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Review: The Guix package manager 1.5.0
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
The thought which kept coming to me while I was experimenting with Guix this week was that Guix feels like an advanced package manager created by package maintainers for package maintainers. Being able to instantly swap between packages, install from binary or source, track the changes between package generations, and manage software in a local profile without touching the rest of the operating system are all features which feel ideal for a package maintainer. (Speaking as someone who has maintained packages across multiple platforms.) However, Guix feels quite awkward for any other role outside of helping a package maintainer.
The concept and syntax are overly complicated for beginners and average computer users; Guix is definitely a more advanced tool without any friendly graphical interface. It doesn't feel like it is geared toward system administrators because it is putting the power, the packages, and the clean-up in the hands of individual users rather than centralizing the processes. It doesn't feel like it is targeting developers since the non-standard filesystem locations and lack of isolation features are not suited to development and deployment the way containers are.
Which brings me back to the idea that Guix is a really impressive package management system if you are really into maintaining multiple packages and want to make managing your packages as powerful and flexible as possible. And this seems like a really capable tool if that is what you need. On the other hand, if you're not maintaining multiple packages, Guix is probably more complex and more hands-on for the user than what you need.