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diff --git a/website/posts/gnu-guix-1.0.0-released.md b/website/posts/gnu-guix-1.0.0-released.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89c669d --- /dev/null +++ b/website/posts/gnu-guix-1.0.0-released.md @@ -0,0 +1,269 @@ +title: GNU Guix 1.0.0 released +date: 2019-05-02 16:00 +author: Ludovic Courtès +slug: gnu-guix-1.0.0-released +tags: Releases +--- +We are excited to announce the release of GNU Guix version 1.0.0! + +The release comes with [ISO-9660 installation +images](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/System-Installation.html), +a [virtual machine +image](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Running-Guix-in-a-VM.html), +and with tarballs to install the package manager on top of your +GNU/Linux distro, either [from +source](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Requirements.html) +or [from +binaries](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Binary-Installation.html). +Guix users can update by running `guix pull`. + +One-point-oh always means a lot for free software releases. For Guix, +1.0 is the result of seven years of development, with code, packaging, +and documentation contributions made by 260 people, translation work +carried out by a dozen of people, and artwork and web site development +by a couple of individuals, to name some of the activities that have +been happening. During those years we published no less than [19 “0.x” +releases](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/releases/). + +# The journey to 1.0 + +We took our time to get there, which is quite unusual in an era where +free software moves so fast. Why did we take this much time? First, it +takes time to build a community around a GNU/Linux distribution, and a +distribution wouldn’t really exist without it. Second, we feel like +we’re contributing an important piece to [the GNU operating +system](https://www.gnu.org/gnu/about-gnu.html), and that is surely +intimidating and humbling. + +Last, we’ve been building something new. Of course we stand on the +shoulders of giants, and in particular [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix/), +which brought the functional software deployment paradigm that Guix +implements. But developing Guix has been—and still is!—a challenge in +many ways: it’s a [programming](https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4584) +[language](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2017/back-from-gpce/) +design challenge, an +[operating](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2015/service-composition-in-guixsd/) +[system](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2017/running-system-services-in-containers/) +design challenge, a challenge for +[security](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2016/timely-delivery-of-security-updates/), +[reproducibility](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/reproducibility/), +[bootstrapping](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/tags/bootstrapping/), +usability, and more. In other words, it’s been a long but insightful +journey! :-) + +# What GNU Guix can do for you + +Presumably some of readers are discovering Guix today, so let’s recap +what Guix can do for you as a user. Guix is a complete toolbox for +software deployment in general, which makes it different from most of +the tools you may be familiar with. + + + +This may sound a little abstract so let’s look at concrete use cases: + + - *As a user*, Guix allows you to [install applications and to keep + them + up-to-date](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html): + search for software with `guix search`, install it with `guix + install`, and maintain it up-to-date by regularly running `guix + pull` and `guix upgrade`. Guix follows a so-called “rolling + release” model, so you can run `guix pull` at any time to get the + latest and greatest bits of free software. + + This certainly sounds familiar, but a distinguishing property here + is _dependability_: Guix is transactional, meaning that you can at + any time roll back to a previous “generation” of your package set + with `guix package --roll-back`, inspect differences with `guix + package -l`, and so on. + + Another useful property is _reproducibility_: Guix allows you to + deploy the _exact same software environment_ on different machines + or at different points in time thanks to [`guix + describe`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-describe.html) + and [`guix + pull`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-pull.html). + + This, coupled with the fact that package management operations do + not require root access, is invaluable notably in the context of + high-performance computing (HPC) and reproducible science, which the + [Guix-HPC effort](https://guix-hpc.bordeaux.inria.fr/) has been + focusing on. + + - *As a developer*, we hope you’ll enjoy [`guix + environment`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-environment.html), + which allows you to spawn one-off software environments. Suppose + you’re a GIMP developer: running `guix environment gimp` spawns a + shell with everything you need to hack on GIMP—much quicker than + manually installing its many dependencies. + + Developers often struggle to push their work to users so they get + quick feedback. The [`guix + pack`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2017/creating-bundles-with-guix-pack/) + provides an easy way to create _container images_ for use by Docker + & co., or even [standalone relocatable + tarballs](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2018/tarballs-the-ultimate-container-image-format/) + that anyone can run, regardless of the GNU/Linux distribution they + use. + + Oh, and you may also like [package transformation + options](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Package-Transformation-Options.html), + which allow you define package variants from the command line. + + - *As a system administrator*—and actually, we’re all system + administrators of sorts on our laptops!—, Guix’s declarative and + unified approach to configuration management should be handy. It + surely is a departure from what most people are used to, but it is + so reassuring: one configuration file is enough to specify [all the + aspects of the system + config](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Using-the-Configuration-System.html)—services, + file systems, locale, accounts—all in the same language. + + That makes it surprisingly easy to deploy otherwise complex services + such as applications that depend on Web services. For instance, + setting up + [CGit](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Version-Control-Services.html#Cgit-Service) + or + [Zabbix](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Monitoring-Services.html#Zabbix-front_002dend) + is a one-liner, even though behind the scenes that involves setting + up nginx, fcgiwrap, etc. We’d love to see to what extent this helps + people self-host services—sort of similar to what + [FreedomBox](https://freedombox.org/) and + [YunoHost](https://yunohost.org/) have been focusing on. + + With [`guix + system`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-system.html) + you