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Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

guix.gnu.org

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Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#21

Post by rudolph9 »

qqii wrote: post #10
LockAndLol wrote: post #3

I see that guix is a declarative package manager like nix. Where does it have a leg up over nix? And how's the GUI integration with KDE and gnome? Is there a backend for KDE Discover or the Gnome Software Center? Finally, I see that installation goes over a "curl | bash", which imo is a pretty insecure method of installation. I can understand why such an insecure method exists (so many different ways of installing so…

This post is a pretty good example, for I don't know of any nix projects that are attempting to work on the bootstrapping problem. Guix pack[0] solves a parallel issue of distributing your nicely dependancy managed ecosystem whereas nix's alternative with nix-bundle barely works. At the moment neither have gui integration and unfortunately both could use a lot of work with onboarding and beginner (I'm taking non prog…

I like the container support! Declarative containers is an area where Dockerfiles fall short in my experience.

I’ve been using the NixOS container support which has drastically streamlined and unified the largely similar but many small variations of containers that I use https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/#ch-containers

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#22

Post by mbakke »

nvahalik wrote: post #2

Who funds Guix development? This this one of those experimental/hobby/academic projects? I never hear anything about Guix outside of HN or F/OSS boards (and even then, very little). How does it continue?

The answer is "all of the above". Guix is largely community-driven, but receives donations[0] as well as sponsored work like the NLnet grant mentioned in the article. In addition some research institutions employ Guix developers[1].

Personally I have used Guix to convert a CentOS "appliance" into a full-blown desktop system, on a professional contract[2].

0: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2018/gnu-guix-receives-donation-fr...

1: https://hpc.guix.info/

2: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/running-a-guix-xfce-desktop-o...

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#23

Post by ssivark »

qqii wrote: post #10
LockAndLol wrote: post #3

I see that guix is a declarative package manager like nix. Where does it have a leg up over nix? And how's the GUI integration with KDE and gnome? Is there a backend for KDE Discover or the Gnome Software Center? Finally, I see that installation goes over a "curl | bash", which imo is a pretty insecure method of installation. I can understand why such an insecure method exists (so many different ways of installing so…

This post is a pretty good example, for I don't know of any nix projects that are attempting to work on the bootstrapping problem. Guix pack[0] solves a parallel issue of distributing your nicely dependancy managed ecosystem whereas nix's alternative with nix-bundle barely works. At the moment neither have gui integration and unfortunately both could use a lot of work with onboarding and beginner (I'm taking non prog…

> At the moment neither have gui integration and unfortunately both could use a lot of work with onboarding and beginner (I'm taking non programmers) friendliness.

I think non-programmer friendliness can wait till there are enough technical users that the superficial daily-experience bugs get ironed out, and also the newbies have a social support system for onboarding. Trying to jump that curve will prove painful in the long term.

I would love to see the guidance and tools for technical users to try this out and start switching over the next few years.

AFAIK, Gnome/KDE or some other DE can be built/installed like any other package, so one can certainly have pretty much any GUI, just like any other Linux distribution.

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#25

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

LockAndLol wrote: post #3

I see that guix is a declarative package manager like nix. Where does it have a leg up over nix? And how's the GUI integration with KDE and gnome? Is there a backend for KDE Discover or the Gnome Software Center? Finally, I see that installation goes over a "curl | bash", which imo is a pretty insecure method of installation. I can understand why such an insecure method exists (so many different ways of installing so…

> Finally, I see that installation goes over a "curl | bash", which imo is a pretty insecure method of installation

So comparing https://nixos.org/download.html and https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Binary-Installation... - nix is curl | sh from a https address; guix is wget && chmod +x && run shell script. Both also have a trivially-available way to do GPG verification before running anything. So I'd call them pretty close.

In absolute terms, honestly I'm not sure it is that big of a deal; default protection is HTTPS, and GPG is easily available. The only obvious issue that I see is that nix might be vulnerable to the truncated-stream issue; I forget whether that can happen over HTTPS or not.

