324
Realizing Arch isn't for me after updating broke VLC
(lemmy.sdf.org)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
324 points (93.8% liked)
Linux
57073 readers
633 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
I've been enjoying Guix for the last 8 days. You declare your OS and home config in a file and you can check them into source control. It was originally a fork of NixOS, but has diverged a lot.
The CLIs and APIs are pretty nice. They have a concept of "channels", which are git repos you can download software from. The default official channel only hosts FOSS software, but you can trivially add non-FOSS channels and they work just as well as the first-party channels.
Each channel update and package install, removal, update get put on a log, which you can trivially jump between.
guix package --switch-genereation=28and boom you're at that generation (it's like a git commit). The software and config changes get saved in the generation so the jump is clean and atomic. I actually bisected my OS yesterday to track a bug! That was cool. You can also create and share isolated, reproducible environments.Guix works with Flatpak and distrobox as well, in case some software isn't available in existing channels. I got HiDPI, Zoom, Logseq, Syncthing, and Tailscale working.
The biggest drawback for me so far is that it doesn't use systemd. Not sure if it's a dealbreaker for me yet. Systemd does way more than just manage system services, so GNU Shepherd (which Guix uses) isn't a real replacement.