Also, if you want, please try the following program on the booted guix system: #include #include #include #include static iconv_t iconv_init_codepage(int codepage) { iconv_t result; char codepage_name[16]; snprintf(codepage_name, sizeof(codepage_name), "CP%d", codepage); result = iconv_open(nl_langinfo(CODESET), codepage_name); if (result == (iconv_t) - 1) { printf("FOO\n"); perror(codepage_name); printf("BAR\n"); } return result; } int main() { setlocale(LC_ALL, ""); iconv_init_codepage(437); return 0; } You'd have to put the above text into a file called "a.c", then invoke guix package -i gcc-toolchain Then invoke gcc -o a a.c Then invoke ./a I suspect it will also fail with the same error message. After that, please invoke iconv -l |grep -i cp437 It will probably either return nothing or even fail with an error message.