civodul pushed a commit to branch master
in repository guix-artwork.
commit e70ccdb886792fcf1f11ccfc6f346c29c4032e45
Author: Steve George <st...@futurile.net>
AuthorDate: Wed Jan 15 13:11:17 2025 +0000
website: add first post convering the Guix User and Contributor Survey 2024.
* website/posts/2024-guix-user-contributor-survey-results-post1.sxml,
website/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q1.png,
website/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q2.png,
website/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q5.png,
website/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q6.png,
website/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q7.png,
website/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q10.png: New files.
Signed-off-by: Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org>
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+(begin
+ (use-modules (apps base templates components) (srfi srfi-19))
+ `((title . "Guix User and Contributor Survey 2024: The Results (part 1)")
+ (author . "Steve George")
+ (date unquote (make-date 0 0 0 0 15 01 2025 7200))
+ (tags unquote (list "Community"))
+ (content
+ (p "The results from the Guix User and Contributor Survey (2024) are in!
This is the first time the Guix community has run this type of survey, and
we're excited to share the results. The goal of the survey was to collect the
views of both users and contributors, understanding how people adopt Guix, what
they love and they're experiences contributing to the project.")
+ (p "There were 943 full responses to the survey, of this 53% were users
and 32% were contributors. The table of survey participants is as follows:")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 1: Participant breakdown"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "User") (td "496") (td "52.60"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Contributor") (td "297") (td "31.50"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Previous user") (td "92") (td "9.76"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Previous contributor") (td "58") (td "6.15"))))
+
+ (p "First, " (b "thank-you to everyone") " who made the effort to fill
out the survey. For a volunteer community project it's fantastic to see over
900 people took part. It's notable that 150 people took the survey who were
previous users or contributors — it's really great that people are willing to
make this effort to share their experiences — thanks so much!")
+
+ (p "With this many participants we can see the range of view points
and experience across our whole community, many of the comments were
enlightening and are worth reading. There are links in many of the questions
so anyone that's interested can go through them.")
+
+ (p "As the results are extensive I've split them into three separate
posts, in this post we'll focus on the first 10 questions of the survey which
focused on how users learnt about Guix and their experiences adopting it.")
+
+
+ (h3 "User backgrounds and experience")
+ (p "The survey started by asking participants, " (b "How knowledgeable
a Linux are you?") " (Q1).")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 2: Participant's Linux knowledge"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Beginner (e.g. just getting started)") (td "18") (td "2%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Explorer (e.g. comfortable installing it and using
graphical apps)") (td "18") (td "2%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Intermediate (e.g. comfortable with the command-line and
configuring many aspects)") (td "445") (td "47%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Advanced (e.g. you correct the Arch Linux Wiki!)") (td
"248") (td "26%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Expert (e.g. able to contribute to large Free Software
projects!)") (td "212") (td "22%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "No answer") (td "2") (td "0.21%"))))
+
+ (p "Note that all the percentages in this table, and throughout the
posts are rounded to make them easier to refer to.")
+ (p (em "Figure 1") " shows this graphically:"
+ (figure
+ (img (@ (src "/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q1.png")
+ (alt "2024 Guix user survey: GNU/Linux knowledge
graph")
+ (style "width:85%;height:85%;")))
+ (figcaption (@ (style "font-weight:bold;")) "Figure 1: Survey
participants GNU/Linux knowledge")))
+
+ (p "The next question (Q2) was, " (b "How long have you been using
Guix?"))
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 3: Guix experience"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Less than 1 year") (td "245") (td "26%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Between 1 and 2 years") (td "218") (td "23%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Between 2 and 4 years") (td "234") (td "25%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "More than 4 years") (td "160") (td "17%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "I've stopped using Guix") (td "83") (td "9%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "No answer") (td "3") (td "0.3%"))))
+ (p (em "Figure 2") " shows these results as a bar chart:"
+ (figure
+ (img (@ (src "/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q2.png")
+ (alt "2024 Guix user survey: GNU Guix experience
graph")
+ (style "width:85%;height:85%;")))
+ (figcaption (@ (style "font-weight:bold;")) "Figure 2: Survey
participants GNU Guix experience")))
+
+ (p "These two questions already tell us some interesting things about
Guix users:")
+ (ul
+ (li "Guix users generally have a lot of Linux experience: 50% said
they were Intermediates who were \"" (em "comfortable with the command-line and
configuring many aspects") "\". A further 26% said they were Advanced, and 22%
said they were experts.")
