Why I Choose Guix Over NixOS

[@0015v]

I just find it amusing how Guix are basically GNU Project takes on "modern Lisp machine". The unity on programming language, text editor, window manager, linux-libre kernel, not being a systemd based, etc.

[@9s-l-s9]

I switched from NixOS to Guix because of your installation guides and the documentation for Guix, which was way better than the NixOS stuff, at least at the time. NixOS has gained a lot of popularity since than but imo Guix is still easier to learn. For example, the cli for guix is really straightforward. I also liked the idea of learning a 'simple' general purpose language that can be used even beyond configuring your system :) The main problem with Guix is the smaller community and therefore it is lacking in some areas. Something like mailing lists are not really helpful in that regard but oh well. Anyway we need more videos and should all try and spread the word of Guix :D

[@adammontgomery7980]

I can't get behind the documentation. I installed a guix VM and can't even figure out where the main configuration files are located. The docs have some example code, but it doesn't tell me which directory to look in.

[@lucycoleclough1182]

@@adammontgomery7980 it can be anywhere, you point the system reconfigure command to it

[@dranon0o]

I hesitated to learn scheme for a while, same thing for testing NixOS, I binged watched tons of video for over a year... the dude convinced me in one video

[@davisrichard437]

I'm a happy NixOS user personally. I chose nix over guix at first because I felt it was more established (it has far more packages available) and because I worried I would have trouble with the "fully free by default" model in guix. After watching your content though I know that the fully free aspect is basically optional, and boy am I tempted to have an excuse to learn scheme.

[@shady4tv]

Highly recommend the MIT Wizard book - "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" if you want to get into Scheme. It has a great introduction to Computer Science using the language.

[@matthewstott3493]

@@shady4tv Thanks for the book recommendation, it looks amazing. Know what I'll be doing this upcoming holiday.

[@Redyf]

I'm really happy with my NixOS config, I've been using it for 2 years now but Guix deserves some respect. It's great to see you're enjoying it! I watched some of your videos and I have to say that they are amazing, I'll be doing some eeeeeeemacs when I get some free time because you inspired me, your emacs playlist will help a lot. 😄

[@Th1nk1n6]

Thanks for this video, and other content on Guix. Have been considering trying out NixOS recently, but just learning of their purge of certain contributors, not sure I want to partake in that any more than Windows AI monitoring everything. Anyhow, thanks again, will be trying out Guix thanks to you.

[@seriouscat2231]

I became familiar with the Nix situation by reading about similar events in the Python project. I think the problem is that people like these do not require you to follow certain rules or exhibit certain type of behavior, i.e. conduct. Instead of that they expect you to manifest a certain type of conscience. Also, once you fall under suspicion, or manifest the wrong type of conscience, i.e. feel differently about right or wrong, no amount of good conduct can save you, since they hold that conscience is unchangeable and conduct can only manifest or obscure it. Good people are defined by right feelings, not right behavior.

[@scartyz762]

I would really like to see your video about comparing the features for both system. I was just getting into nix and now I see Guix which can be configured with a Lisp dialect (though I like Common Lisp more) too like Nyxt and Emacs, I am getting excited!

[@Hamled]

I've used NixOS as my daily driver for the past two years, and am switching to Guix. The biggest reason is the #1 you have in this video... the Nix language has some nice aspects (it's also very minimal like Scheme) but I often found I was accomplishing things more in spite of the language than being helped by it. This might be why most Nix packages are ultimately built using shell scripts rather than Nix code. The other huge piece is the Guix project's commitment to documentation. I think this reflects GNU's goal of offering computing systems for everybody, not just programmers. The whole thing feels a lot more approachable, and reading through significant portions of the manual has actually left me feeling quite capable of understanding all of the code in the Guix project and my own configs, which was not the case for the Nix/Nixpkgs/NixOS manuals. The biggest counterpoint to this that I've found so far is that Guix has a much smaller community right now, and as a result there's less software already packaged for it. Switching fully is going to involve packaging at least a handful of non-free software that I commonly use. Of course, I hope that will be a more enjoyable process using Guile.

[@cpakkala]

Your Guix services is the same thing as Nix modules, and I didn't really hear any reason why you chose Guix over Nix, other than scheme being a general language as opposed to a domain specific language like Nix. You gave some positives about Guix, but didn't contrast them to Nix, so I think that video title should have just been why you like Guix.

