Guix System

A GNU project distribution built around the Guix package manager -- like NixOS, fully declarative and reproducible, but built in Guile Scheme and holding to a strict 100%-free-software policy.

Immutable & AtomicimmutabledeclarativereproducibleGNUfree-softwareDownload ↗Official site ↗Docs / Wiki ↗

Based on

Independent (GNU project)

First released

2012

Package manager

GNU Guix

Desktop environments

GNOME, Xfce, and others, configured declaratively

Guix System shares its core idea with NixOS -- describe the entire system declaratively, get reproducible builds and trivial rollbacks between generations -- but comes from a distinct lineage: it's an official GNU project, its configuration language is Guile Scheme (a Lisp dialect) rather than the Nix language, and it holds strictly to the Free Software Foundation's guidelines, shipping the Linux-libre kernel and excluding any non-free firmware or software from its official channels entirely. That strict-free-software stance can mean extra manual work to get some hardware (particularly Wi-Fi chips needing non-free firmware) working compared to a more permissive distribution. It appeals specifically to users who want NixOS's declarative, reproducible model combined with GNU's software-freedom philosophy and a Scheme-based configuration language over Nix's own DSL.

MirrorNest doesn't mirror distro ISOs — installation media should always come straight from the project's own official download page (linked above), so you get the correct checksum/signature to verify against.