Subject: Re: [bug#58357] [Patch staging ] doc add a recommended system in 'Hardware Considerations'

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2022 15:33:25 +0000

October 8, 2022 5:56 AM, "pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hmm Joshua, recommending these thinkpads may be good or may be bad.

Thanks for the response Florian!  I'm a bit curious.  Do you think that
I should try to re-word what I've said?  I can resend another patch, if
you think it appropriate.
 
> Off-the-shelf hardware too often is at odds with freedom, and newcomers
> underestimate how hard it is to find hardware.

Can you give me some examples of "bad thinkpads"?  Perhaps really new 
ones?  I'm honestly a little torn about what hardware to recommend to
newcomers to Guix System.  I cannot maintain my integrity and recommend
a librebooted laptop.  I use an osbooted Thinkpad, because with the
cpu microkernel updates, the laptop is SOOO much more stable.  
My librebooted laptop would crash whenever I tried doing video editing.

Perhaps we should list sellers that sell hardware with Guix system
pre-installed.  I see in reddit, people asking with some frequency
what hardware they should buy for Guix System.  It would be nice to 
at least recommend some specific hardware.  :)  I think the current
manual is too vague for newcomers.  Just my 2 cents.

Or maybe this wiki page may be of use:

https://wiki.parabola.nu/Computers

> Joshua Branson via Guix-patches via <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
>> * doc/guix.texi (Hardware Considerations): add a reccomended system and a
>> short commentary about graphics cards.
> 
> For graphics cards <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/36786> “Warn of AMD GPUs
> unusable with Guix System” is related. As Ricardo said there, we do
> point to h-node.

Thanks for pointing me to that!

> 
>> +@cindex Graphics Cards, hardware support
>> +Graphics cards have a hard time running properly under linux-libre,
>> +because those drivers usually require propritary firmware, which
>> +linux-libre removes. Users should avoid brand new graphics cards.
>> +Older Kepler Nvidia graphics cards and integrated Intel GPUs work the
>> +best.
> 
> It would be bad to make recommendations that end up not working. I have
> doubts if new Intel GPUs is a safe advise.

I can re-word to to say "old integrated Intel GPUs".  I'm not sure how
old I should say though.  5 years?  Will the Intel Arc graphics cards
be FYF or do they have a binary blob.  I don't actually know...

> 
>> +For the best Guix System experience, Guix developers recommend an X86_64
>> +system with at least 2GB of RAM. An old Thinkpad in the T or X series
>> +is usually a good choice. If you decide to run Guix System on ARM or
>> +Power architectures, then please use a system with a 64 bit CPU.
> 
> IMHO ARM and Power need not be mentioned so explicitly. On the website,
> there is no Guix System download link for ARM except the Pinebook image
> (I don’t own a Pinebook and can’t test that). Guix on ARM works well,
> now that rsvg works on ARM.

How recent was that?  That rsvg started working on ARM  ?

> 
> And once there is a new release, bordeaux will be enabled by default,
> then Guix on ARM will be much better even by default.

I certainly hope so!

> Regards,
> Florian