[@cyAbhishek]

Yeah. The title says Why I chose Guix over NixOS. And literally he did no comparision. I guess he did say that he will make a detailed comparison video soon. Still, not cool. This highlights a major "trust" issue that we face for the community. Some of the major free software projects are like that. Atleast that's what I feel.

[@SystemCrafters]

@cyAbhishek Which community? What trust issue?

[@qlnzky]

I respect the honesty about not having used nixos for a long time. When i first heard about nixos i read an article comparing it to guix so i looked into both. In the end i decided that nixos would fit my developer needs more and i found that the nixos config was easier to read for me. They definetly both have their usecases and deserve to stay. Oh yes and the biggest benefit on nixos is obviously that it's the new arch and saying "i usea nixos btw" sounds way cooler cooler now than saying "i use arch btw". ;)

[@divest6527]

For me, the reason I’ve stuck with nix is for the cross-compatibility with Darwin. I would love to port all my home-manager config into a guix config I could deploy on Linux and Mac, but because that’s not possible (as far as I know), I’m sticking with Nix for that. Perhaps in future I’ll run guix on my Linux machines with nix on top for all my dotfiles

[@rjawiygvozd]

I used nixos for quite a while but never decided to switch from a simple "native" set of dotfiles managed by stow to home manager so I don't lock myself into this weird ecosystem and can keep using whatever distro I want, glad I didn't

[@divest6527]

@@rjawiygvozd The thing is, in a desktop context, most of what I'm doing is what I'm doing in home-manager. I know there is an equivalent to home-manager in guix, but it only supports Linux as far as I'm aware. I can't use it cross-platform. Admittedly I haven't used Stow (before I was using chez moi, then dotter for this purpose). On my server configuration, it's a different story - the reason I stick to NixOS on that is because I already had a ZFS cluster before even considering using either NixOS or Guix, which kinda locked me out of using it in that context either.

[@eldritchcookie7210]

The point of using a real language instead of nix is a fair one, but everything else seems to be quivalent or better on nix, nonetheless this video made me excited enough to include testing guix on my todo list.

[@snikta564]

Guix is by far the most elegant distribution I've ever used. And the documentation is mind blowing. This is the distro of the future. Just use an infix converter if you cant stand scheme (which by the way is a beautiful, simple and powerful language).

[@Doomsdayparade]

Barely looked into guix, but I'm a big fan of the wizard book, so I guess I'll give it a shot!

[@Flackon]

How is Guix with nonfree packages?

[@StaffyDoo]

Non existent. Guix is a much powerful system than NixOS (and so it is Scheme over the DSL Nix), but its focus on Free-as-in-Libre makes it almost unusable if you need to run proprietary/privative software.

[@abra-k]

@@StaffyDoo iirc there exists an extra repo/channel for non-free stuff. Was it called nonguix? not to knowledgeable about it though correct me if I'm wrong

[@lucycoleclough1182]

@@StaffyDoo i see this sentiment alot and it isnt true, where does it come from?

[@andrewe4240]

How are errorr messages in guix? Nix's are sometimes a PITA to decipher, like when you recursively find and import all default.nix-es, and one of them has an error, nix won't tell you the error is on line x of file y. Is guix better at this, or maybe it's considered a bad practice, and there are some better ways to achieve automatic imports? Also, is it possible to avoid using grub? Not like being forced to use it is a hard no-go, but due to some personal experiences and beliefs I'd rather not.

[@NinjaKyou]

Im looking to get into Guix after being annoyed with the Nix language! The Nix language servers are pretty bad. I wanted to use TOT wezterm, and to do that, I wasted hours trying to learn the difference between overlays, overrides, overrideDerivations and overrideAttrs, just to find out that overrideAttrs doesnt work as expected on rust packages. However because the Nix community is way bigger, their tooling does seem to be more polished/stable (nh, flakes, nom, nix-tree, nix-melt, FHS stuff are very nice). Although I had many random, transient errors with Guix, and it seems to be significantly slower. Im hoping using Guile over Nix will make up for it!

