so I'm sticking with it.

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Later I found out it’s based on some LISP variant.

Wait how did you find out it was written in Scheme after you installed it? Sounds like someone didn't do their research.

firefox

Mozilla is picky with where their trademark is being used, not a "GNU specific" problem, it had affected Debian for years before Mozilla backed off. Guix instead uses GNU Icecat which is a completely libre web browser that doesn't run proprietary JS by default. Of course you can still install Firefox since Guix community members have already packaged it in their own channels.

nix has terrible documentation

One thing that Guix excels at.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wait how did you find out it was written in Scheme after you installed it? Sounds like someone didn’t do their research.

Yes, I read all specs before installing anything I ever use. Before using the internet I researched the entire IP stack, studied computer science, and am right now using smokes signals captured by a camera at exactly 1 FPS to encode my bits so that you can read them.

🙄

One thing that Guix excels at.

L
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[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, I read all specs before installing anything I ever use.

It's literally in the front page of the project. https://guix.gnu.org/

Hackable. It provides Guile Scheme APIs, including high-level embedded domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to define packages and whole-system configurations.

No idea how you survive Nix's scattered documentation.

L
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lmao.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Hackable. It provides Guile Scheme APIs, including high-level embedded domain-specific languages (EDSLs) to define packages and whole-system configurations.

"provides Guile Scheme APIs". Yeah, I provide this software in Slint. This software provides Linux APIs. This software provides HTTP APIs. kek

What a helpful description.

No idea how you survive Nix’s scattered documentation.

Nix's documentation doesn't try to invent a new way to say "this was written in $language" and has less members like you around. Much easier to deal with.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

These two posts are really enlightening:

How I Built My New Linux Gaming Desktop In 2021 With Amd Cpugpu And Gnu Guix

I Love Arch But Gnu Guix Is My New Distro

From the last, there is a non guix project including packages for guix, which are not officially supported given hey are not free software. I recommend taking a look at the last post at least, since it comes from someone who used Arch, and made the move to Guix, not just opinions from people like me, who haven't ever used Guix.

That said, Guix is in my TODO list. The thing is that I want to learn a bit more than minimal Guile, so I can write packages myself (there are always missing packages, even on Arch/Artix + AUR, I always have the need to whether tweak something at some point, or create a package still not in there), and also deal with my own services to run with shepherd. So I don't want to blindly try things out...

It shares with Nix the reproducible build of everything, but the language it uses is Guile, which has some history. Nix has its own language. To me that's a plus on Guix. But the most important part, is that the official repos are all for free software, and then on the non guix project one can look for non free software pieces, which to me this is also a plus. I guest most might differ.

But again, if you want to try it, even if it's just because of curiosity, why not doing it so? I hope those prior posts from someone who migrated there might be helpful.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago

Yes, that's a great review! Having one language for everything also sounds pretty great. A hard line on nonfree software is pretty tough, but I'm glad to hear you can "downgrade" back to the Linux kernel if you need to deal with a GPU or something.

[–] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't like the idea of configuring pm (or anything else) using a programming language. So I would try nix first if I feel that I need it. However I don't.

[–] ultra@feddit.ro 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

nix is a programming language too

[–] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

Thank you, I forgot this.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

Not quite: It's an expression language.

The ultimate output of Nix is one set of data, usually the description of a derivation (~= package). You cannot cause arbitrary side-effects with it like writing to files or making network requests with it.