My Thoughts On GNU Guix After Three Days

I have spent several hours each of the last three days playing around with GNU Guix ( mostly watching packages build :D ). I have it running in a VM and on a Lenovo Thinkpad. There is a lot to love about Guix, but there are also some challenges with it. Some of the problems I initially had were configuring Guix to recognize new window managers that I installed. Also, running a "make install" doesn't work on my Suckless builds. And qtile isn't packaged for Guix and a "pip install qtile" fails on Guix. But I'm still having fun!
REFERENCED:
► guix.gnu.org/
WANT TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL?
💰 Patreon: / distrotube
💳 Paypal: www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
🛍️ Amazon: amzn.to/2RotFFi
👕 Teespring: teespring.com/stores/distrotube
SOCIAL PLATFORMS:
🗨️ Mastodon: mastodon.technology/@distrotube
💬 IRC: irc://freenode #distrotube
👫 Reddit: / distrotube
📽️ LBRY: lbry.tv/$/invite/@DistroTube:2
DT ON THE WEB:
🕸️ Website: distrotube.com/
🐿️ Gopherhole: gopher://distro.tube
📁 GitLab: gitlab.com/dwt1
FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE THAT I USE:
🌐 Brave Browser - brave.com/dis872
📽️ Open Broadcaster Software: obsproject.com/
🎬 Kdenlive: kdenlive.org
🎨 GIMP: www.gimp.org/
🔊 Audacity: www.audacityteam.org/
💻 VirtualBox: www.virtualbox.org/
Your support is very much appreciated. Thanks, guys!

[@gpk6458]

As a long time Gentoo user I lol'd at Alacritty taking "nearly an hour"... I was expecting the complaint to be 12 hours or something.

[@PauloConstantino167]

lolol

[@matthewrease2376]

Gentoo moment

[@HiPhish]

I have been using Guix as my secondary package manager for quite while now on Kubuntu. I have a couple of remarks in regards to your points. - If compiling packages takes too long I recommend waiting a day or two after doing `guix pull`. That command updates the package definitions to the current bleeding edge. Letting the definitions ferment for a bit allows the Guix build servers to provide pre-compiled binaries. Then when you do `guix upgrade`, Guix will download the binaries instead of building from source. - The reason you cannot do `sudo make install` or use language-specific package managers is because you are not supposed to install libraries. No one actually needs libraries, people need applications, and it's the applications which need libraries. Of course you still *can* install libraries explicitly, but that's not the way it is supposed to be used. I'll elaborate a bit later. - As I said above, the Guix package manager can be used on foreign distros as well. That allows one to have a sort of rolling release package system on top of a stable distro. But the biggest advantage of Guix in my opinion is that it is a proper solution to dependency hell and breaking updates. - You don't really need to know Scheme to configure Guix, but it helps. Scheme is a programmable programming language (as are all Lisps), and the Guix developers added a special Guix "language" on top of Scheme. It looks a lot like JSON. However, if you know Scheme you can add logic to your config using a full programming language. This is particularly useful when defining new packages. If you want to learn Scheme I recommend the GNU Guile manual. If you want to off the deep end I recommend Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP). The Guix website also has some more recommendations, check it out. Scheme is a very small and elegant language. It is quite different, so it might take a bit to wrap your head around, but once it clicks you will be good to go. The idea behind Guix is a novel concept pioneered by Nix: functional package management. What does this mean? It means that packages are not installed system-wide and that they do not modify the system. As you have noticed, there is a central place where packages are stored, called the store. Every package exists in isolation, you can have several different, even conflicting, packages in the store. If a package has a dependency on another package the connection is achieved through symlinks and environment variables. So how about libraries? Libraries are regular packages, except you never explicitly install them (although you can if you really want to). Instead you declare them as dependencies of other packages. If you really need a particular library, for example to compile some code, you can temporarily enrich your shell with the libraries using `guix environment`. Remember that the libraries are in the store. All `guix environment` does is set up some symlinks and environment variables for the libraries to be found. Guix does not modify the system (hence why you don't need sudo), so different users can have different versions of the same package installed without conflict. When it comes to language-specific libraries you are advised to do the same. Instead of doing `pip install blubb` you should do `guix environment --ad-hoc python-blubb` (sorry, can't think of any particular Python library off the top of my head). Guix has many more benefits, but I think these points are the most relevant to your video.

[@CthulhuFTW]

Thank you so much for your post! I like that book (SICP). Currently diving into a nixOS and got some lispy programs I'm insterested in messing with...

[@linuxrant]

"If compiling packages takes too long I recommend waiting a day or two" - truly you are a godsend :)

[@Sergeeeek]

He was talking about installing st and dwm, both are programs from the suckless community. Their main idea is that if you want to customize them, you have to edit the code, compile and install them yourself.

