A beginner's perspective on migrating a home server from Arch Linux to GNU Guix, comparing with NixOS, what works well, and handling practical issues.
  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    0·
    1 day ago

    I tried it once and couldn’t even pull Firefox. If something that common isn’t easily retrievable, it doesn’t bode well for packages less popular than Firefox. Would docker, wine, redis, and other stuff suddenly be missing forcing me to repackage everything?

    The prospect of writing packages for everything that isn’t libre doesn’t seem very appealing. They should have a repo with libre stuff and another with whatever doesn’t for their definition. And it should be dead easy to do. If I have to scour the internet for a guide that ends up being the equivalent of Gulliver’s Travels, well… it won’t attract many people.

    There’s a good reason Guix isn’t in distrowatch’s top anything.

    • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgOP
      0·
      1 day ago

      The prospect of writing packages for everything that isn’t libre doesn’t seem very appealing. They should have a repo with libre stuff and another with whatever doesn’t for their definition.

      This exists already.

      • onlinepersona@programming.devEnglish
        0·
        9 hours ago

        This exists already - the nonguix channel on gitlab.

        Interesting. It still looks like it needs a lot of contributions. I think I’d need a substantial amount of work to get Guix running on my PC with the software and hardware I use. Gaming seems like it would be an absolute chore. Anyway, good that the repo exists.

        You can also easily distribute your own channel with a git repo of package definitions.

        Yeah, it’s like NixOS.

        Probably Guix does fit my conviction more than NixOS, but the amount of work necesary at the moment seems daunting and I don’t have the time for that.

        • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgOP
          0·
          9 hours ago

          It still looks like it needs a lot of contributions. I think I’d need a substantial amount of work to get Guix running on my PC with the software and hardware I use.

          Could be.

          But why should people which want to create, share, and use free software do that work for you?

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    0·
    1 day ago

    I tried it once and couldn’t even pull Firefox. If something that common isn’t easily retrievable, it doesn’t bode well for packages less popular than Firefox. Would docker, wine, redis, and other stuff suddenly be missing forcing me to repackage everything?

    The prospect of writing packages for everything that isn’t libre doesn’t seem very appealing. They should have a repo with libre stuff and another with whatever doesn’t for their definition.

  • A Sharky Anthro@fedia.io
    0·
    2 days ago

    Wow, doesn’t seem very Beginner Perspective at all…Seems like years of experience, used to interpret GNU Guix, which is new to them. Title is a bit inaccurate in that respect.

  • esc@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    Beginner (with 20 years of experience with linux including nixos and 10 with lisp). 🙃 I mean I always call myself a beginner or intermediate at best but definition here is stretched to the limit.