+ (li "Conversely, very few users (~4%) are beginners or exploring
Linux users.")
+ (li "Many Guix users are new to Guix itself.")
+ (li "Guix's user-base is growing! Almost 75% of the user-base are
recent converts to Guix, having used it for less than 4 years.")
+ (li "It's a similar distribution of users to Nix's. Their "
+ (a (@ (href
"https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-community-survey-2024-results/55403";)) "2024
survey") " showed dramatic growth (~65%) in users from 0-2 years, Guix's is
49%.")
+ (li "It's fantastic to see new users are exploring and trying out
Guix.")
+ (li "Unfortunately, 9% of users are no longer using Guix, but care
enough to fill out the survey - so what can be done to help them come back?!"))
+
+
+ (h3 "Adopting Guix")
+ (p "The next few questions explored how participants adopted Guix.
It's important that new users have a great adoption experience so they'll keep
using Guix. Conversely, if the initial experience is too difficult, they may
simply move onto something else without seeing it's benefits!")
+ (p "The first question asked, (Q4) " (b "Why were you initially
interested in Guix?"))
+ (p "This question tells us what users had heard about Guix, and what
they discovered during their initial investigation. The answers could impact
how the project talks about Guix's strengths and capabilities.")
+ (p "For this question users could select more than one answer and many
did so. The most selected choice was "
+ (b "\"Declarative configuration\"") " where 82% of participants were
interested in Guix because it had this quality. The option "
+ (b "\"Scheme, Guile, and Lisp are cool\"") " was second, where 72%
of the survey's participants were intrigued by Guix because of this aspect. The
"
+ (b "\"Reproducibility\"") " choice came third with 70% interested in
this capability."
+ " The detailed results were:")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 4: Reason for adopting Guix"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Reliability and transactions") (td "537") (td "57%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Declarative configuration") (td "772") (td "82%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Reproducibility") (td "658") (td "70%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Reproducible scientific workflows") (td "199") (td "21%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Fresh packages with latest versions") (td "207") (td
"22%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Scheme, Guile and Lisp are cool") (td "677") (td "72%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Friendly community") (td "256") (td "27%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "FSF certified project (100% Free Software)") (td "404")
(td "43%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Alternative architectures (e.g. ARM)") (td "90") (td
"10%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "GNU Hurd") (td "122") (td "13%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Package management on another Linux distribution") (td
"319") (td "34%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "As a tool for packaging my own software") (td "267") (td
"28%"))))
+
+ (p "There were 110 choices of 'Other' where participants could add
their own comments, they're all "
+ (a (@ (href
"https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-survey/src/branch/main/2024-survey/Q4-guix-interest-comments.md";))
+ "available to read")
+ ". Looking through them some themes came through:"
+
+ (ul
+ (li (b "Development environments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"General solution to rvm,pyenv etc\""))
+ (li (em "\"As a Docker replacement for software
development\""))))
+ (li (b "Documentation:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Initial interest in Nix, but hearing about
Guix having more pleasant documentation also swayed me towards using Guix
instead\""))
+ (li (em "\"Documentation (not exhaustive but
well-structured), simplicity of the CLI\""))))
+ (li (b "Free Software & GNU:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"The possibility of releasing the GNU
operating system version 1.0"))
+ (li (em "\"100% free software yes, FSF no (FSFE are
fine)\""))
+ (li (em "\"Being a GNU project helped me decide
between Guix and Nix.\""))))
+ (li (b "Use for Continuous Integration:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"used for CI, replacing docker with free
software and user control\""))))
+ (li (b "Sandboxes and security:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Sandbox environment\""))
+ (li (em "\"Security: containerized environments
integrated in the OS.\""))))
+ (li (b "Package definitions:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Writing packages for GNU Guix seemed more
intuitive than for Gentoo Linux (Guix's hashes > Gentoo's slots)\""))
+ (li (em "\"Ease of packaging\""))))
+ (li (b "An alternative to Nix:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Wanted to check out alternatives to Nix.