[@RahulR-lp7lb]

Please do a review of Nixos again. Your last video on this distro was 2 years ago.

[@RahulR-lp7lb]

@いあ I'm currently running nix on a vm. I really like it. Wanted distrotube to make a video about it since his last video on nixos didn't do justice.

[@vxmediaxv]

FYI you can setup Guix to install binaries instead from src, and is one of the first things say the docs, so for that reason I think is not a good review

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Derek.

[@hornedfiend3016]

This is pretty cool. Too bad I reinstalled arch yesterday and took way too long to set it up as I want it. Might try it in a VM though, so thanks for this video DT.

[@DistroTube]

Go for it!

[@charliekahn4205]

You can just install Guix as a secondary package manager, since that's really the entire point of GuixSD (now Guix System) in the first place. It works as secondary, so there's no conflicts with pacman (optimally).

[@florianfelix8295]

@@charliekahn4205 yeah I just did that in order to be able to get emacs gcc and nyxt Browser it’s worth it just for the first cause imo^^

[@Gooberpatrol66]

Make sure you have all substitutes enabled so you don't have to build everything. Also you can build things "regularly" by running the build script inside

[@stevem3432]

I set up the package manager on top of Debian. It's pretty cool and interesting 👌

[@glowiak3430]

6:49 This is nothing compared to Gentoo base utils' build times - LLVM11 - up to 3 hours, dev-lang/rust - 6 hours or more (and that's why I'm always using dev-lang/rust-bin)

[@matthewrease2376]

I love the thumbnail's version of the title lol. "GNU slash challenges"

[@matthewstott3493]

Guix package management is a different way to do things. Don't know if a whole OS would be able to meet my overall needs. But let's just say I used Guix as an additional package manager on an existing Linux distro. Well that opens up some serious possibilities. Certainly worth testing out.

[@juzujuzu4555]

Gentoo is awesome. Without bloated desktop environment the compiling times are not bad, though the initial installation takes a while. But the level of control, speed, and also security are worth it. The stability has really surprised me, and based on what some veterans told me, there really has been improvements on the package manager. I have both Ubuntu Mate, and Gentoo with Mate on the same laptop. The difference on speed, ram usage and responsiveness is quite amazing. But it's the feeling that you get when you are in control over your OS what has been the biggest surprise. I didn't expect this feeling, it has been complete surprise, but I guess lots of it comes from the fact that I had to learn a lot to really make Gentoo work on my laptop, had all the proper power management, Wifi and bluetooth firmwares etc. Gentoo's wiki is excellent, and the people helping in the IRC channel are so nice and helpful.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

Gentoo really was incredibly stable when I used it. Never had a single issue with it. Used for it many months, maybe half a year, and then my computer died and I had to replace both the motherboard and the HDD, and I ended up installing Arch again. Then that reminded me that Arch kinda sucks for my purposes and I just installed Debian because it's quick and easy, it works and I don't care.

[@speedflam]

I agree! And I'm compiling ~

[@juzujuzu4555]

@@speedflam I'm compiling both stable and testing on my two computers. Testing has not caused me any problems thus far.

[@urugulu1656]

although if you run anything other than a source based distro i found the arch-wiki more helpful. in the few instances that i really read any of the two yet for solving some issue it seemed like in gentoo the answer to everything is using the right use flag. well too dumb if your on a distro where use flags arent really a thing... arch-wiki was more helpful in these cases...

[@astroid-ws4py]

Nice video, Tnx

[@SuperCape]

Have you ever tried Enlightenment DE? On Wayland? Pls 🙏 I always wanted to make it my default DE but somehow never managed to tune-it right 😩

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

I will still wait a little longer to try to use GuixSD for real. Seems almost ready, though. That's very nice. For a pretty long time, I thought that it would never really be usable, and I thought it was just a huge waste that it wasn't more popular so more people could work on it, but now it seems to be actually getting there.

