Guix — A new GNU OS with a new Kernel (PS: Its not Linux)
Yeup!! You read that right. A new (well actually in development for quite long time) Operating System emerged out of the mist, floating under the radar of all major Tech Giants. Before diving into what it is and what this kernel is, let me give you a brief info about GNU Project.
BTW, Guix is pronounced as “geeks”.
About GNU Project:
Richard Stallman announced the plan for the GNU operating system in September 1983 on several ARPANET mailing lists and USENET. He started the project on his own and describes: “As an operating system developer, I had the right skills for this job. So even though I could not take success for granted, I realized that I was elected to do the job. I chose to make the system compatible with Unix so that it would be portable, and so that Unix users could easily switch to it.” In 1985, Stallman published the GNU Manifesto, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with Unix. The name GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”. Soon after, he started a nonprofit corporation called the Free Software Foundation to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software movement. Stallman is the nonsalaried president of the FSF, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in Massachusetts.
Stallman was responsible for contributing many necessary tools, including a text editor (Emacs), compiler (GCC), debugger (GNU Debugger), and a build automator (GNU make). The notable omission was a kernel. In 1990, members of the GNU project began using Carnegie Mellon’s Mach microkernel in a project called GNU Hurd, which had yet to achieve the maturity level required for full POSIX compliance.
And here comes the final piece for the GNU Project — A Kernel — LINUX(in 1991). Since at that time they couldn’t manage to develop an Open Source Kernel for the consumer market, and Linux Open Source Kernel was readily available. The existing programs from the GNU project were readily ported to run on the resultant platform. Most sources use the name Linux to refer to the general-purpose operating system thus formed, while Stallman and the FSF call it GNU/Linux.
Stallman argues that not using GNU in the name of the operating system unfairly disparages the value of the GNU project and harms the sustainability of the free software movement by breaking the link between the software and the free software philosophy of the GNU project.
Fast Forward to April, 2020 —
As Stated on the GNU Blog, “Deprecating Support for the Linux Kernel”.
Running on the Hurd was always a goal for Guix, and supporting multiple kernels is a huge maintenance burden. As such it is expected that the upcoming Guix 1.1 release will be the last version featuring the Linux-Libre kernel. Future versions of Guix System will run exclusively on the Hurd, and we expect to remove Linux-Libre entirely by Guix 2.0.
SOooo.. Yeah its available, but currently on Nightly Beta builds or Development snapshots which one can test on their Virtual Machines.
About GNU Guix —
GNU Guix is a transactional package manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that respects user freedom. Guix can be used on top of any system running the Hurd or the Linux kernel, 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 distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable and hackable through Guile programming interfaces and extensions to the Scheme language.
What Is The Future Of Guix?
The Linux kernel will still be supported (at least as of 2020) when using Guix on “foreign” distributions, but it will be on a best-effort basis.
“We hope that other distributions will follow suit and adopt the Hurd in order to increase security and freedom for their users.” —as stated on the GNU Blog.
Is This The End of Linux?
Well Obviously NO!!
The GNU Project team never meant to incorporate Linux, but due to insufficiency on the GNU Hurd Kernel at the time of formation of FSF and GNU Project. So the team went with Linux Kernel for the time being. Now since the GNU Hurd Kernel is almost ready, the GNU Project will obviously switch to their “own” Kernel, as it was intended back in 1985 GNU Manifesto.
I think it will be a good thing, i.e. the split between GNU/Linux — > GNU & Linux. Finally GNU can be free from the interdependence.
I think that the GNU Project will overall have a huge impact and we will soon be seeing many more Operating Systems based on GNU Hurd Kernel in the near future. Hopefully Linux will Continue to rise as the Main Server Operating system and for System admins, but lets see whether GNU Hurd can take the place for consumer level hardwares. I don’t think the journey of GNU Hurd will be easy, mainly due to the popularity and community of Linux.
Ref: —
- Guix: https://guix.gnu.org/
- Richard Stallman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
- About GNU: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/about-gnu.html
- Download Stable GUIX: https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/
- Download Latest Beta GUIX: https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/latest/