It is my oppinion that first you should very clearly define what you want from GuixSD a) is GuixSD to be a system which sees wide adoption , or is a system by developers for developers. b) What kind of users ? Industrial use or amateurs at home ? c) Server space, desktop space or both ? d) if server space, actively think at security and to the stability of the OS. Identify potential security risks of running the custom kernel you have. Document it. Be open about it . Think at the implications of running a conservative garbage collector in several system demons. Uptime should be measured in year(s). See if it is a problem or not.Measure it . Document it. e) GuixSD is decent OS and follows NIX on the path of innovation . It would be a pitty to remain a niche used by a very small group of ppl . Do not focus just on the fact that the system is transactional, atomic and so on. Make it rock stable. > I'm not quite sure yet how to improve the experience to new users. 1. Once you know this there is a lot you can do. Scheme is a good configuration language, but if you lack info on all the basics administration tasks and the semantics of the DSL the user is screwed. Documenting it is a must, for all common adminsitrative tasks 2. Make sure you use sound development practices, do not inflict the users upon the bleeding edge of your repository. I cannot stress enough how important this is, regardless of what you shoose to be the market of your product. 3. Treat it as a product, not as a hacking playground. I know it is not funny, but my guess is that it will help with adoption 4. Once you reach 1.0 , stop. Reflect on the bugs you have, and what documentation you lack. Make bug solving a priority for several point releases over new features. Or do both if you have sufficient manpower. e) AIX Smitty is a great rpogram for configuring the system. It generates scripts, which the admin can execute and bring the OS in the desired state. You can generate Scheme from a similar system configuration tool, indicate the user it should review it, then execute system recofniguration with guix command. > On Jun 20, 2018, at 10:20, Pierre Neidhardt > wrote: > > I'm not quite sure yet how to improve the experience to new users. I'd > need to install it several times, with other people and for different > scenarios before I can be a better judge.