[@jacekjacenty]

I have tried Guix a few months ago. The graphical installation has improved a bit. This time I was able to complete the process after running into a dead-end a few times. The documentation still does not make sense. It is more like a reference than a guide. There is no easy way to find what a new user should do with the system after installation. Most guix commands take a long time to execute. I do not see any benefit of using Guix over a distro with Timeshift.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

@@jacekjacenty I kinda lost interest in distributions like NixOS and GuixSD. They solve some problems, but add too much complexity and confusion to the system and stray even further away from the OS's Unix roots, so I don't think it's worth it. I don't think changing the system that much is the right way to solve those problems (there are other simpler ways of avoiding the same issues, like just being able create separate directory trees for older software, to avoid dependency hell, while keeping the overall system as it is). And I'm pretty comfortable with my current system, so those problems don't really affect me. If you want to revert changes to your system, filesystems like Btrfs and ZFS are capable of doing that already, so it's kinda unnecessary. I'm more interested in the BSD world now. They are more consistent, better organized, and actually have good documentation for everything. And FreeBSD has pretty much everything that GNU/Linux has and a little more. GNU and Linux are both too big and messy. The OS still feels like a bunch of stuff from multiple sources thrown in a blender. It's Frankenstein's OS. Personally, I'm more interested in having a more traditional Unix system at this point.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

@full executable I changed the name because it connects it to the name of the 0dy533 account that I made, since this website is basically unusable now. And I'm going to make accounts in more places in general (maybe 64b too), so it's a way for people to know that I am that one guy with no name. I can't come up with usernames, so I guess a pun is the best that I can do. Oh, and I actually tried to respond since your comment was posted. That's how long it took for even a single comment to make it. The other comment already disappeared, as you can see, so even when they do get posted, they don't last very long. I hope it goes back to normal eventually because I did want to make videos at some point and as bad as this website is, a lot of people use it.

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

@full executable It's happening in two different ways. If the comment is rejected immediately, it never gets posted, so there is no email. If it gets posted and then removed, your email will still be there. Not worth it, though. I will be mostly commenting on Odysee from now on because it's better, and I'm going to leave links to whatever I'm using in my about section. I will still watch videos here from people that aren't there, and comment at least occasionally to see if it's better. Oh, and I forgot to talk about NetBSD. If you have any problems with that, remember that it's a very small project, so it's more likely to have development issues. The OpenBSD team is already small, and NetBSD is way smaller than that. GhostBSD is basically a FreeBSD that comes with a desktop environment, but I don't know much about it beyond that. I think overall, FreeBSD and OpenBSD are good choices. OpenBSD has the highest quality of any of the projects, and FreeBSD is stable too and has more features, like ZFS (NetBSD has it too, which is kinda crazy, and speaking of ZFS, keep in mind that their versions of it are always a little bit behind rolling-release Linux distributions, so moving ZFS from Linux to BSD can cause issues, so I would just do it on FreeBSD since it's more integrated anyway) and jails and poudriere. Anyway, none of them are exactly beginner-friendly. More friendly than Gentoo, technically, but there is also a lot more information about Linux out there than about any of them. Not a lot of videos about BSD either other than cool conferences (though I may make my own at some point, when my hardware situation isn't as precarious as it is now). Whatever you use, do read the handbooks (and if you use GhostBSD, use the FreeBSD handbook since it's still relevant). Some information can be outdated or incomplete, but it's still helpful. Technically OpenBSD is the friendliest because it has the best documentation because bad documentation is considered a bug (and it even comes with more stuff installed than you would expect, like their own version of X that is patched for security, with two window managers (cwm and FVWM), and tmux, and it's also secure by default so you don't have to worry as much about securing it yourself). I have read their mailing lists a lot too. Mostly for fun, but I'm sure that you can use that for troubleshooting as well. My intention is to set up a FreeBSD file server at some point, and then access that from my main machine, that will then be running OpenBSD. Anyway, it definitely is a level up from Linux. Already being good with Linux is a good thing, even though there will be tools that don't exist there, and that could confuse you. One case of that was lsblk. It's a thing that I use a lot, but they don't have anything like it on FreeBSD. Fortunately you can just doas pkg install lsblk and it installs a script that gets the job done. Also, lscpu and lspci don't exist, but there are other commands for listing hardware, so it's fine.

[@JohnVietta]

You can also just run the GUIX package manager on top of just about any distro; and once it's setup, you can install packages from it as a regular user. There's even a convenience script to get it up and running! (i.e. kinda like flatpak)

[@wp6007]

Why would you use it over nix as a standalone package manager

[@Sergeeeek]

Nix has some disadvantages that you might care about: 1. Not all nix packages are built from source. There's a lot of nix expressions that just download the binary 2. Cli is less friendly. There are multiple commands that do similar things and command names are not intuitive 3. Documentation for packages is pretty bad. You will most likely have to dig through a lot of code in the nixpkgs repo if you encounter any issues

Talking about systems that are hard to brick, how about taking a look at some ostree distros, like Fedora Silverblue? That's also a really interesting concept.

[@urugulu1656]

silverblue is indeed something to look into also this rollback-ability sorta sounds like silverblues "making the system a git like object" kinda stuff

[@anonymoususer5402]

Nix os also

[@xthebumpx]

@@drsensor Silverblue's whole root system is a read-only immutable ostree image that can be rolled back or rebased like a git project. Container tools like Flatpak and Toolbox are the preferred way to customize a system, but you can also still layer RPMs on top of the base image. The stability and security benefits should be obvious, but there are still some rough edges to trying to do everything in containers.

