Re: A Forum for Guix Users

[Attila Lendvai <attila@lendvai.name>]

> > > I personally think that it would be wiser to improve the documentation
> > > relating to the mailing lists and IRC logs, rather than fragmenting the
> > > places that someone should look for answers. Maybe a new / additional
> > > frontend that is more approachable for new users would also be good.
> 
> 
> Imo, fragmentation is abound in Guix.
> 
> The official docs, while very good, is missing things that often need to
> be answered by reading the source/commit log. Some examples: the manual


also, reading the entire manual has an large cost, when e.g. i'm trying out a new distro and i have a limited time and tolerance for frustration. i'll be firing up websearches, skim past discussions, and then as a last resort peek into the code... but i will not read the manual from front to back in that phase.

i'm not sure how representative a sample i am, though.


> If it's not in the manual, I (and probably many others) turn to my
> search engine. But there's a relative lack of blogs covering usage of


...or straight out start with the search engine, and only after that try to browse the relevant part of the manual.


> Guix, probably because most people have difficulty using Guix on nonfree
> hardware. And the unofficial forums for Guix on Reddit/Lemmy, where


yeah, the idealist in me is fully behind the free software fundamentalist stance to not even mention That Other Channel, but the realist in me also sees that it potentially turns away hordes of new users who run out of frustration-tolerance before they could even install the distro and begin playing with it...


> Compare this to Nix. It's likely more popular because users have access
> to the most number of updated packages on their (likely nonfree)
> computers and OSes (as Nix works on Mac). These users then write blog
> posts and engage with their community to espouse how amazing their Nix
> experience is, which in turn serves as informal documentation. More
> users = more contributors = more blog posts and engagement = more users
> = positive feedback loop.


FWIW, i came to Guix from Nix, and the difference for me in user and contributor experience was enormous. from a technical perspective, i find Guix superior enough to compensate for it, though.

-- 
• attila lendvai
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Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.