The GNU Guix System

GNU Guix is a package manager for GNU/Linux systems. It is designed to give users more control over their general-purpose and specialized computing environments, and make these easier to reproduce over time and deploy to one or many devices.
↫ GNU Guix website

Guix is basically GNU’s approach to a reproducible, functional package manager, very similar to Nix because, well, it’s based on Nix. GNU also has a Linux distribution built around Nix, the GNU Guix System, which is fully ‘libre’ as all things GNU are, and also makes use of the GNU Shepard init system. Both Shepard and Guix make use of Guile. The last release of the GNU Guix System is a few years old already, but it’s a rolling release, so that’s not much of an issue. It uses the Linux kernel, but support for GNU Hurd is also being worked on, for whatever that’s worth.

There’s also a third-party distribution that is built around the same projects, called rde. It focuses on being lightweight, ready for offline use, and minimal distractions. It’s probably not suitable for most normal users, but if you’re a power user and you’re looking for something a little bit different, this could be for you. While it’s in active development, it’s considered usable and stable by its creators. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m definitely intrigued by what it has to offer.

Nix sucks up a lot of the attention in this space, so it’s interesting to see some of the alternatives that aim for similar goals.