this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I daily drive GNU Guix instead, and I would strongly recommend any emacs and/or lisp enthusiasts interested in the benefits of functional, reproducible, declarative, and hackable system management to give it a try!
Do you run the gnu guix distro or just use the package manager? Because iirc it uses only free software, even for drivers. So I imagine it is not that easy to find compatible hardware.
I run the complete system. It's true that the standard iso comes with the linux-libre kernel and the standard channel (think repo) contains only free software. However there is the nonguix channel which comes with the full linux kernel, and all the proprietary drivers you could ask for.
Nonguix offer an iso with the full kernel too in case you have a proprietary wifi card and don't have ethernet for the initial setup. The nonguix README I think is pretty clear, but Systemcrafters also made an excellent guide for doing this.
My wifi card unfortunately requires proprietary drivers and I have personally never had an issue with guix + nonguix for all my software needs, proprietary and otherwise.
Hope that helps profligate!
Nice! I gotta try guix(package manager) on my arch now, not sure if I want to use full guix system yet:)
Does it actually require proprietary drivers or just proprietary firmware? I don't know of any wifi cards that actually require proprietary drivers on Linux.
yeah, Guix is great. I tried to use NixOS for a while but I couldn't get over how much I dislike Nix as a language. Scheme is way way better imo. Guix definitely isn't as polished Nix given its lower number of users but it's still a very pleasant experience.
It's a source-based distribution like Arch so packages are as up to date as the package maintainers keep them. Of course anybody can go in and submit a newer version of a package if the original packager has been slacking on updating. You can also use your own custom version of the package by just copying the package definition, bumping up the version number, and then installing it with
guix package -f my-custom-package.scm