Re: advanced?

[Simon Josefsson via "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." <guix-devel@gnu.org>]

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Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Hello,
>
> (Cc: Luis, for the web site design.)
>
> Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> skribis:
>
>> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>>
>>> Or if we do want to explain more, then perhaps we need a list of
>>> features that would also include things like Docker/VM image generation,
>>> declarative home environments, etc.  But that’s broader topic.
>>
>> Yes, that makes sense.  I'm not the best person to summarize it, but
>> starting pointers if someone wants to take it further:
>>
>> * Dedication to free software goals and the GNU community
>>
>> * Shepherd init system written in Guile
>>
>> * Declarative stateless system configurations
>>
>> * Transactional upgrades and roll-backs
>>
>> * Reproducible build environments
>>
>> * Designed towards bootstrappable builds
>>
>> Maybe this fits better directly in the Introduction section of the
>> manual?  https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Introduction.html
>
> I guess we should rework the “Introduction” and “Features” sections,
> which were written in the early days.
>
> The points you list above are a great starting point, and I guess that
> would also be a good fit for the front page; currently there’s no
> “feature list” there.  That old “Guix in action” video also ought to be
> replaced.

Reflecting on the feature list, I think we should mention that Guix is a
_rolling_ distribution and package manager, and maybe explain what that
means.  I don't think this is clear from the web site or manual now, but
I may be missing it.

Perhaps the release and update model of Guix could use some dedicated
new documentation?  The relationship between the rolling master branch,
the core-updates branch, the security graft mechanism, the substitute
build servers and the versioned installer releases is not terribly clear
to me as a new user, and having an understanding of these concepts helps
to make contributions.  I have a feeling there may be more nuances that
are useful to know about that I'm not familiar with; for example, the
intended use of the version-X.Y.Z branches.

/Simon

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