@@xthebumpx Indeed. Although applying RPMs on top is probably going to cause some headaches, if done too much, when upgrading the OS, I imagine.

[@negative6826]

whats the difference of this compared to other "libre" OS like Parabola? and whats the point of using a "libre" distribution when you are just gonna install anything else outside of its repo?

[@valentjedi]

I packaged alacritty for guix and it was such a pain in the ass with packaging all the dependencies X_X

[@Iscreaman23112]

You can get discord and steam via flatpak if you want to use them w/ guix

[@CristianMolina]

Hey DT, would you consider adding non-free channels to Guix to use it on your current hardware?

[@fish3977]

Isnt that just nix?

[@miavelvet]

@@fish3977 well i guess there is a difference between optionally adding non free stuff yourself and having system non-free stuff from the beginning even if you don't need it. You know like a feeling that your base system is fully libre from the install and you can controll that better

[@thebeesknees2473]

Can you do a video on how to configure polybar I am having lots to trouble try to do that.

[@codeitlikemiley]

You can Achieve Guix Package Manager , with Btrfs + Snapper + Snap-pac + Snap-pac grub and Grub-btrfs. You can Easily rollback to any specific snapshot.

[@OctaviusPelagius]

If you set your EDITOR env var you can edit your files as root with said editor just by typing "sudoedit your/file" and it's just like editing your groups permissions with "visudo" ;)

[@stevenpaolucci1531]

Hey DT, i read up about an interesting distro called Bedrock Linux. Maybe it could be a way where you can run Guix as much as you can, and use resources from another distro when needed. Its weird how it works but Bedrock is very interesting, discovered it this morning and will most likely try

[@spookyconnolly6072]

at that rate you could use something like debian for system packages and install basically everything else to your user's guix environment since it is a portable package manager. also with nix theres this conversion tool if you install it that way and idk if it will work for inheriting non-free firmware into guix

[@leviticus8930]

You could always have another distro on a SSD in the Icy Dock for Steam and Qtile. Or you can just put Guix on the Icy Dock.

[@pilotamurorei]

i have a question: How much language support is there for Guix? My computer has Japanese installed on mint (because i need it for both input and looking at sites) and i couldnt find any details on language packs in my searches.

[@davidak_de]

better ask on their irc guix.gnu.org/en/help/

[@interguy589]

btw dt just before you switch to it check openssl version. I am assuming they will be using libressl and kdenlive for some reason doesn't install when your using libressl atleast on my libressl gentoo based system

[@deathangel523]

Cool that Linux has any options for people that os what I like about Linux. I am going to stick with Ubuntu or Debian for my Linux stuff. The only other system I have an intreast in is FreeBSD.

[@mrmysteryguest]

Qt has 'non free' elements that makes some if not all Qt based programs more difficult to run on the FSF approved Distros, this is one of the reasons I use Arch and not Parabola. You may wanna get an atheros wireless card for that Thinkpad although you may need to re flash a third party or modified bios to do so (this may also fix the overheating and fan control)

[@literallynobody3311]

in the nonguix repository there is a merge request for steam that works but that isnt merged due to licensing issues, might be useful

[@yjk_ch]

I want as many FOSS software as possible on my system, so Guix is something I really want to try out at some point. For Discord, you could use web-based interface if you can’t get Discord to work.

[@ukyoize]

There is also alternative clients.

[@NicolasGoulart42]

Pidgin + Harmony

[@batlin]

Yeah Discord is much less of a dealbreaker than Steam (or proprietary wifi / GPU drivers etc). I'd never install the official stinky Electron-based app -- the web version works fine in a pinned Firefox tab.

[@AtomToast]

You can run discord entirely in the browser btw. That might be easier than trying to install the electron version

[@godfather7339]

Or flatpak

[@TheRfmodulator]

_If you don't use GNU Guix as a standalone GNU/Linux distribution, you still can use it as a package manager on top of any GNU/Linux distribution. _*_This way, you can benefit from all its conveniences._* - guix.gnu.org

[@batlin]

Yeah I'm surprised there wasn't more discussion of that.

[@auralluring]

i tried guix for about 1 day before i got frustrated and decided to go with nixos instead since it has the declarative configuration system that i wanted out of guix, it's just more mature and less restrictive.

[@KevinBReynolds]

I'm no tech so maybe a stupid question but, if a package is expecting certain directories to exist, why not just create those directories?