[@Fabojuno]

If you really want to get into Nix and handle it better, it is a true nightmare! When you go into advanced examples, ironically the core is all written in bash lol

[@wilf1312]

I'm curious to know how easy and worthwhile it is for a nonprogrammer to get into it, in the long run. I've been into Linux for almost 20 years now, used most big distros over the years, Arch included, but these days I've settled with Fedora and Debian stable, the former for a gaming desktop, the second for my laptop that I sometime use for work. I really enjoy emacs config and how I felt it was a long term investment for me. Would I feel the same way with Guix? How hard would it be to learn some Scheme for Guix? I am curious to give it a try, but time is becoming more and more a scarce resource.

[@HansBaier]

I tried installing it on a ThinkPad but the installer crashed midway

[@DreamCodeLove]

Does Guix have support for Nvidia GPU?

[@SystemCrafters]

Yes, Nvidia drivers are in the Nonguix channel

[@stephennelson-smith3312]

I was rather hoping for a comparison rather than a list of things you like, but I enjoyed the video. I use NixOS and like it, but I could certainly see myself liking using Guile instead of the Nix language. I also don't love systemd, although I know nothing about shepherd! The killer feature for me is that with home-manager and nixos-darwin I can basically have the same setup on a mac as on my workstation. For that reason I can't see me changing from NixOS, but I might well have a play with Guix on a spare machine.

[@batlin]

Audio seems to be about 200ms ahead of the video.

[@calholli]

I thought it was just an avatar

[@matthiasbendewald1803]

I'm a happy nix user partially for the simpler language. I'd have to learn and use Lisp for guix only for maintaining guix, so I compared how hard it is to learn and nix seemed to be quite trivial to learn. Sure, it is much more limited, but I'd not do the stuff you've shown in the video anyway, so that's perfectly fine with me. But I see the appeal, especially when you're using Emacs and have some similar way to set that up. I'd want a normal non-libre kernel however, and also systemd seems to be straight forward to me. So maybe I'll give guix a try in the future, not sure if it will be an improvement to nix (which is already extremely useful so the standard is like: HIGH)

[@alurma]

Nix the language is pretty good in my honest opinion

[@megadog_]

Lisp is more generally useful as a programming language family. You can write whole applications in Guile Scheme. Then you can get into other Lisp dialects like Common Lisp, or Clojure which is great for full stack web or mobile development (JVM backend, ClojureScript to compile to JS)

[@matthiasbendewald1803]

@@megadog_ Yes I know from my very shallow experience with emacs. Wasn't fun though, wouldn't want to spend that much effort to learn a language that I wouldn't have use for otherwise for configuring my OS or text editor. I just have no use for all the "advanced" features... It's great if you like it or have use for Lisp in other areas though, as I said. Otherwise Nix is *much* easier to grasp and thus a better fit for such a task, at least from all that I know.

[@tcurdt]

I really can't say that the nix language is a God sent but counting scheme as a positive feels a little deranged.

[@Malix_Labs]

Why?

[@DimitriBillikov]

Never heard of guix and the second I saw the config in Scheme I knew why. Don't get me wrong, Scheme is a wonderfully elegant language and learning Nix has a steep learning curve! But Nix was created with configuration definition and package management in mind and ist therefore quite easy to read. Scheme, however, becomes an eyesore after a few levels of nested expressions.

[@8octorine8]

The main idea of Nix is functional package management. The main idea of guix is you get to use scheme everywhere, and it also happens to have functional package management.

[@fedang]

Scheme is literally a positive

[@tcurdt]

@@fedang ((((((((((display "I disagree"))))))))))

[@yaelxi3174]

I love how stereotypical of an Emacs user it is controlling your entire OS trough Emacs

[@Gob-Jesus]

Just Thinking Of This Questions I Wanted To Ask In Live Chat Andl... You Made A Video

[@sangeeth6655]

Hey. I think the chapter titles are from your previous video about organizing guix config, maybe?

[@SystemCrafters]

Yep, forgot to update those, thanks!

[@samuelbanya]

Are you ever going to do a Typescript / NextJS / web development video using Emacs? Curious since you're the only active Emacs guy that could explain a decent config for this. I have yet to find a good config for this.

[@asynthe]

I've been using both Emacs and NixOS for around 2 years and this type of systems are amazing to set everything up in a few commands. I would say I've become lazy (in a good way) because of them lol. Can't wait to give Guix a try in the future, for now other things in life are taking my time but I'll definetively go on the Guix rabbit hole at some point as I once did with Nix and NixOS.

