2024-11-07

I've been beating my head against Guix System, trying to get it to run on the MNT Reform with the boot partition split off onto a separate device and the root partition encrypted, such that it updates the kernel when the system is reconfigured, but no luck yet. I keep getting errors late into the system installation process; it takes at least 12 hours each time for the system to build on the target device, and about 12 hours for the installation image to build as well. The debug cycle is absurdly long, and I'm not sure if there's a way to shorten it.

Nix was a lot more reliable, at least for this use case. I also frankly like the configuration language better, though Guile Scheme can also be put to other uses. I may give Lix (the Nix fork, not my long-abandoned Linux distribution) another go sometime.

I have to wonder if even achieving all the goals I have in mind here will make much of a difference in the broader world. I've spent a lot of time on this and I'm starting to wonder if I should just back out and approach from another angle. My ultimate goal here has been to set up a better-integrated, more opinionated take on Yunohost.

I feel very strongly that a well-constructed, deterministic, whole-system builder like Nix or Guix could allow for clean, low-maintenance integration of a small set of complementary web services. I'd like to get whatever may underlie such a system running on my personal laptop first, but all these difficulties I'm encountering are giving me some serious doubts.