[@cowardly_wizard]

For bin specifically that would allow it to build but it won't be actually installed. It's less about having the dir and more about them being important to the system

[@KevinBReynolds]

@@cowardly_wizard Alright. Cool. Thank you.

[@davidak_de]

that's just not how this system is designed

[@agh0x01]

@DistroTube seems to keep missing the point of Guix (and NixOS - contrary to what he says in the opening of this video, there is a distro that is very similar to Guix, and that's NixOS, which actually inspired Guix). So instead of editing /etc/config.scm, users can install most packages locally - obviously some packages don't make sense installed at a user level. The real power of Guix and NixOs is declarative configuration. You can stick most of your system-level config into one or more files in /etc, then put it in a git repository. To build your new machine, you clone your repo and then run the reconfiguration command and it installs, builds, and configures everything you've defined in your OS-level config (/etc/config.scm for Guix; /etc/nixos-config on NixOs).

[@bobgrimes8618]

The Thinkpad T and W series have standard Intel wireless cards.

[@Delis007]

I'm still waiting for GNU/Hurd

[@mrkitty777]

Richard Stallman is working on that

[@DistroTube]

Richard, is that you?

[@ValeValentinVlad]

GNU/GNU

[@marllonbruno608]

@@ValeValentinVlad 10/10

[@Gooberpatrol66]

Guix has Hurd images available for download

[@catsupchutney]

So it doesn't follow POSIX filesystem hierarchy? This would not fly at work.

[@sbrazenor2]

My biggest reason for not using 'free' distros is that they're a pain in the ass. Things don't work, everything is a hassle, and you have to work 10x as hard to get anything done. It's great for a learning experience and something to tinker with, but I wouldn't use it in any environment where I needed anything to work quickly and correctly without a ton of extra work, research, and troubleshooting. I also don't use Windows for the same reasons, since it's always a bloated pain in the ass and seems to always need to update.

[@RizalhanafiYusof]

Got suck in the Guix. I had a sleepless night using Guix on qemu. Installed xfce and the monster Gnome. spent much of the time learning to add new channel to the repo. learned not to invoke the guix pull unless I want to stare the almost unending on-screen repo/channel/git surfing. All that just to make gnome more palatable. IMHO Guix needed a couple of more of versions before the low level system surfer like would consider it as a daily driver. It's fun but I was losing sleep so I deleted the VM.

[@hakovatube]

If you can figure it out, could you make a video about how to set up a firewall? ufw is not packaged with guix...

[@davidak_de]

that's not how you do it. i don't know much about Guix, but i use NixOS which Guix is based on and on NixOS you just write this in your system configuration: networking.firewall = { enable = true; allowPing = true; allowedTCPPorts = [ 80 443 19999 ]; allowedUDPPorts = []; }; it's probably similar on Guix and you should find it easily in the documentation

[@andreac7a]

For st and dwm you don't really need to run "make install". They are single-file binaries. You can just copy them in any dir in your $PATH. I usually keep them in $HOME/bin

[@davidak_de]

that probably don't work on guix because of the systems design. it is not how it is supposed to be used

[@krochliar]

It won't work. I tried it with my pCloud client and it always says> "no such file or directory". Maybe I need to study more.

[@mskiptr]

3:40 They really did borrow the whole concept from Nix! Even the extremely long, one-document manual xD

[@parsec4757]

8:55 ... nano wont be installed ... ahah ... subbed

[@Arctic740]

you can use discord in browser

[@DistroTube]

True. I could probably find an Emacs plugin as well. :D

[@sabbateus]

@@DistroTube you probably could actually run it in emacs, if you use erc and connect it with bitlbee

[@AndrewGulak]

You made my day when you said Arco Linux. My daily driver

[@mrfathed3129]

Same. For me I do it just because it is lazy Arch. I did arch on my old laptop. When I upgraded I was too lazy to do it again...lol

[@negative6826]

unless you switch themes, customizations and such optical blings on a regular basis (wanting to be post of the month un reddit?), i find Arco to be bloated.

[@mrfathed3129]

If you install everything in the scripts without editing them, yeah I could probably agree it is pretty bloated. But Spending a few minutes editing the install scripts in vim is still faster than a full Arch install.

[@mrfathed3129]

Also, I'm using the ArcolinuxD iso, not the one with i3, Openbox, and XFCE installed.

[@himanshushukla787]

which thinkpad is that?

[@wp6007]

You can import nix packages in guix

[@C6438911]

I would assume, but could be wrong, that NIXOS is similar to GUIX. You already did a NIXOS video but could you please also take a look again at NIXOS ? and maybe do a small comparison between GUIX and NIXOS ? Anyway, thank you.