[@mart62730]

Interesting, thanks. As an arch user having every software I could think of available in aur, I am a bit afraid I would be locked when I want to install less popular software. Do you run into this kind of issue? I don’t mind text based config but don’t want to have to write a config file when I could have done it with one command line instruction.

[@peralta2008]

Hey man, nice video, but you should probably use a de-esser on your audio!

[@cdrbvgewvplxsghjuytunurqwfgxvc]

There seems to be a need for a linux dist with malbolge configuration

[@jacobherbst1171]

I would probably call myself a NixOS power user by now. I use it both for personal use and for work. My knowledge of Guix is limited, but i would like to mention that mostly all of the reasons could just as well be said for NixOS: nix is a package-manager and a functional programming language, which allow you to do some very powerful stuff, because of the lazy nature of the language it is also extremely composable in a (in my opinion) very elegant way.

[@SystemCrafters]

I'll certainly dive more into that aspect soon!

[@dulcebelluminexpertis4147]

Just want to say thanks for what you do for the community man. Your channel/site is beyond useful!!

[@quintuple_lained]

i tried nixos for a while and i cant stand nix the language, scheme is just so much better imo

[@DreamsAPI]

Cool video, I began using Nixos because of the ease of installing and using software. I would say that I am about 23% of full knowledge of nix/nixpkgs/nixos and I love the fact that I can with ease through flakes update my entire system. Short comings of nixos is it does not have built in security in mind. Tell me more about Guix built in security features?

[@VSurya-vt4nd]

I mainly prefer NixOS over guix is because it works on mac and because with nix I at least have the possibility of shipping it into production at my company, I don’t think guix will be adopted in the industry anytime soon, I might be wrong though does anyone use lisps language in their company?

[@TheMonyarm]

I wish someone would make a transpiler that transpiles to Guile.

[@peterkois4858]

I would like if you could try nixos in vm or just nix for the comparison to have some merit...

[@Malix_Labs]

"My configurations" links are broken

[@calholli]

I know right.. I'm going back to windows 7

[@cocacodes]

As a pretty happy NixOS user I don't find the nix language that much of a barrier and in fact I'm pretty happy with it (especially since it clicked for me very well as a programmer coming from more imperative things like rust) however I do also have to agree that a established language like scheme is a great choice since you don't have to deal with hacky compilers like what nix is currently dealing with due to it being built in an unideal way. Also I definitely appreciate the focus on not being appealing to corpos ;D especially due to the current drama around those and just general nix development culture. But they aren't crazy enough issues to me to want to switch to Guix since I already have everything setup in a way that makes my brain happy, if it blows up I'll take a closer look though!

[@mskiptr]

A big part of this "it's all scheme" argument isn't really that it's a replacement for the Nix lang. It also replaces inline Bash and a myriad of config file formats found in the wild!

[@overclucker]

I've written package manifests, but haven't gotten my own channel working yet. Guix is cool but complicated.

[@keilmillerjr9701]

Paranthesis hell. I am happy with arch and pacdef/metapac.

[@notoriouslycuriouswombat]

how come audio and your speaking is never in sync, is that because of software freedom?

[@remigoldbach9608]

If i remember correctly, does guix use the gnu hurd kernel, which is a microkernel (more stability)

[@SystemCrafters]

Not by default, but you can enable it!

[@remigoldbach9608]

You are right, I did not remember correctly

[@knoopx]

so gnome 44 is the last version on guix packages? that's a hard pass for me regardless how cool the language/politics are (i'm already unhappy with the release pace of nixos)

[@Malix_Labs]

Currently, in the guix repository, the latest available gnome package is 44.10 (released 2024-03-16), while the current latest is 47.1 (released 2024-10-18)

[@catcatcatcatcatcatcatcatcatca]

I am really struggling with BOTH my Nix (on debian) config and my emacs config so I think I have to pass on learning a new language. I have a bad habit of writing and modifying stuff that I should probably just take as-is, and I am afraid that Guix would drive me to do that, but even harder. Once it has something truly game-changing like multi-thread performance for emacs, or wayland based EXWM (EWWM I guess), then I have to reconsider spending some long enough vacation on it.

[@dovh49]

NixOS went woke. So, I wouldn't put much hope into its future. Another reason not to use it.

[@johnosullivan675]

What is woke?

