Enabling Bluetooth in #GuixSystem is so far one of the lowest hanging fruits, with simple power management: each of these features is only one line in the config.scm file and a ‘guix system reconfigure’ away.
Nice to now have wireless options for sound on this computer (speaker, headphones).
File transfer over Bluetooth will be a bit more complex it seems, but hopefully it’s only a matter of finding an app that does it.
After going somewhat in circles yesterday, some faster progress today: #GuixSystem can now use the Intel wifi card on this computer. It only took one ‘guix system reconfigure’ this time, possibly because I made sure I didn’t run ‘guix pull’ beforehand (if I understand correctly how #Guix functions, not running pull means it keeps currently installed versions of packages already present in the current system that the next system needs). And it definitely used substitutes automatically: no way it would have completed this fast if it had needed to compile a kernel.
It will be nice to no longer have this cable running across the room between the router and computer, catching things in between.
Next steps: configure Bluetooth so I can use a wireless speaker, configure sshd so I can do system tweaks and maintenance remotely from the laptop.
Some more progress configuring my #GuixSystem: yesterday night I managed to add nonguix as a system-wide channel with substitutes. But it took three attempts at ‘guix system reconfigure’ before it completed. The first time I forgot that it wouldn’t use the substitutes unless explicitly told so, so I cancelled and restarted it. The second time for some reason it still needed to build webkitgtk and this is no fun on a small computer… so I cancelled it after a long time of 100% CPU usage with very slow progress, and was about to give up after this one. Tried it once more with ‘--dry-run’ out of curiosity, which showed that finally it was going to download everything pre-built, so I ran it again and it only built 3 derivations and eventually completed.
I don’t understand why ‘system reconfigure’ updated channels every time (which triggered many derivation builds), I thought only ‘pull’ should do that (I did run pull first, but not before the other two attempts). So I probably need to read some sections of the #Guix documentation again.
Little progress last weekend... A successful installation, only after messing around with the installer until I realized I should use the generated config.scm as-is (attempts at customization at this stage trip up the installer), run `guix pull` and `guix system reconfigure` immediately after the first boot, then reboot, so I start with a current system. Only then can I customize with any chance of success.
Did that, but forgot to setup FDE. So here we go again tonight!
Progress today: I managed to setup the NUC’s UEFI to boot from removable media by default. This makes it much easier: if the bootable media is in, it boots; no need to press a function key to enter the boot menu.
I also tested that the #GuixSystem installer I made boots correctly on the NUC.
Still baby steps for now, mostly because I can’t carve out enough uninterrupted free time for the bigger steps. In the meantime, I’m reading about #Guix. The more I read, the more I find it amazing.
Trying to find how to enter the NUC’s boot menu, I first found this help page: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005847/intel-nuc.html
Which led me to this one: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000089801/intel-nuc.html
The trick to bypass the NUC’s “fast boot”: start it with a long press (3 s) on the power button instead of a simple press. Doing so, I got to a menu and realized that the keyboard I use sends function keys only if I also press the Fn key. So maybe this also works during the regular boot, will check this next.
Soon ready to install #GuixSystem!
The iso produced by `guix system image`, on a USB stick, gives a functioning installer. My laptop could boot from it. But not the Intel NUC mini-computer: for some reason, hitting the suggested key during startup doesn’t enter the boot menu, so Ubuntu boots. Will need to figure this out before I can install #GuixSystem on the NUC.
In the meantime I’ll familiarize myself with #Guix installed on Ubuntu. The documentation sometimes seems to assume Guix System, so some things remain unclear to me.
Found a second-hand Intel-NUC from 2015 with decent specs, barely used. So I jumped on this opportunity to test #Guix and #GuixSystem!
(Tried before in a VM, it works but isn't as exciting. And not ready to change OS on the laptop I use daily.)
Poor little computer broke a sweat upon `guix pull` (from 1.4.0 to current), and now again with `guix system image` (generating an installation iso). I will try to `guix pull` frequently so each is a lighter operation.
Very excited to try `guix home`!