Install GUIX on Macbook 12

https://lobste.rs/rss Hits: 1
Summary

Motivation I have an old Intel macbook 12 of begin 2016, one of the so-called "Retina Macbooks". It is an ideal couch device but far too slow to run modern OS-X, provided you wanted to run that to begin with. I wanted to revive this machine to avoid lugging the BIG laptop, especially for the friday SystemCrafters stream in my comfy chair in the living. I saw some experience reports with Ubuntu, which worked, but then I never used it because Ubuntu is, well it is Ok, there is nothing wrong with it... Gnome works fine, KDE worked fine, it is just all different from my usual Arch/Guix machines for little added benefit. Because I was curious about immutable distros and leveraging containers like toolbox/flatpak I installed Fedora Silverblue. Again it is fine, Gnome is really luxurious on this machine. It all works well, but again different. Distributing the software between immutable host (which you have to reboot to make packages appear after install), flatpaks and toolbox containers works fine again, but inevitably causes friction when crossing the domains, e.g. Emacs. Nothing insurmountable. Also I am not impresssed by toolbox, it is simple, but it does nothing that distrobox does not seem to do better, while being less tied to the OS. I am not a fan of the dev container workflow, and Fedora Silverblue didn't sell it to me. Again in large deployments the balance might be different. AFAICT Guix offers (almost) the same immutability features and drawbacks but less pronounced. i.e. you do not have to reboot to make host software available in most cases. The diffferent profiles allow much more granular control with several half-way points to find the right balance of reproducability and creature comfort. Of course this is also means more opportunity to let it run out of control and create a confusing mess. In any case I can leverage the GUIX configuration of my servers and big laptop and ensure a consistent experience if I can get it on the lil' macbook and liberate it t...

First seen: 2026-03-27 15:28

Last seen: 2026-03-27 15:28