If you're interested in what's going on with GNU in general, GUIX is awesome. It's a package manager like Nix but purely GNU (using GNU Guile scheme). It's developed in tandem with the GNU Shepherd init system (instead of sysvinit/systemd/openrc/etc.) and there are distributions based on GNU Hurd kernel (or the Linux-libre kernel).

Wikipedia has a pretty good rundown [3] but I recommend booting up a VM image. It's actually quite beautiful. I love the purity of GNOME on a GNU/Hurd system with GUIX and Shepherd where the whole thing is configured in guile[4]. There's just something very aesthetic about the combination. I wish I could use it as my daily driver.

1. https://guix.gnu.org/

2. https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/manual/shepherd.html

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Guix

4. https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/

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aidenn0 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

One of these days I'll try guix (currently on NixOS).

Two things that hold me back (aside from the obvious friction of switching):

1. nixpkgs is huge. If what I need isn't in 25.05, it's in unstable

2. I've been programming in Common Lisp for so long that I can't help but write buggy code any time I try writing in a lisp-1. It seems like it should be such a minor thing, but I invariably inadvertently shadow a function I'm using with some other variable.

[edit]

I forgot my third issue, which is all of my preferred setup options seem to be further off beaten path in Guix than NixOS (e.g. plasma, zfs)

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Y_Y 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm totally with you, though would note that running Hurd as your main kernel is difficult, but running childhurds on your linux kernel is fun and profitable.

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2020/childhurds-and-substitutes...

Obviously I'm crazy, because I use Emacs with EXWM as my shell, but IMHO it's perfectly capable of being a "daily driver" already.

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yjftsjthsd-h 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is that likely to keep working? With GNOME moving to depend on systemd even more strongly ( https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-... ), I kinda assumed that even non-systemd Linux distros may or may not keep it, let alone non-Linux OSs.

	▲	goku12 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is the reason why I don't like systemd. Make no mistake, systemd has some very good ideas. But when they say that it's modular, replaceable, maintainable etc, this is what actually happens. It's all that in theory. But the reality is very different. GNU Shepherd (guix's init) for instance, is something you can hack deeply using Guile Scheme - sort of like Emacs with Elisp. Much of the Guix OS is like that. Strongly integrated with Guile Scheme glue. But flexible and modular enough to be swapped out easily. Imagine doing the same with systemd init.
	▲	guerrilla 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah, I don't know. I'm worried about that and for the BSDs and nom-systend Linux distros.

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sdsd 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm so excited to try GUIX. Right now I'm on Apple Silicon so I can't get it to work even in a VM, but the second I've got an x64 ISA computer I'm using GUIX