My Comfy GNU/Lisp Machine

mrh@mander.xyz to Unixporn@lemmy.ml – 51 points –
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Looks great! How do you find guix as an OS overall?

I quite enjoy it!

Being able to rollback any change I make to the system, either package changes or system configuration, makes it completely unbreakable and provides great peace of mind. It means I can fully enjoy its rolling-release nature without worrying.

Having my entire system configuration declared in a single, robust programming language (Guile) across a small number of files makes it very easy to understand and just stick into source control to reproduce.

Being able to hack on it in a lisp (scheme) is the cherry on top, along with the great emacs integration. I would highly recommend it to any lisp/emacs/gnu enthusiasts.

I'll have to give it a try. There are ways to get non-free software on guix? Is it just not officially part of the distro?

Yes you can install non-free software on Guix. By default Guix only ships with non-free software in its iso and standard repo, but there is a nonguix channel (read repo) which comes with all the non-free software I've ever needed.

It's very easy to add channels to Guix. Flatpak and Nix are also available on Guix if you'd prefer to use those ways of getting non-free software.

I've been reading some more and I definitely want to give guix a spin. I guess that's the advantage of nix as a tool: you can always install alongside your distro's package manager if desired.