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I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

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Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#101

Post by zelphirkalt »

masklinn wrote: post #73
zelphirkalt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what level exactly a beginner is, but I have my problems with Guix docs too. Try making a package for example. Took me a long time and multiple questions on mailing list and irc to get it done. People also recommend more than 1 different strategies. Then try upgrading a package, when there are some files you want to exclude. How to do that? Seems I can not find answers for my questions in the docs and always…

> Not sure what level exactly a beginner is, but I have my problems with Guix docs too. Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying guix is better (I have absolutely no idea), just that the experience with nix is extremely rough so nix being a bit more popular is not necessarily that much of an edge (or one at all). > I like Guix as package manager, but their docs can definitely be improved with loads of examples and tutor…

I wrote down all I learned here: https://notabug.org/ZelphirKaltstahl/gnu-guile-gnu-guix-pack... (or use org-mode file in same repo)

I've not yet had the energy or patience to learn the TexInfo format, which is a standard for GNU projects. But if anyone wants to put what I have in the Guix docs, even as merely an example or tutorial, I wont mind.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#102

Post by wheelerof4te »

wiz21c wrote: post #95
marcan_42 wrote: post #27

> Guix System is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system. It uses the Linux-libre kernel It's worth pointing out that the linux-libre kernel is developed under the FSF doctrine that "binary blobs are bad unless you can't see them". This has been taken to its logical extreme here, where this Linux fork actively removes security warnings informing users that they need to update their CPU microcode , becaus…

> arbitrary religious dogma "arbitrary political view" there's a difference, it matters.

It is a religion at this point.

Political views have parties and parties have supporters. FSF is more like a cult that has followers.

How else do you explain their rejection to include Debian as a fully free distro?

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#103

Post by raverbashing »

kzhukov wrote: post #74
marcan_42 wrote: post #27

> Guix System is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system. It uses the Linux-libre kernel It's worth pointing out that the linux-libre kernel is developed under the FSF doctrine that "binary blobs are bad unless you can't see them". This has been taken to its logical extreme here, where this Linux fork actively removes security warnings informing users that they need to update their CPU microcode , becaus…

Well, for some people loading an arbitrary binary code without possibility to check what's inside it is a critical security issue as well.

Yeah. Then these geniuses get bitten by Spectre/Meltdown because they were too scared of running the microcode update. For real.

I agree, if that's the position of Guix, I don't want it in my machine.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#104

Post by vaylian »

wiz21c wrote: post #99
marcan_42 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their approach is firmly stuck in the computing paradigm of the 70s and 80s, much like Stallman is personally stuck in the social narrative of the same era. The FSF and him refuse to change and adapt to the times. But since reality doesn't care about their refusal to adapt, and they can't just throw their hands up in the air and say nothing is free any more and you should just live off the grid and reject all technol…

God doesn't exist, that doesn't prevent him of being. The quest for freedom is, of course, an idealistic one. The important thing is that, in their fight to promote freedom, they meet obstacles. Those friction points reveal the lack of freedom. And so, although they don't reach freedom, they actually show that freedom is limited. IOW, refusing the statu quo is one of the way to change it. You should look at history a…

> The important thing is that, in their fight to promote freedom, they meet obstacles. Those friction points reveal the lack of freedom. And so, although they don't reach freedom, they actually show that freedom is limited.

Well said. If problems are not openly demonstrated and complained about, things will not improve.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#105

Post by acomjean »

srvmshr wrote: post #4

> In short, GNU Guix is both a package manager you can use in any distro and a full-fledged GNU/Linux distribution, that is modern and advanced Why not just use Nix, which is more battle tested?

Nix is another Linux package manager.

https://nixos.org/

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#106

Post by kaba0 »

kzhukov wrote: post #74
marcan_42 wrote: post #27

> Guix System is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system. It uses the Linux-libre kernel It's worth pointing out that the linux-libre kernel is developed under the FSF doctrine that "binary blobs are bad unless you can't see them". This has been taken to its logical extreme here, where this Linux fork actively removes security warnings informing users that they need to update their CPU microcode , becaus…

Well, for some people loading an arbitrary binary code without possibility to check what's inside it is a critical security issue as well.

But that is simply not the logical decision.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#107

Post by Nullabillity »

amelius wrote: post #81
masklinn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just use pip & co, nix will be unaware of it and won't care one way or another. It will basically treat your pip-installed stuff like it'd treat your sourcefiles or pdfs. Alternatively you can create derivations instead in which case the resulting artefacts will be fully understood and manageable by nix (I think there are integrations to do that e.g. tools like carnix which can automatically create derivations…

> If you just use pip & co, nix will be unaware of it and won't care one way or another. It will basically treat your pip-installed stuff like it'd treat your sourcefiles or pdfs. Also if you run pip as root (to install for all users at once)?

It fails, because NixOS mounts /nix/store (the Nix store, where all managed packages are stored) as read-only (with some trickery used by Nix itself to bypass this for its own builds).

And if you bypass that, `nix-store --verify --check-contents` can detect the issue.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#109

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

geokon wrote: post #93
solatic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nix has a stable channel (six-month release cadence, with one month of support overlap), which isn't LTS, and even just the stable channel is "expensive" enough to be difficult for the project to justify. Supporting LTS has a genuine non-trivial cost in engineering man-hours. Nix has the technological underpinnings to make it easier to support LTS, in theory, but in all likelihood there won't be an LTS channel withou…

I guess what I don't get is, wouldn't an LTS be way way easier to maintain than a rolling, constantly breaking, release. Heck, id even prolly go through the effort of maintain my own software as a package if it's something I could do once every few years over a stable base. They could even make life easy and match version numbers with whatever the latest Ubuntu LTS is using. And people that'd need newer libs/bins cou…

No. LTS is much more prone to breakage. LTS means you're porting yesterdays's security patches onto code that has been abandoned five years ago. And usually you have package maintainers doing this, not actual software developers.

There's no reason to run LTS unless for corporate insanity purposes.

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