SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
GNU Guix 1.0.0 has been released. The big 1.0 is an important milestone for most Free Software. In this case it is the result of seven years of development. GNU Guix is a general toolbox for software deployment, also known as a package manager, but with advancements over RPM and APT, which it can co-exist with. However it can also be used as a complete distro.
In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection. When used as a standalone GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable and hackable through Guile programming interfaces and extensions to the Scheme language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @11:32AM (1 child)
A replacement for systemd!
(Score: 5, Informative) by RamiK on Sunday May 05 2019, @01:49PM
Actually, this is GNU Guix, the package manager. GNU Shepherd is the init system replacing systemd.
Of course, both Guix and Shepherd are part of GNU GuixSD, the GNU/Linux Guix system distribution.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:15PM (1 child)
if it does not interfere with apt, it should be an interesting base, which you can pull the occasional .deb into. I'll let you know when i have time to tinker, that is for v. 3.0.0 :)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:05PM
The interesting bit for Guix and Nix, in addition to what is listed in the summary, is that the Guix developers are working on bit-for-bit reproducible builds for most of their packages. That's critical for security.
But the other parts are interesting too. Right now my impression is that most companies have a multi-layer system configuration for their server farms. The top layer is a tool like Chef or Puppet, then the package manager like yum (soon to be DNF) with .rpm files or apt with .deb files. And possibly a third layer with Docker or something similar. Chef or Puppet manages customizations to accounts, configuration files, firewall settings, etc... I'm not sure about containers like Docker, but Guix can be your top level tool too. Your system configuration in Guix's system.scm file has all of the information that Chef or Puppet would otherwise manage, so you don't need them at all. I am pretty sure Guix configuration can also configure and manage the Docker containers on a GuixSD installation or something equivalent. One stop shop + reproducible builds = win.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:27PM (5 children)
Just another proof of Linux is made by freaks. Now, excuse me, I am busy rebuilding a hardened FreeBSD with virtualization enabled, encrypted zfs and jailed compartments for my latest homemade tiny robot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:03PM (4 children)
Here's the thing about the GNU project: Richard Stallman has had this annoying habit of being right far more often than he's been wrong. Including both the potential and necessity of Free Software. BSD isn't the enemy, of course, but Stallman correctly figured that the most popular branch of BSD would end up being proprietary (the one belonging to Apple). The FSF's sense of vision and purpose has been clearer than anything its competitors (including sorta-allies like the Open Source Initiative and the Linux Foundation) have ever been able to stick to. The open-source types advocate the same techniques as the FSF does, but for the purpose of making money rather than making software, and while that's helped make software too it's more incidental than purposeful and the money-making side of it can and does lead to monstrosities.
So yeah, a bunch of freaks, but they're right.
Not to say that project management on the Hurd was less than ideal ...
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Sunday May 05 2019, @07:55PM (1 child)
I am of the opinion that the Linux Foundation is completely in Intel's pocket. It is terrible. Intel people have committing privileges that the general people do not have. Have a look at Yocto project and see how many turd commits and functionality are made by intel employees.
The same on the Linux kernel, where Intel and Linux foundation employees were among the ones signing off.[1]. See also the platinum privileges and who is part of the club.
[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f [kernel.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @11:19PM
The Linux Foundation has ZERO to do with development of the linux kernel or anything else. It is an industry group that wants to ensure that the free software they build their businesses on will continue to exist by funding select projects that provide value to its member corporations.
From their own website, "More than half of all Global 2000 software and telecom companies are members of The Linux Foundation and our projects." Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Huwawei and others who have been hostile to free software are members because their current products rely on free software (but they call it open source, even when it is free).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:38AM
gnu == quaint
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday May 06 2019, @01:59AM
Apple releases the Darwin kernel sources.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:54PM (3 children)
So it's a package manager AND a complete distro... wut
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:19PM
What else is a distro but a coherent consolidation of packages?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:23PM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=31423&page=1&cid=839212#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:47AM
It's also a dessert topping and floor wax.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @05:11PM (5 children)
Is the goal of Linux to have an individual distribution for every human on the planet? Why can't these morons choose two or three distros and focus on making the software work better, instead of making it work different.
(Score: 5, Funny) by RamiK on Sunday May 05 2019, @06:24PM (2 children)
Here you go: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-windows-10 [microsoft.com]
compiling...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:01PM (1 child)
No systemd, no gnome and no pulseaudio... this is great, thanks!
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Sunday May 05 2019, @10:26PM
No security, no privacy, no good updates... this is awful, no thanks!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday May 06 2019, @02:50PM
Yeah, pretty much.
