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GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

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Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#31

Post by zck »

rekado wrote: post #30
zck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to use it on top of my Ubuntu install to manage dependencies, and the very first thing I wanted to do didn't work. I wanted to set up Java so I could run Clojure, and the version of Java they build can't make any https requests. There was also a subtext of "you should just build everything in Guix; don't use leiningen or maven". It was pretty disappointing. I hope they can get things to work better; it would…

> the version of Java they build can't make any https requests This is no longer true. Our approach to Java is a bit ... unusual. Nobody in the Java world appears to be building everything from source, so bootstrapping the environment is a pretty tough job. Now we bootstrap the JDK itself from Jikes and GNU Classpath, and we have quite a few more Java packages than before, but still not enough to get Maven packaged w…

I'm very excited for this. I think that a fantastic use case for GUIX, which would solve a large pain point for companies, is initial computer setup. And, at least for me, that means Java. Having a single config file that installs and sets up a computer that's human-editable? Amazing.

I'm not using Maven, but Clojure, so perhaps that's enough. I'll see if I can try it out.

Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#32

Post by nagvx »

davexunit wrote: post #27
dragandj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How easy (or even possible) is it to use proprietary libraries such as MKL or CUDA or GPU drivers with Guix/GuixSD?

It's all possible to do, but the Guix developers do not provide assistance. From a purely technical perspective, software provided in binary form only impedes one of the main goals of Guix, 100% reproducible builds, because there is no source code.

But would they provide resistance? As nice as the idea of a fully-free distro is, I have the impression that free distros have a minuscule userbase compared to their non-free counterparts. For an already niche distro, this sounds like a significant handicap.

If someone came along and offered a hardware-compatibility repo or redistribution, would the Guix community work with them, or would the relationship be more distant, or even adversarial?

I'm personally very interested in the project, and have no desire to poison the pure core of Guix, but I need my hardware to work.

Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#33

Post by wcummings »

Im gunna give guixsd a go (i run Ubuntu now). I do almost everything in emacs, and I have all my configs/elsip (and plenty of scripts and other stuff) in a big git repo. Setting up a new box is as simple as installing emacs and checking out my repo. I look forward to rolling package installs and init scripts etc into my repo (its init system is scheme based, no systemd).

Funny thing about guixsd, intel wifi chips wont work out of the box. Even if you provide the firmware, the kernel wont load blobs. Im sure you could install a new kernel... But it just feels dishonest. I bought a $10 usb atheros card.

Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#34

Post by rekado »

nagvx wrote: post #32
davexunit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all possible to do, but the Guix developers do not provide assistance. From a purely technical perspective, software provided in binary form only impedes one of the main goals of Guix, 100% reproducible builds, because there is no source code.

But would they provide resistance? As nice as the idea of a fully-free distro is, I have the impression that free distros have a minuscule userbase compared to their non-free counterparts. For an already niche distro, this sounds like a significant handicap. If someone came along and offered a hardware-compatibility repo or redistribution, would the Guix community work with them, or would the relationship be more dis…

We don't want to have discussions about non-free software on the project channels, because they really are off-topic. We won't do anything to sabotage third-party repositories (no matter what they might contain); in fact, we're working on implementing mechanisms to make it easier to load software from third-party channels.

But as a project following the Free System Distribution Guidelines (GNU FSDG) we will not recommend third-party channels providing proprietory software, nor would we want our project's communication channels (mailing list, IRC, etc) to be used to steer users to channels that provide non-free software.

Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#35

Post by rekado »

arximboldi wrote: post #12

Any experiences with using GuixSD as a main distribution for a standard laptop working environment? I have been using Debian Sid for more than a decade but the idea of having a system fully configured via reproducible pure Scheme functions is tempting for sure...

I have been using GuixSD on a variety of systems for a couple of years:

* my x86_64 laptop (X200S with libreboot) * two i686 laptops (a T60 and a netbook "server") * an x86_64 audio workstation for music recording * virtual servers at work

It's really convenient to have the system configuration declared in a Scheme file under version control. Rolling back to older variants in case of upgrade failures has also been very useful.

Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#36

Post by rekado »

redtuesday wrote: post #25
davexunit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely isolated from other package managers. So you can use them in harmony, and if you decide that you don't like Guix there's like 2 directories to delete.

I assume unless you use software which installs it's cache/other stuff into the user home directory, right? Then you would also need to delete these dirs as well?

Software like that exists (e.g. ibus, which creates a database and cache in the home directory), but generally I haven't had any problems with Guix on other distributions.

Re: GNU Guix and GuixSD 0.13.0 released

#37

Post by redtuesday »

rekado wrote: post #36
redtuesday wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume unless you use software which installs it's cache/other stuff into the user home directory, right? Then you would also need to delete these dirs as well?

Software like that exists (e.g. ibus, which creates a database and cache in the home directory), but generally I haven't had any problems with Guix on other distributions.

Ah, good to know. Just tried sbt (build tool for scala) with Nix (have no experience with Guix, but like that everything is in the same language) and it indeed creates .ivy and .sbt caches in the home directory. Everything else goes into the store like it should.
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