Why you do like guix vs nix or vis versa?
Please only answer if you've tried both guix and nix.
I've been thinking about getting into one or the other, but I can't decide, and I don't have all the time in the world, so whatever I choose, I'll probably be stuck with for like many months until I can switch if I don't like it.
@jessebot we use Debian for dev, NixOS for staging / testing, and Guix for prod.
What's your use case?
@eryn Sorry for the wall of text. 🙇
This would currently just be for my personal machines. My machines currently include a m1 macbook pro that I'm going to install probably asahi (specifically Debian Bananas) on in a couple of months when the new kernel rolls out, and then I have a full desktop that is currently Debian (with KDE if that matters). I also have a medium sized kubernetes cluster (6 nodes of varying sizes) made of a bunch of random sized nodes, and all of those run Debian too. Basically everything I have right now uses a very special custom onboarding script called onboardme and it's fine. Like it's better than ansible because it's easier to configure as an end user, but I hear so many people talking about nix and guix. I want to know if I should bite the bullet when I reimage this macbook with something fresh and FOSS. This is all my personal infrastructure that I run with my roommate, @cloudymax, but we both also work in the senior-principal sysadmining/platform engineering/SRE/devops fields, so whatever we enjoy in the homelab often comes with us to work eventually.
I guess I have a few questions, but one of my primary questions is if I'd need to completely give up Debian to use either guix or nix, of if I can still have my beloved Debian underneath?
@jessebot @cloudymax infodumps are great, no need to apologize!
For a personal machine, I've found NixOS + KDE Plasma to be...suboptimal. I can go into the details if you'd like, but suffice it to say that I've spent 5 years running NixOS+KDEPlasma on my workstation, and I'm ready for a different set of frustrations. Probably going to try NixOS with GNOME, as Xfce was too much assembly required on top of also figuring out NixOS.
Full disclosure, there's supposed to be a way to run Nix on top of Debian, but I've never messed with it. I too appreciate the allure of Debian, and if not for the absolutely fantastic ease of deployment possible atop a declarative foundation, I wouldn't be on anything else.
For headless stuff, I've found NixOS to be better suited for anything that might change configurations regularly, and Guix to be better suited for things that are pretty much going to stay how they are.