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#26

Post by not2b »

dilandau wrote: post #24

Is anybody using this? What do you like about it versus a more typical linux or unix? Is hardware support good enough to run on a relatively recent laptop?

That isn't the purpose. It isn't for end users to run. It's to be able to have confidence that the object code in a software distribution depends only on the source code, and not on something that a clever attacker has managed to sneak in, using a variant of the Thompson "trusting trust" attack.

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#27

Post by ryukafalz »

artistsvoid wrote: post #5
nvahalik wrote: post #2

Who funds Guix development? This this one of those experimental/hobby/academic projects? I never hear anything about Guix outside of HN or F/OSS boards (and even then, very little). How does it continue?

It's part of GNU [0] (which in itself is a community), but GNU as a whole is additionally funded in part by the FSF [1] ; And then as always: volunteers. I suspect since Guix heavily utilizes Lisp quite a few Emacs lovers might watch Guix closely and even contribute ; students might pick GNU projects as part of a thesis et cetera. And I am unsure how 'active' development is, I have no insight, but it has been in exis…

>I suspect since Guix heavily utilizes Lisp quite a few Emacs lovers might watch Guix closely and even contribute

As an Emacs user who contributes packages occasionally - yup, that's about right! It's a really natural combination. Every so often I'll run across something I want that's not yet packaged for Guix, and if you're used to hacking on elisp the Guix package definitions aren't too hard to get the hang of.

I think it's the only distro I've used that readily accepts new packages from the community (with review of course) - haven't used it myself but I think NixOS/nixpkgs is similar in that regard.

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#28

Post by rudolph9 »

artistsvoid wrote: post #19
qqii wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In GNU fashion they're using savannah mailing lists and email patches so to those who are comfortable with git{hub,lab} it's slightly less familiar. Here is their git repository: https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/guix Here is the web interface to their issues and patches mailing list: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/ As you can see although the project is less popular, it is no less actively developed and you can easily…

I fear it being 'GNU' they will shoot themselves in the foot somehow. Bad marketing, unnecessarily geeky and childish nomenclature, GPLv3 and make it all free software, no proprietary drivers, hard to get proprietary third party software to install et cetera... 'GNU Guix is a transactional package manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that respects user freedom.'[0] NixOS is developed using the MIT l…

Yeah this is my take on it too. While I deeply admire the GNU philosophy and practice I debated adopting NixOS or Guix a few months ago and ultimately adopted NixOS as I got the same vibe as you.

That said I really want to learn more about Guix. It seems like a more pure impl of a functional package manager but haven’t worked with it enough to know the difference.

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#29

Post by paroneayea »

blahbhthrow3748 wrote: post #6

This is extremely neat but the name "gash" is... a poor choice. Gory in standard English, worse as a slang term

I don't think it's intended as that slang... I think it's probably in the scheme tradition of self-deprecating conspiratorial names... I suspect it's meant to invoke that theme.

Not to mention that "bash" sounds like a concussive injury; "gash" sounds like a slicing injury. So follows that theme also.

I would be very surprised if genitalia slang came up in the author's mind as a choice of names but I guess I don't know them.

Re: Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25%

#30

Post by civodul »

artistsvoid wrote: post #5
nvahalik wrote: post #2

Who funds Guix development? This this one of those experimental/hobby/academic projects? I never hear anything about Guix outside of HN or F/OSS boards (and even then, very little). How does it continue?

It's part of GNU [0] (which in itself is a community), but GNU as a whole is additionally funded in part by the FSF [1] ; And then as always: volunteers. I suspect since Guix heavily utilizes Lisp quite a few Emacs lovers might watch Guix closely and even contribute ; students might pick GNU projects as part of a thesis et cetera. And I am unsure how 'active' development is, I have no insight, but it has been in exis…

The latest release notes at https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2020/gnu-guix-1.1.0-released/ give some insights about the project's activity. Currently there's ~90 monthly contributors and ~1,700 commits per month. It's active. :-)
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