I have also used Guix to build a NetBSD image. You can use Guix to build
just about any operating system image imaginable with the right amount
of practice and patience :) A lot of patience in some cases as you are
sure to hit some uncharted territory building whatever it happens to be.

Getting the userspace to run is a bigger task, but you can certainly use
Guix to build for example an embedded OS image with it's default
userspace (not porting the Guix daemon or Shepherd).

--
Sincerely,
Ryan Sundberg

On 2/27/23 11:10 AM, Efraim Flashner wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 01:36:06PM -0500, Mitchell Schmeisser via Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution. wrote:
>> jbranso@dismail.de writes:
>>
>>>> Guix System, 1 Gig of ram, etc, due to the package builder and Guix/Nix daemon? If it was possible
>>>> to declare an instance of Guix System that did not include those and only used cross-compiled
>>>> packages, could some portion of Guix System function in a similar way as Oniro, or is that a
>>>> nonsense question?
>>
>> What I understand your question to be is "Can we use Guix to describe an
>> embedded operating system which does not run Guix?" and I think the
>> answer is probably. I don't think the guix daemon is technically required
>> for the shepherd to boot (being the daemon is a shepherd process
>> itself).
> 
> I can answer this. I built a one-off Guix image of gparted and it
> doesn't have the guix-daemon service included.
> 
>> I don't think it's a good idea because you need the daemon in order to
>> use `guix deploy`. Otherwise you have to make an installation image and
>> it can become "involved."
> 
> If you were willing to forgo `guix deploy` (and guix install, and really
> any package management) and just reflash it every time then the memory
> constraints go down to whatever the running programs require.
>