[@davidak_de]

guix is inspired and based on the design of nixos. the main difference is the configuration language (which are both uncommon) and that guix is a GNU project while nixos is an open source project that also provides proprietary packages, when you allow it. nixos has way more packages while guix developers do a lot in the reproducible builds and bootstrapping area, which i have a lot respect for! disclaimer: i'm a nixos user and contributor

[@digital_underground]

Guix looks really cool, but I can't use it on my hardware. Anyway, the fan in your laptop might be running high because Guix may not have a free driver for your GPU, so everything may only be utilizing your CPU. I did a source install of Gentoo, and could not figure out how to get it to use my GPU. So my CPU was working pretty hard.

[@DistroTube]

Something that I definitely need to investigate. Thanks!

[@davidak_de]

if you like the concept, check out nixos. guix is inspired by it's design. nixos don't has many of the mentioned problems, but also a steep learning curve. you have to invest time to understand how to use it correctly

[@Ultrajamz]

Considering this vs nixos

[@labrat8876]

Did you ever get those old laptops you wanted? I have two older laptops/netbooks that are in fine working condition and I'd like to give them to you rather than trash them.

[@DistroTube]

I have three laptops that I test distros on. I don't necessarily need anymore. But I do agree, definitely don't trash them. Put Linux on them and find someone in need. :D

[@wired_philip]

What would the advantage be of using Guix over some other open source distro? Open source is open source, right?

[@DistroTube]

Lucky for you, Richard doesn't watch KZbin. Because he would slap you for calling this "open source".

[@Arctic740]

opensource != FOSS

[@bennihtm]

Guix is fully open source meaning, the Distro and all Drivers that ship with it are also open source. Ubuntu for example contains non-free blobs.

[@DistroTube]

As far as advantages, the fact that config for the distro is a single file written in GNU Guile (a dialect of scheme) is pretty cool. Especially is you wanted to install on multiple machines. Also, the roll back features are nice. Theoretically, it should mean that you can't permanently break your installation.

[@wired_philip]

@@DistroTube that's nice

[@XDjUanZInHO]

Hey, DT, I think gobo is probably easier to use as a daily driver. It also has a very unique file system organization, but they're handled by symbolic links, so you won't have problems compiling

[@censoredterminalautism4073]

Seems very interesting.

[@orion55]

Guix directory structure and package manager ar enot "unique" per se, they are directly influenced (almost copy paste) of nixOS directory structure and package manager

[@stephenjones8645]

It sounds like a cool distro, but the limitations are too much for me to use as a daily driver. I need to know that the software I need for school will run.

[@christopherprats]

Check out NixOS. They follow many of the same concepts, but Nix allows nonfree package, etc. IIRC, the Nix package repositories are the largest of any distribution.

[@davidak_de]

@@christopherprats as of today nixpkgs unstable has 51266 packages while AUR has 55271, but nixpkgs unstable has the most up-to-date packages. all other distributions are far behind. repology.org/repositories/graphs you can easily have a system on stable channel and use some packages from unstable but you really have to invest time in to learning NixOS and read the manual, unlike derek did in his first video about it. i use NixOS for more than 5 years and would not use anything else. i might look into Guix some day

[@DJ_Cthulhu]

emacs-nox, is emacs-no-x, in guix 🙄

[@zweitlander874]

:)

[@millankumar9245]

8:11 because you are not sudo/root, you can't change anything that 'high' up (I think). So try with sudo or by editing the global config file (Edit: oh you did...)

[@literallynobody3311]

also, these reddit threads might come handy when dealing/using with pre-compiled binaries (like appimages) www.reddit.com/r/GUIX/comments/desnjc/dirty_install_for_precompiled_binaries/ www.reddit.com/r/GUIX/comments/hxi5fj/do_appimages_work_on_guix_system/fz7bkow/

[@cornel9472]

I'm using Guix and there are some quirks, the icecat browser won't display numbers, the default bin file is write protected, the package manager is slow, and the /etc/host file keep resetting so I can't use 1.1.1.1 for Reddit.

[@davidak_de]

you probably have to configure /etc/host declaratively through the system configuration

[@cornel9472]

@@davidak_de /etc/hosts restarts on every session

[@Sergeeeek]

You probably have to edit hosts using /etc/config.scm

[@Darkas2]

You should really try NixOS. It's similar in many ways, but the Nix package manager is far more popular than Guix, so it has more stuff in general, and there are lots of binary packages. For example, the NixOS manual has a section on suckless tools, emacs configuration and a bunch of other cool stuff.

