The GNU Guix System’s lack of manpower problems

As if Francesco P. Lovergine heard my prayers, he wrote an article detailing his experiences with using Guix. Considering he’s a longtime Debian developer, we’re looking at someone who knows a thing or two about Linux.

In the last few months, I have installed and upgraded my second preferred GNU/Linux system, GNU Guix, on multiple boxes. Regarding that system, I have already written a few introductory posts in the recent past. This is an update about my experiences as a user and developer. I still think Guix is a giant step forward in packaging and management, in comparison with Debian and other distributions, for elegance and inner coherence.
↫ Francesco P. Lovergine

Lovergine found some problems with Guix, most notably those stemming from a lack of manpower. It’s not a hugely popular package management system and associated distribution, so the team of developers behind it is relatively small, and this leads to issues like outdated packages, problems arising from updates, and possible security issues. There’s no specific security team, for instance, but at least it’s easy to roll back updates due to the nature of Guix.

Another problem, partially related to the lack of manpower, stems from the fact that the GNU Guix System uses some unusual systems, most notably GNU Shepard. This init system is an alternative to the widely-used systemd, alongside other alternatives like runit (which I use through Void Linux), but due to its relative lack of popularity, it can take some time for more complex packages to be made compatible with it. Especially some packages – like GNOME – that depend more and more on systemd are going to lag behind on Guix.

For anyone with decent Linux experience and a willingness to tinker, I don’t think any of these issues – and the others Lovergine mentions – are dealbreakers. Sure, you might not want to deploy the GNU Guix System on a production system or anything that requires solid, strong security, but for personal and enthusiast use it seems like an interesting and somewhat unorthodox Linux distribution.