From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jonathan Brielmaier Subject: Re: My experiences with GuixSD Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 21:13:50 +0200 Message-ID: References: <9b50e0ba-457a-73aa-2566-7f4e9ff0d99b@web.de> <87d16xdway.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:53304) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1drU9d-0000sa-74 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:13:58 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1drU9a-0000CS-Gs for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:13:57 -0400 Received: from mout.web.de ([212.227.15.14]:65094) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1drU9a-00009x-4z for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:13:54 -0400 In-Reply-To: <87d16xdway.fsf@gmail.com> Content-Language: en-US List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Maxim Cournoyer Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Am 11.09.2017 um 18:39 schrieb Maxim Cournoyer: > Hi Jonathan, > > Jonathan Brielmaier writes: > > [...] > >> 2. After booting in the installed GuixSD the fonts were awful and I >> didn't get them to a better state. > > I also was dismayed at the font rendering when using GuixSD with a basic > (lightweight desktop) config. Presumably things look better under more > fullfledged DE since I don't see many complaints about it ;). > > What greatly improved the font rendering on my side was to create a > ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf containing the following: > [...] Oh yes, that could be the reason. I installed only i3 in lightweight-desktop.scm. Thanks for those tips Maxim, when I ever try again to install GuixSD again :) >> 3. The system was using CPU (llvmpipe or how it's named) as renderer and >> not the GPU. I have an AMD Radeon RX 480 card which worked quite well on >> Ubuntu with FOSS driver. I added a package which includes the non-free >> firmware, but after all I didn't got GPU rendered distro :( >> >> => I bought an AMD card because of there all-open Linux drivers and I >> want to support them in that way (=> Nvidia...). The drivers work well >> on other distros. I know they need non-free firmware, I don't like it >> but there is no "real" alternative. Having just CPU accelerated graphic >> is for me a blocker to _not_ use GuixSD. What can we do to solve or just >> to ease that situation? > > I did the same thing for one of my systems; in retrospect it seems it > wasn't a very wise decision at the *current time*. The amdgpu driver is > getting quite good but IIUC without the firmware binary blob there's no > 3D acceleration, which will leave you with an overpriced 2D accelerator > on truly free distros such as GuixSD and Debian. Hopefully that > situation can be improved in the future. I'm totally with you beside that if I would by a new graphic card I would surely by AMD again. Otherwise I support every attempt to reverse engineering the firmware blobs :P >> 4. Icecat... I had to restart it like every five minutes because it >> doesn't show websites. Yes, I disabled all those add-ons (LibreJS etc.). >> It was not usable for me, really not. And without all those FOSS add-ons >> on addons.mozilla.org Icecat/Firefox is bad. > > What do you mean *without these add-ons*? AFAIU you can still manually > visit that page and install anything you like. It's just not integrated > tightly, for good reasons (makes you think twice before installing some > random closed source add-on form the net in your browser). As described this didn't work. I haven't installed closed-surce add-ons on Firefox before. The wide majority on AMO is FOSS from my perspective. > Also, do you have an example of a site which cannot be shown? If you are > not using any extensions, it could be related to Icecat refusing to save > cookies form third party domains (this is blocked by default). Icecat > security choices are much tighter than vanilla Firefox or Chrome. I have > a government site which uses weak tls 1.0 encryption (!). Icecat will > warn me about it and not load the site; Firefox & Chrome will. This can > be fine-tuned in about:config, but I'm glad to be made aware of it so > that I can ping their sysadmins about it. Overtime, I think you will > grow to appreciate Icecat for the care which is put into safeguarding > your security. > > If you often use cafes and airport wifi, you'll also find that their > authentication setup often is broken, and Icecat by default will prevent > you form using those. It can be changed in about:config if you want to > push through anyway. That wasn't the case. I use Firefox with NoScript et. al. so I'm a bit "experienced" on getting websites back to work... Thanks guys for all that feedback on my "issues". Jonathan