Because one-size-fits-all doesn't even work well for hats, let alone a complete computing environment. There's more than two or three distros because there's more than two or three different ways to interface with a PC.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday May 06 2019, @05:42PM
If that's what people want, then why not? What have you got against freedom and choice?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday May 05 2019, @06:01PM (2 children)
Ok, have RTFWP at least. First impression is Yet Another Container Stack. Impressive and laudable goals but impossible to achieve unless the attract massive developer support and with the entrenched state of things that isn't likely. They have built a beautiful new cathedral in an age when few are interested in them.
Start with the negative
1. All system administration is in one file! Yea, right. Seen that a few times. Except when it ain't. See above and see Windows Registry. Somebody would have to expend the massive effort to expose every single configurable knob in Guix's configuration language. And keep it updated, manage graceful transitions as options change, etc. Too much like work, somebody would need to be paid, a lot. Since I'm playing with it this weekend, use Libvirt as an example. The GUI doesn't expose nearly all of the xml config files. Guix would be trying to rewrap all of it, either by hand or by machine parsing of the dtd, at which point one asks why not simply embed xml in the Guix file? Now lets imagine the fun of exposing Apache + php configuration entirely. Of course they don't, and it is a safe bet -every- real world install would run into a knob or two that wasn't one of the ones they decided were important.
2. Again with the Scheme. Yea the Lisp freaks won't die, yes they have a point and no it doesn't matter. They need massive adoption, see above. Anything except Python or Javascript now precludes that, programmers aren't the hyper competent folk the FSF still remembers and dreams of. Lowest common denominator should have been their catchphrase.
3. Smelling containers as the underlying implementation mechanism for most of it. Same fatal flaws as in every such system, without shared libraries you will never achieve reliable propagation of security fixes. Yes shared libs are a nightmare in so many ways, we all know that. But there is no other method on the table to deal with the security problem.
Positives
1. Looks like it might be handy new way to spin up test environments. Assuming package availability, maintenance, etc. Would need to see a compelling story vs existing methods like containers, vms, etc.
2. They are taking a crack at user controlled package management, a real problem that rpm, deb, apt, dnf, yum, all suck at. Somebody is going to solve it.
3. I'm sure there is package signing, it is $current_year and all and that is required, but at least the summary wasn't larded with crypto weenie jargon and vaporware claims. Refreshing to see, in $current_year, a new product not tied to a blockchain or some such nonsense.
4. Nice to see GNU finally smelling the coffee and building atop Linux instead of waiting for the HURD.
5. If it gets any traction at all it is going to give Red Hat / IBM's plans for world domination some serious heartburn. It replaces their systemd and CoreOS dream entirely. Being a GNU project it should be stable enough to understand and document.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday May 05 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
1. Because the end-goal is to spin VMs off configuration files for testing and cloud purposes like NixOps does: https://nixos.org/nixops/ [nixos.org]
It's just that they're less concerned with how it works as dom0 and more concerned with how well it does as a on-iron or in-vm server or desktop.
2. Personally I dislike LISP too but honestly Guile is easier than python3 and/or javascript. The issue is that their SICP fetish is preventing them from writing something at the level of Python for Dummies targeting high-school students instead of first year MIT undergrads. People forget just how many C++ books Microsoft promoted over the years targeting kids without any prerequisites in math or coding of any kind in different languages and how Java directly courted institutions and corporate interests. Nowadays even Google had to finance multiple Go books at different levels despite the language's simplicity. And Mozilla is just cooking one Rust resource after another despite having the huge advantage of being positioned as next Java now that Oracle pillaged Sun and Google's shenanigans are fouling up Go's merits.
5. $ man bash
But in all seriousness, yeah it's well positioned to tackle the ever-growing stack of C++ corporate monstrosities. It's also licensed properly to prevent them from trying to close it off unlike Nix. Which answers why the fork was required not that anyone should even wonder nowadays.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:56AM
Spare me, I have no desire to learn yet another bizarre container system. I get paid to manage servers.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday May 05 2019, @11:54PM
Last time I tried Nix (similar idea to Guix, declarative OS/package management), unfortunately a lot of things depend on shared libraries and envvars being laid out just so, and due to the nature of the declarative/stateless config, every single package basically gets its own environment and set of shared libs. This is extremely painful when it bites you because there is no escape hatch. Example: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/902 [github.com]
The "co-exist with rpm and apt" is another big lie. It's technically true (they can co-exist as long as you don't try to run anything), but again the shared libs are complete separate, meaning lots of random things break because they weren't linked with the same libraries as the services they talk to for example.
IMO Bedrock Linux is a much more interesting and superior approach. BL enables you to stack different distros (e.g., run a machine with packages from Debian, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, and Gentoo playing nice together) and it has actually done the hard technical work of getting all the disparate packages to play nice together and link to the right libraries which Nix/Guix tries to handwave away.
For running reproducible production systems, Docker/container is just a lot more practical and easy to set up than Nix/Guix, and for a workstation the declarative/stateless approach is also more trouble than it's worth.
In summary, it's nice in theory, but it doesn't quite work out in practice.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!