Re: GNU Guix 0.2 released

[Brandon Invergo <brandon@invergo.net>]

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Hi Germán,

> Currently I'm testing GSRC on my PC. So, my question is: What is the
> difference between Guix and GSRC? Regards.

GSRC can be thought of as a up-to-date quarterly release of all GNU
software. It automates the fetch/configure/build/install procedure and
provides the occasional patch when necessary, making it easier to
install a GNU package from source.  It has light package management
features, such as dependency resolution, but it should not be thought of
as a package manager. GSRC only provides GNU software so external
dependencies must be installed separately by the user.

Guix, on the other hand, is a full package manager that will eventually
form the foundation of a GNU distribution.  It has far more features as
a package manager, including some really novel ones that go above and
beyond the usual package management functionality (better to let Ludovic
explain).  The Guix distribution will provide all of the software
necessary to have a complete, bootable GNU system, including non-GNU
packages.  It will also handle all the fun "under-the-hood" stuff like
system configuration and initialization, etc.

Both can be used on top of an existing distro but when the Guix distro
is ready, I will subjectively say that GSRC would be more appropriate
for just installing a package or two on top of an existing system.

There is certainly some functional overlap, and this topic has come up
before as a result, but there remains a conceptual distinction.  In
fact, I've made changes to GSRC to reinforce this distinction
(i.e. removing 3rd-party dependencies).

I think that just about sums it up but I welcome other comments. :)

Cheers,

Brandon

-- 
Brandon Invergo
http://brandon.invergo.net

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