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Guix for Development

dthompson.us

51–60 of 69 posts

Re: Guix for Development

#51
post #4

Guix looks really tempting to me because i find guile scheme so much more pleasant than nix. But i heard there are not that many packages in Guix. I wonder if some sort of transpiler from nix derivations to guix package definitions would be possible.

You can just visit https://repology.org/ and see that GNU Guix has the 5th largest repository, ahead of Fedora and Gentoo. This does not include any proprietary packages, which can be added using https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix (though gitlab seems to be dying for me right now?)

I've been running GNU Guix for five years now, after lots of distro hopping, including to and from NixOS. I left Nix because I found the documentation (particularly regarding the language) to be a struggle to work with (though I imagine it's improved since then).

GNU Guix + nonguix + flatpak is perfectly suitable for everyday use.

Re: Guix for Development

#52
post #35

I love Guile over Nix syntax, but the one killer feature Nix has that Guix doesn’t is making a single static binary of common programs and then deploying them elsewhere. In Nix, this is a single flag. In Guix, you either deploy with all libraries on a custom /guix path, or nothing.

How do you do it in nix?

Sounds like nix-bundle, but that's not a standard feature.

Re: Guix for Development

#54
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nonguix is similar to debian's non-free sources. It's also maintained by many of the same contributors to guix. Enabling it is also similar to how you enable it for Debian. I have never seen anyone blamed or shamed for using nonfree drivers by the guix community, which I can say has been a very warm and welcoming community.

it does happen, and it happened to me, too. but the attitude has been changing recently from active shaming for even mentioning non-free stuff, to passive acceptance of pragmatically pointing a newcomer to nonguix.

That's nice to hear. I'm a big fan of lisp and I want to switch to nix or guix at some point in the future.

Re: Guix for Development

#55
post #44

Guix asking for donations from propietary websites it's a disgrace to GNU. But i woudn't expect less from some hijackers. https://guix.gnu.org/donate/ Proof: https://donate.stripe.com/8x2bJ133ia2H3Zw4j38N201 https://donate.stripe.com/aFaeVd7jy7Uz1Ro02N8N204 https://donate.stripe.com/dRm5kD47m0s79jQ9Dn8N202

Go away.

Go cry me a river. How can I donate to some platforms advertised by Guix with just running free software as you state? Go on.

Explain us.

Re: Guix for Development

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can run Nix packages on Guix if there isn't a "native" package for it. Look at nix-service. https://guix.gnu.org/manual/1.5.0/en/html_node/Miscellaneous... I've never felt the need myself. If something is missing, I add it and I think that is the real fun in running Guix because creating your own well defined package or service is deeply rewarding. Anyway, you can find people using it in the wild either by search…

You can stop recommending that flow (nix on guix), it's not good. You'll know if you try it.

is it good? of course not, but it is an option

Re: Guix for Development

#57
post #52
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do it in nix?

Sounds like nix-bundle, but that's not a standard feature.

    nix build nixpkgs#pkgsStatic.emacs
So, it's not so much a static build from a flag, as it is a large corpus of statically defined recipes independent from the other packages that you can build from

Re: Guix for Development

#58
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nonguix is similar to debian's non-free sources. It's also maintained by many of the same contributors to guix. Enabling it is also similar to how you enable it for Debian. I have never seen anyone blamed or shamed for using nonfree drivers by the guix community, which I can say has been a very warm and welcoming community.

it does happen, and it happened to me, too. but the attitude has been changing recently from active shaming for even mentioning non-free stuff, to passive acceptance of pragmatically pointing a newcomer to nonguix.

That's good to hear. The intolerance to non-guix (or, possibly, my perception that it was intolerance) made me shy away from the project. This was especially so because I use repaired devices with proprietary HW that would otherwise have been binned by their owners.

Re: Guix for Development

#59
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guix being a GNU project the purism also doesn't help. Just look at this: https://github.com/nonguix/nonguix I don't even disagree that nonfree software is bad, but blaming the users who often have no choice in the matter (e.g. drivers) is the wrong way to go.

It's a little inconvenient but for example my Framework laptop Intel WiFi chip requires a binary blob and I want aware of this. Now that I am, I can make better hardware purchasing decisions. There are plenty of alternatives that don't require that blob and it's the only thing I need from the no free channel.

IMHO the stupidest GNU policy is that if a proprietary blob is stored on a flash chip in a gadget, it's ok, but if it's transmitted to the gadget at startup, it's not.

Re: Guix for Development

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it does happen, and it happened to me, too. but the attitude has been changing recently from active shaming for even mentioning non-free stuff, to passive acceptance of pragmatically pointing a newcomer to nonguix.

That's good to hear. The intolerance to non-guix (or, possibly, my perception that it was intolerance) made me shy away from the project. This was especially so because I use repaired devices with proprietary HW that would otherwise have been binned by their owners.

we need to speak up for common sense. i did, maybe too much even, and it has cost me some standing with the project lead... but it must be done nevertheless!

people need to understand what freedom means. sure, do inform others about the downsides of using non-free stuff... but it's very hard to help freedom by shaming and alienating people for trying to use hardware they already own.

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