[@macfhlannchadharonan4668]

@いあ big fan of home manager

[@henriquemarques6196]

the only reason I don't use Emacs 100% of the time is because sometimes I need to edit Vue files, the web-mode doesn't go well with .vue files. That's why sometimes I need to rely on Vim, for example. To work with PHP and other languages I can use web-mode and php-mode and it works really good. It's just vueJS that is a pain in the butt

[@AndrewGulak]

Damn. I was gonna install this until I realized I had a Lenovo Thinkpad with a Broadcom WiFi chip in it

[@DistroTube]

I installed it anyway on my Thinkpad...my plan being to buy a cheap wifi chip that's compatible. I'm just using ethernet until then.

[@AndrewGulak]

How do you not have a box full of WiFi chips? I yank them out of every machine I scrap.

[@DistroTube]

I don't scrap machines. I run Linux.

[@AndrewGulak]

@@DistroTube lol I'm talking about display and main board failures.

[@leviticus8930]

@@DistroTube I still have a laptop from 2003. Openbox runs on it just fine

[@DeshierArchitecte]

I tried it too for a couple of days. I think guix is very novel, but not at all in maturity. Maybe give this one a few years.

[@davidak_de]

if you like the concept, check out nixos. guix is inspired by it's design. nixos don't has many of the mentioned problems, but also a steep learning curve. you have to invest time to understand how to use it correctly

[@willemhbos]

Hi. Got interested in Guix because of your earliers video, thanks for that. Have not installed it yet, but did watch some videos. If I'm not mistaken then all packages are generated from a single git repo with all package metadata: git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages. Cheers!

[@DistroTube]

Yea, and they are all written in guile. Might be fun to eventually try to package something for Guix since it seems like it's pretty straightforward.

[@jsubuntuxp]

@@DistroTube In my experience, making packages for Guix is about as easy as making Arch packages. My biggest hurdles were understanding scheme and how to define packages, but reading the manual helped me figure it out.

[@ashtree129]

For discord you can just use the website instead of the desktop app

[@auser7642]

who wants to have a heavy firefox window open when you can have a light(er) app?

[@ashtree129]

@@auser7642 Discord (the app) is an electron app. It's certainly not lighter.

[@auser7642]

@@ashtree129 lighter than having Firefox own open? Lol

[@ashtree129]

@@auser7642 Electron means its chromium, and you may already have other tabs open in firefox.

[@auser7642]

@@ashtree129 an app is more organized in my opinion as well, but I guess you're right.

[@bobgrimes8618]

This distro sounds like a pain in the butt.

[@JoelJosephReji]

Cost of free as in freedom stuff...

[@sinekonata]

Once it's developed and widely adopted you're supposed to never bother with packages or distros again. I can't wait for Guix to be more popular because every distro is a pain in the butt compared to what this promises.

[@messengerofiexist2139]

There are only a few window managers officially supported, looking at their ‘ installing Guix’ pages. Gnome, xfce, lxde. No KDE. If DWM is similar to KDE structure it won’t be supported.

[@millankumar9245]

Gentoo....

[@davidak_de]

no. unlike gentoo, guix has binary packages. but you might have to wait until they are build... or build them yourself.

[@charliekahn4205]

I think there are third-party repos for Guix if your computer is hostile.

[@regisk7]

So 20:54 mins of videos where you talk about a problem about adding xsession for a DE/WM and you didn't show the solution?

[@elizabethrawes2355]

@Distrotube 6:20 wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:main:rusts_freedom_flaws

[@bobgrimes8618]

This sounds so like 1995!

[@neonfuz_]

You should check out nixos again if you haven't recently. It's a lot like guix, but uses it's own functional language instead of scheme and has systemd and opt in proprietary packages. I haven't tried guix myself but I hear the philosophy is similar. I've been using nixos for a few years now and have even contributed a few packages to nixpkgs.

[@neonfuz_]

by the way on nixos to customize dwm it has a patches option. I install dwm 6.2 as a stable base with patches = [./dwm.patch], and on my local git checkout of dwm use a script that does git diff 6.2 HEAD > ~/.config/nixpkgs/dwm.patch. Then reinstall dwm and it recompiles.

[@techray5077]

Pls take another look at NixOS :) Guix is actually really influenced by it and the good thing about NixOS is that you can easily install unfree packages. Also the nixpkgs repository is nearly as big as the AUR and you get nearly everything (also most packages can be pulled pre-compiled from a cache server). For your configuration problem there is also an awesome solution: Home-Manager. It allows you to describe your dot-files and many more features in a file. The last video you made about NixOS is 2 years old and you did not get the point of it. It's philosophy is similar to Guix: Less (no) state - rollbacks - system is described in a configuration file. It's similar to the instantos video you made. You were not talking nicely about this distro without having fully understood it's features. Just check it out :)

[@digitalspecter]

I don't bother with discord the application.. I just use it through the web interface. Push to talk might not work but I don't use that..