can instantiate a configuration on your machine, or in a virtual + machine (VM) where you can test it, or in a container. You can also + provision ISO images, VM images, or container images with a complete + OS, from the same config, all with `guix system`. + +The [quick reference +card](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/guix-refcard.pdf) shows the +important commands. As you start diving deeper into Guix, you’ll +discover that many aspects of the system are exposed using consistent +[Guile](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/) programming interfaces: +[package +definitions](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Defining-Packages.html), +[system +services](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Services.html), +the [“init” system](https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/), and a whole +bunch of system-level libraries. We believe that makes the system very +_hackable_, and we hope you’ll find it as much fun to play with as we do. + +So much for the overview! + +# What’s new since 0.16.0 + +For those who’ve been following along, a great many things have changed +over the last 5 months since the [0.16.0 +release](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2018/gnu-guix-and-guixsd-0.16.0-released/)—99 +people contributed over 5,700 commits during that time! Here are the +highlights: + + - The ISO installation image now runs a cute [text-mode graphical + installer](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Guided-Graphical-Installation.html)—big + thanks to Mathieu Othacehe for writing it and to everyone who + tested it and improved it! It is similar in spirit to the Debian + installer. Whether you’re a die-hard GNU/Linux hacker or a novice + user, you’ll certainly find that this makes system installation + much less tedious than it was! The installer is fully translated + to French, German, and Spanish. + - The new [VM + image](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Running-GuixSD-in-a-VM.html) + better matches user expectations: whether you want to tinker with + Guix System and see what it’s like, or whether you want to use it + as a development environment, this VM image should be more directly + useful. + - The user interface was improved: aliases for common operations + [such as `guix search` and `guix + install`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html) + are now available, diagnostics are now colorized, more operations + show a progress bar, there’s a new `--verbosity` option recognized + by all commands, and most commands are now “quiet” by default. + - There’s a new `--with-git-url` [package transformation + options](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Package-Transformation-Options.html), + that goes with `--with-branch` and `--with-commit`. + - Guix now has a first-class, uniform mechanism to configure + [keyboard + layout](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Keyboard-Layout.html)—a + long overdue addition. Related to that, [Xorg + configuration](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/X-Window.html) + has been streamlined with the new `xorg-configuration` record. + - We introduced `guix pack -R` [a while + back](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2018/tarballs-the-ultimate-container-image-format/): + it creates tarballs containing _relocatable_ application bundles + that rely on user namespaces. Starting from 1.0, `guix pack -RR` + (like “reliably relocatable”?) generates relocatable binaries that + fall back to [PRoot](https://proot-me.github.io/) on systems where + [user + namespaces](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/user_namespaces.7.html) + are not supported. + - More than 1,100 packages were added, leading to [close to 10,000 + packages](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/packages), 2,104 + packages were updated, and several system services were + contributed. + - The manual has been fully translated to + [French](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/fr/html_node/), + the + [German](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/de/html_node/) + and [Spanish](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/es/html_node/) + translations are nearing completion, and work has begun on a + [Simplified + Chinese](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/zh-cn/html_node/) + translation. You can help [translate the manual into your + language](https://translationproject.org/domain/guix-manual.html) + by [joining the Translation + Project](https://translationproject.org/html/translators.html). + +That’s a long list already, but you can find more details in the +[`NEWS`](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/NEWS?h=version-1.0.0) +file. + +# What’s next? + +One-point-oh is a major milestone, especially for those of us who’ve +been on board for several years. But with the wealth of ideas we’ve +been collecting, it’s definitely not the end of the road! + +If you’re interested in “devops” and distributed deployment, you will +certainly be happy to help in that area, those interested in OS +development might want to make [the +Shepherd](https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/) more flexible and +snappy, furthering integration with [Software +Heritage](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/blog/2019/connecting-reproducible-deployment-to-a-long-term-source-code-archive/) +will probably be #1 on the to-do list of scientists concerned with +long-term reproducibility, programming language tinkerers may want to +push +[G-expressions](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/G_002dExpressions.html#G_002dExpressions) +further, etc. Guix 1.0 is a tool that’s both serviceable for one’s +day-to-day computer usage and a great playground for the tinkerers among +us. + +Whether you want to help on design, coding, maintenance, system +administration, translation, testing, artwork, web services, funding, +organizing a Guix install party… [your contributions are +welcome](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/contribute/)! + +We’re humans—don’t hesitate to [get in touch with +us](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/contact/), and enjoy Guix 1.0! + + +#### About GNU Guix + +[GNU Guix](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix) is a transactional package +manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that [respects +user +freedom](https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html). +Guix can be used on top of any system running the kernel Linux, or it +can be used as a standalone operating system distribution for i686, +x86_64, ARMv7, and AArch64 machines. + +In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports +transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, +per-user profiles, and garbage collection. When used as a standalone +GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to +operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable +and hackable through [Guile](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile) +programming interfaces and extensions to the +[Scheme](http://schemers.org) language. |