to Guix or to Nix

[Saša Janiška]

Hello,

I’m Linux user since ’99 and was using (open)Suse, Gentoo and Arch with
Xfce most of the time. Had few shot excursions into the world of
Net/Open/Free/PC-BSD, but returned to Linux since some time I use Debian
(Sid) and settled on GNOME3 desktop.

Now, in order to bring some more stability and possibly less admin-work
with both my machines (desktop, netboo) as well as with
relatives/friends I’m considering to switch to eith GuixSD or Nixos…

Guix is attractive considering its usage of standard general programming
language in comparison with NixOS’s DSL.

However, despite of being glad that GuixSD is dedicated to free-only
software I have some questions in regard before deciding to which
distribution to switch…

I understand that for my Netbook I should probably buy new wifi USB
dongle with free-firmware support and similar thing in order to get
working Bluetooth.

However, I’m concerned with my desktop machine where I have Gigabyte
UDP55 (1166 socket) motherboards and it seems that there is need for
firmware-realtek package which provides rtl_nic/rtl8168d-2.fw.

So,

a) can anyone confirm what is the situation in regard to this firmware
in GuixSD?

b) after having some unpleasant experiences with btrfs’ performance
after I did perform some video renderin and my machine had higher
workload, swap file was activated and it took long time to settle down
afte rendering was done, now I’c considering to either use XFS or ZFS
(ZoL), so wonder what is situation in regard of support for those
filesystems (atm, it seems that none of the two are included)?

c) I use old ATI graphics card and I’m happy with open-source driver,
but have need for two legacy Windows app which I use via wine and use
one proprietaty application for my scanner (VueScan) which is GTK app,
so hopefully it should run without any problem, but have occasional need
to use Skype (my friends/relatives have more needs), so wonder what can
one do in regard to apps like Skype and/or Viber, Gitter etc.?

d) For remote troubleshooting of my relatives/friends machine atm I use
TeamViewer which is easy for them, but I hope that something better (aka
open-source) can be deployed instead, so those are practically all
concerns I have in regard.

Of course, I understand that Guix(SD) is younger and does not have as
many packages as NixOS, but, otoh, I see that GuiXSD development is very
active.

Any advice what would be more suitable distro for my needs from the
perspective of Guix(SD) users?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust,
or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is
similarly covered by different degrees of this lust.