Re: My experiences with GuixSD

[Jonathan Brielmaier <jonathan.brielmaier@web.de>]

Am 11.09.2017 um 18:39 schrieb Maxim Cournoyer:
> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> Jonathan Brielmaier <jonathan.brielmaier@web.de> 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