

GNU Guix 0.8.2 released - davexunit
https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=8273

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paroneayea
Nice new site design too:
[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/)

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agumonkey
Apparently 1024x768 is considered mobile nowadays. I can't stop smiling.

Zooming out to 90% turned the full-screen menu into a 'normal' one.

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sciurus
Why the extra effort on the GNU Project's part to create Guix? What are the
advantages over just adopting Nix? Doesn't this mean that everything the Nix
project packages has to be repackaged for Guix, and vice-versa?

I found this comparison at [http://sandervanderburg.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-
nix-and-gnu-...](http://sandervanderburg.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-nix-and-gnu-
guix.html)

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davexunit
>Why the extra effort on the GNU Project's part to create Guix?

There are a couple reasons:

1) We believe that unifying the entire system using a general purpose
programming language that allows for the creation of embedded domain specific
languages (Scheme) is better than using a domain specific language (the Nix
language) and a multitude of other languages behind it (C++, Perl, Python,
Bash). Our build scripts and client side code is written in Scheme. Our
package and system services are written in Scheme. Our init system is written
in Scheme. Our initial RAM disk is written in Scheme. This allows us to have
good interoperability and reuse a lot of code in different places.

2) We are committed to providing a fully free GNU/Linux distro as defined by
the FSF. NixOS includes proprietary some components.

>What are the advantages over just adopting Nix?

I think that our user and programming interfaces are better. We give more care
to making sure package test suites pass and we don't use pre-built binaries
from third parties (no blobs, no pre-built minified JavaScript, etc). We have
really nice Emacs integration. It's nice to have a system that is fully free
by default.

>Doesn't this mean that everything the Nix project packages has to be
repackaged for Guix, and vice-versa?

Yes.

With that said, I need to mention that I think Nix is great. Really great. I
just like the Guix implementation and philosophy more. Hope this helps.

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cwyers
"The Guix System Distribution * Liberating. GuixSD is an advanced distribution
of the GNU Operating System developed by the GNU Project —which respects the
freedom of computer users."

GNU Operating System? Has the FSF moved past calling it GNU/Linux to just
calling it GNU? Have they switched back to the Hurd? What's going on here?

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davexunit
When we refer to the GNU Operating System, we're referring to the entire
collection of GNU software. One of GuixSD's goals as an official GNU project
is to integrate all GNU software nicely. The distro is GNU/Linux only right
now, but Hurd support is being worked on, too.

See our "about" page for more info:
[https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/about/](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/about/)

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wtbob
Guix is really cool, but I wish that it used Common Lido instead of Scheme.
Still, much as with Emacs, a Lisp is better than no Lisp.

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taylanub
>Common Lido

Slipped by one column on your keyboard? :-D

I agree that a Lisp is better than no Lisp; I'd be more or less equally
content if Guix used CL. Major Scheme implementations don't have much lacking
compared to CL though, and the core is somewhat cleaner with less historic
baggage, so I'm most happy with Scheme. (The standardization though ... _sigh_
)

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wtbob
Yeah, stupid phone keyboard and stupid me not noticing:-)

That's one major issue with Scheme: sure, anything can be achieved in a
Turing-complete language, but each Scheme does things a little differently.
Common Lisp, meanwhile, actually standardised all that important stuff.

And while Scheme is conceptually cleaner, CL feels a lot more well-engineered
as a language.

~~~
taylanub
I wonder what makes you say CL feels more well-engineered? I can't think of
any reasons, unless you simply mean Scheme's under-specification.

Scheme is not just "conceptually" cleaner if you ask me. It's very concretely
cleaner. The naming conventions for one ("rplaca" anyone?), the clear-cut
orthogonal APIs, the numeric tower with exactness/inexactness, and [insert pun
about "hygienic" macros being "cleaner"...]

