Re: My experiences with GuixSD

[Thompson, David]

Hello Jonathan,

On Fri, Sep 8, 2017 at 6:58 PM, Jonathan Brielmaier
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello Guix,
>
> two weeks ago I got a new desktop computer. I decided to remove the
> ubuntu on it and tried to install GuixSD on it. I'm not a
> super-linux-crack just an "average" user.
>
> I'll describe my experiences and ask some questions/give some input
> (indicated with "=>").
>
> 1. I had a hard time during installation on the "live-system" to figure
> out how to do the GRUB setup the right way. The error was quite simple:
> I only have to write "target /dev/sda" instead of "target /dev/sda1".
>
> => Beside I'm not very experienced with setting up GRUB, something like
> "guix lint" for the system config would be nice :)

I agree. Something that would detect that you are trying to install
GRUB to a partition instead of the disk itself would be nice.

> 2. After booting in the installed GuixSD the fonts were awful and I
> didn't get them to a better state.
>
> => I never saw such "bad rendered" fonts on other Linux distributions.
> It would be nice if the default font setup would be more pretty. (could
> be connected to 3.)

What desktop environment were you using?  I use GNOME and it's default
configuration is quite nice, I think.  Please note that unlike Ubuntu,
GuixSD is not a "just works" distro for beginners at this time.  It's
essentially a framework for creating your own distro.  Making things
nice is generally up to you.  Maybe if you point out which desktop
environment had the displeasing fonts we could potentially make the
default better.

> 3. The system was using CPU (llvmpipe or how it's named) as renderer and
> not the GPU. I have an AMD Radeon RX 480 card which worked quite well on
> Ubuntu with FOSS driver. I added a package which includes the non-free
> firmware, but after all I didn't got GPU rendered distro :(
>
> => I bought an AMD card because of there all-open Linux drivers and I
> want to support them in that way (=> Nvidia...). The drivers work well
> on other distros. I know they need non-free firmware, I don't like it
> but there is no "real" alternative. Having just CPU accelerated graphic
> is for me a blocker to _not_ use GuixSD. What can we do to solve or just
> to ease that situation?

The solution is for the graphics card vendors to stop shipping
proprietary firmware.  The Guix project has no power over these
companies.  Instead of thinking of things that we are powerless to
change, we can focus on what we can.  We could do a better job of is
pointing users to places where they can get hardware that is
compatible.  I run GuixSD on a laptop and a desktop with fully free
GPU drivers as I use compatible Intel and Nvidia GPUs, respectively.
This works because I knew from many years of using fully free distros
that Linux, despite being allegedly free, ships lots of proprietary
firmware that linux-libre removes, and purchased hardware accordingly.
I think it should be easier for newcomers to discover if their systems
are compatible and what they can do to fix the incompatible bits.

> 4. Icecat... I had to restart it like every five minutes because it
> doesn't show websites. Yes, I disabled all those add-ons (LibreJS etc.).
> It was not usable for me, really not. And without all those FOSS add-ons
> on addons.mozilla.org Icecat/Firefox is bad.
>
> => Could we not just have a Firefox ESR version without DRM, Pocket and
> the other closed-source stuff, but _with_ the ability to install add-ons
> and stability?

Maintaining our own Firefox fork would take a lot of effort.  Instead
it would best to send feedback to the IceCat maintainer so they can
set better defaults.  I don't use LibreJS either.  I will say right
now that pointing to addons.mozilla.org isn't going to ever happen as
long as Mozilla continues to encourage users to install proprietary
extensions.

> After lots of hours (10-20h) investing in the setup of GuixSD I decided
> to install Ubuntu as the system was not "usable" for me :(
>
> Beside those "negative" records I have to say: guix package rocks
> (install, environment...)!!!
>
> So for the moment I stay a guix user on foreign distros :P

Thanks for the feedback.  Sorry that GuixSD doesn't work for you.  I
would say that the GPU and IceCat things are "won't fix" (these aren't
GuixSD problems, nor really problems at all, they are facts of life
for running a system that fully respects your freedom), and the GRUB
and font thing could definitely be improved with some effort.

Thanks!

- Dave