[@perseusarkouda]

Preferred Discord channel?

[@apoorv9492]

For Discord you can either bridge it to Riot.im which is called Element now, or Rocket.Chat server, Unfa(KZbin) is also hosting a Rocket.Chat server, and he bridged his discord to his Rocket.Chat server, or you can just use the web version of Discord, in a Web Browser. BTW, why not use Hyperbola, Parabola or PureOS or even Trisquel which Richard Stallman uses.

[@busterbrown8830]

I tried Parabola, but could not get the grub to install on the SSD I was using. I then could install Trisquel on that same SSD, so I believe there in an issue w/installing grub on my Scan Disk Pro SSD. Hmm?

[@ffdgfgff1849]

​ @Buster Brown what partition table you were trying to install grub onto? Grub needs a separate partition when using GPT. Personally, while I can't comment on grub, because it's in my bios chip, I didn't have very smooth experience with Parabola.

[@busterbrown8830]

@@ffdgfgff1849 Ah, you might have something. I will have to try Parabola again thinking about this. Tks!!

[@ffdgfgff1849]

@@busterbrown8830 no problem. Check out arch wiki, it has good info on the subject.

[@apoorv9492]

@@bigpod Oh! Should I warn Unfa about this, he recently bridged his discord to his Rocket.chat server, using a bot I guess.

[@laughingvampire7555]

GNU/Challenges 🤣

[@MyurrDurr]

Interesting, I think I would pronounce it as "goo ix"

[@urugulu1656]

or gui-x

[@ryanmcconkey6204]

Same here , I pronounce it that way too

[@capability-snob]

There's a pronunciation key on the site. Note that the "Gui" comes from "Guile", a word which laughs in the face of sensible pronunciation

[@mskiptr]

It's in the footnotes in the manual. /ɡiːks/

[@millankumar9245]

7:30 sudo pip install qtile should work...

[@DistroTube]

It doesn't.

[@millankumar9245]

@@DistroTube really? I worked for me....

[@mcdonkeylips]

plasma uses QT which is not free software

[@ygjt76v0-----]

Only 400 mb , iso

[@speedflam]

If you're interested in source based distribution I recommend you to give Gentoo a shot ;) Thanks for the video and this discovery :)

[@tomassimoes7808]

first eheh

[@mrkitty777]

second

[@mrkitty777]

@this senator Linus Torvalds is right about that. C plus plus object oriented programming can have compiler bugs even when the source is flawless. And class based kernel developing has sometimes proposed.

[@humm535]

@this senator Uh … what do programming languages have to do with being the first viewers of a video? 🤔 Btw, C++ is “complicated beyond use”, too-not just Java. And both are redundant.

[@davidjackson7675]

What a out ed?

[@gentoolinuxuser4387]

what youre reffering to as GNU Guix is actualy GNU guix / Linux libre, or as ive recently taking to called it, GNU GUix + Linux libre

[@interguy589]

GNU/Producers xDDDDD

[@evanrelf]

You should definitely check out NixOS after Guix

[@kpcraftster6580]

Guix is such a great concept and great execution that shoots itself in the foot with strict adherence to FSF dogma

[@cpakkala]

Nixos has everything you mentioned including Qtile already compiled, and the installs and generation switches are fast and rarely require reboots. Just sayin...

[@yanletov3602]

Guix is like NixOS, but it sucks

[@death-disco]

Your alacritty build would have taken a minute or so from cold build if your vm had enough ram - rustc is absolutely notorious for requiring much more ram than most compilers, your vm should have at least 8gb, preferably 16. I can literally see you have 650mb ram free - this isn't even close to enough.

[@CaribouDataScience]

What no Enlightenment?

[@franciskapsowe9183]

if you understand the pain of nokia n9 and how it could be the future of nokia until microsoft happened, you should be equally afraid of WSL.

[@Phydoux2112]

Long compiling, incompatible packages... Sounds a lot like Gentoo...

[@mmikesell1]

If a user who is as comfortable as you are with tech and linux-style things runs into this many problems, the OS is basically dead from the get-go. I appreciate the mantra of GNU but this OS is just wasting people's time.

[@davidak_de]

it is a distro for advanced users that can profit hugely from it. same for nixos, which guix is inspired on they advance in areas that other distros don't touch, like declarative configuration, reproducible builds and bootstrapping reproducible-builds.org/ www.bootstrappable.org/ i use nixos for more than 5 years and would not want to use any other distro. i have huge respect for what guix does

[@dkosmari]

Storing config in a LISP/Scheme source file is stupider than storing config in a C source file. And I'm an emacs user.