Guix System Distribution (GuixSD) is a Linux-based, stateless operating system that is built around the GNU Guix package manager. The operating system provides advanced package management features such as transactional upgrades and roll-backs, reproducible build environments, unprivileged package management, and per-user profiles. It uses low-level mechanisms from the Nix package manager, but packages are defined as native Guile modules, using extensions to the Scheme language.
To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.
Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.
Colour scheme:green text = latest stable version, red text = development or beta version. The function determining beta versions is not 100% reliable due to a wide variety of versioning schemes.
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Ouch! This distro is painful to install and after I was able to get it up and running it was very unstable and froze just moving the mouse. I'm not completely sure that it's the O/S's fault as I installed it as a VM.
I was interested in switching to GuixSD from Gentoo, as I like the concept of having your entire system config defined in a single file, and having transactional system "states".
Install is relatively easy (even though it took me around 10 attempts). I had to merge the barebones.scm bios grub-boot and the lightweight-desktop.scm desktop's config, to get it working with i3-wm.
Compared to my Gentoo stack, I had 1000 extra packages. Coupled with the fact that most of these have to be compiled from source (very little substitutes (binaries) provided from the build farm), installs and upgrades take forever. Do to some bug, most versions of rust only compile with 1 or 2 threads. I think I had 5 version of rust required on my computer. Imagine the compile time.
IceCat: It just sucks. I didn’t think it would suck, but it does. It is not firefox. I cannot get Stylus, Old-Reddit, and many addons installed. For some reason, it does not seem to be compatible with many firefox addons. This makes it nearly useless for me.
Libre Issues:
I love libre software. I love the FSF. I hate libre-distros. They make it really hard for me to work with people outside, that do not use or know about libre-software. No flash for websites that need it. Also like I said, icecat doesn’t even work with many firefox addons, and you can’t install firefox because it’s non-free. Great.
Paths:
Everything is installed in different directory’s (/gnu/store) and applications don't know this. Currently my bash shell understands no commands except “pwd” and “whoami”. It’s fubared. That’s with copying system-paths using guix package –search-paths. I don’t even know anymore, I’m back to Gentoo for now.
Brilliant ideas, comprehensible minimal installation, and the package manager is working very well on other distributions.
But the distribution still doesn't install and run easily. I'm dying to see what 1.0 will bring. This is a very worthy project that needs more time to cook.
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