[@sammypanda]

uh a lot of this was not a comparison to nix O_o

[@kazwalker764]

Stopped watching after about 1:20... That syntax is ugly... No thanks.

[@calholli]

I image if we found life on Mars... they would speak this language

[@zungaloca]

Nixos masterrace

[@Adiee5Priv]

Richard Stallman!!!!!!!

[@k98killer]

Emacs is cool, but it needs a good text editor like vim.

[@affieuk]

The brackets though.

[@Refresh5406]

"Why I Choose Guix Over NixOS. I'm really quite insane."

[@SystemCrafters]

Well, yes?

[@intermarer9145]

After NixOS went full woke I thought oh well that's a shame but at least I don't have to use the Nix language any more. I had it in the back of my mind to try Guix, but now I see it uses "lisp" 🤢

[@BartTrojanowski]

you lost me at scheme.

[@jfftck]

(I love the simplicity of Lisp, (but hate the visual noise of the syntax!))

[@randylejeune]

Ever heard of Dylan?

[@brionlund2467]

So we’re just cool with a developer declaring that silent u’s exist now.

[@SystemCrafters]

Guix was created by a French speaker

[@brionlund2467]

@@SystemCrafters then shouldn't it be pronounced like "gwees"? I'm a software engineer, I know how difficult naming things is, but damn, we just out here teaching phonics on acid at this point.

[@megadog_]

@@brionlund2467 You must really hate guitars

[@brionlund2467]

@@megadog_ no, the pronunciation for the u is still there. Its not pronounce like Git-ar. Its pronounced somewhere between guh-tar and geh-tar. Nice try though superdog.

[@8octorine8]

It's pronounced gu like in guile, ix like in Unix. And, as was mentioned, the French pronunciation for both of those.

[@angelosdkg]

but guix is fsf endoresed software ... sorry my system has proprietary firmware for wifi ...

[@SystemCrafters]

This is not a problem, my Guix installation video shows how to use the full Linux kernel.

[@b4sically26]

This video is: "why i choose guix" not "why i choose guix over nixos" You have mentioned nixos ONCE and that was saying you used it only 10 years ago. What a useless video

[@SystemCrafters]

This is why I haven't bothered using NixOS again, it is relevant!

[@b4sically26]

@@SystemCrafters no this is why you stayed with one operating system. That is not why you chose it over nix, but why you chose it at all. Hence the wrong title and the annoyance after watching this video

[@Fabojuno]

@@b4sically26 Being kind doesn't hurt. take it easy

[@neodonkey]

emacs is a great operating system that is just lacking a good text editor.

[@SystemCrafters]

Classic meme, but Emacs is a pretty good text editor too

[@yash1152]

1:55 he clearly has not evenva remotely practical idea about nixos then.

[@eygs493]

everything you said can also be true with nixos, your argument does not stand

[@SystemCrafters]

No argument here, only opinions :) I will look at NixOS again soon

[@reo101]

I love scheme and get their first argument, yes, but I have to agree here - everything mentioned can and is done in NixOS, and often more cleanly IMO

[@bullpup1337]

But the nixos language is NOT a lisp but some custom invention.

[@andibensisva2155]

I prefer Guix because of lisp and GNU factor.

[@9s-l-s9]

So NixOS is no longer using a DSL? Good to know lol

[@Ander0072originalv2]

Is Guix meant to look like a uterus and ovaries? lol

[@someguyyoukno]

Filthy emacs user opinion detected. Jk but fr what is wrong with curly brackets ayayayaya that hurt my eyes immensely

[@martin128]

I just damn hate schema language.

[@abhabh6896]

No one cares. Today I am trying to run fortran on linux. I type. No guied on youtube. All I get is a thick book. I am not two pages in, a guy on windows is already coding... yeah, lets saturate youtube linux content with stupid useless distro reviews instead of anythig helpful....

[@Malix_Labs]

There were no reason to be so bitter and insulting > No one cares Very first sentence of the video : > If you're a Linux power user or maybe someone looking to craft a system [...] So, not you, for sure, but not "no one" either And if you are still not convinced, please consider taking a look to the video' stats

[@happygofishing]

saar u failed to do the needful, DO NOT REDEEM!

[@SniperMayer]

I had to work a few months on a Clojure project and I got to know that functional programming is something I really like, but boy do those ()()()()() make me go insane.

[@bullhaddha]

That's just the algo(ho)l exiting your body