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by ryan77627 1100 days ago
I've been using Guix for a bit over 2 months at this point and honestly the whole 'non-free' software thing has not been an issue in the slightest. Use the System Crafters installation iso [1] to get around driver issues on install, and then the only time I've ever had the system complain to me was it warning me one of my hardware components wouldn't work (which it did, since the System Crafters ISO uses the standard Linux kernel). Afterwards, just add nonguix (and I even added Nix as well, so I get the best of both worlds!) If a package isn't in Guix and I don't want to make a package definition, I simply pull it using Nix home-manager. May not be the best or 'proper' setup, but I find it works well enough. [2]

[1]: https://github.com/SystemCrafters/guix-installer/releases

[2]: https://g.stationery.lol/ryan77627/guix-dotfiles
1 comments
ducktective 1100 days ago
For installation and setting up something as basic as drivers, we should follow a non-official guide?
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orbital-decay 1100 days ago
Yes if your only connection is wi-fi with drivers that require nonfree firmware, which is missing from the official ISO. You're supposed to discuss nonfree software in some non-official place too. That's what been stopping me as well; the system seems technically superior to Nix and not nearly as chaotic, but hardcore FOSS idealism makes it impractical sometimes.
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ryan77627 1100 days ago
I will admit, I was hesitant as well, but so far it's been fine. The #guix community on libera.chat is very active and has been nothing short of amazing in helping me understand the ins and outs of Guix. For any non-free software I use, #nonguix in libera.chat exists. It's less active but still pretty active (plus I pop in occasionally).
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ryan77627 1100 days ago
No, feel free to use the official guide, it's still very, very, very helpful. Yes, you do need to use an unofficial image, but that's just if you have hardware that requires non-free drivers (or blobbed drivers, Guix uses Linux-Libre by default).

Not the best of circumstances, I know, but it works (plus if you really wanted to, they give the derivation details in the release notes so you could just spin up a Guix VM which runs fine with the default image and generate the image yourself).

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