Particularly interested in 1) grafting, 2) measures against ld.so stat storm,
3) performant guix packs without proot\""))
+ (li (em "\"Use Nix a lot, want to explore that design
space more\""))))
+ (li (b "Guile Scheme and Lisp:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"One language for everything\""))
+ (li (em "\"Not nixlang\""))
+ (li (em "\"homogeneity of the configuration (one
language for everything)\""))))
+ (li (b "Full source:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Full Source Bootstrap & Strict Policy to
compile all software from source\""))
+ (li (em "\"Full source auditability\""))))))
+
+ (p "The next question the survey asked was, "
+ (b "Which aspect of Guix did you initially adopt?")
+ " (Q5). This is users initial entry point into using Guix.")
+ (p "The detailed results were:")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 5: Initial aspect of Guix adopted"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Package manager on top of another Linux distro (guix
package)") (td "336") (td "36%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Dotfiles and home environment management on another Linux
distro (guix home)") (td "41") (td "4%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Isolated development and runtime environments on another
Linux distro (guix shell)") (td "58") (td "6%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "GNU/Linux distro as a graphical desktop (guix system)") (td
"434") (td "46%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "GNU/Linux distro as a server (guix system)") (td "47") (td
"5%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "As a software build and deployment tool (guix image, guix
package or guix deploy)") (td "16") (td "2%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Other") (td "9") (td "1%"))))
+ (p (em "Figure 3") " shows this as a bar chart:"
+ (figure
+ (img (@ (src "/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q5.png")
+ (alt "2024 Guix user survey: GNU Guix adoption bar chart")
+ (style "width:85%;height:85%;")))
+ (figcaption (@ (style "font-weight:bold;")) "Figure 3: Guix
initial adoption aspect")))
+ (p "The summary is that almost 50% of users initially experienced Guix
as a GNU/Linux distro: 44% in a graphical desktop configuration and a further
5% in a server configuration. Just over a third of users (36%) initial
experience Guix as a package manager on top of another Linux distro. I found
this surprising as I'd expected most users to use Guix as a hosted package
manager first, what an interesting result! We can also see there's lots of room
to develop Guix Home as an adopt [...]
+
+
+ (h3 "Adoption challenges")
+ (p "Adopting any new technology is difficult and time-consuming, so
discovering what elements users find difficult is important. Q7 delved into
this by asking, " (b "What were the biggest challenges getting started with
Guix?"))
+ (p "The results were:")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 6: Adoption challenges"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Installing Guix as a package manager on a GNU/Linux
distribution") (td "80") (td "8%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Installing Guix System as a full Linux distribution") (td
"236") (td "25%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Level of Linux knowledge needed to use Guix") (td "102")
(td "11%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Difficulties with the reference material (i.e. the
manual)") (td "236") (td "25%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Shortage of how-to tutorials and videos") (td "297") (td
"32%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Shortage of examples (e.g. examples of usage)") (td "431")
(td "46%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Inexperience with Lisp syntax and/or Guile Scheme") (td
"374") (td "40%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Differences between Guix's approach and other Linux
distros") (td "321") (td "34%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "It was so long ago I can't possibly remember!") (td "44")
(td "5%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Other") (td "218") (td "23%"))))
+ (p (em "Figure 4") " shows this as a bar chart:"
+ (figure
+ (img (@ (src "/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q7.png")
+ (alt "2024 Guix user survey: GNU Guix adoption challenges
bar chart")
+ (style "width:85%;height:85%;")))
+ (figcaption (@ (style "font-weight:bold;")) "Figure 4: Guix
adoption challenges")))
+ (p "As we can see the biggest challenge is a " (b "Shortage of
examples (e.g examples of usage)")
+ ". And, if we consider shortage of how-to tutorials (32%) to be
similar then overall we can see there's a clear need for focused
goal-orientated documentation with examples. Inexperience with " (b "Lisp
syntax and or Guile Scheme") " and " (b "Differences between Guix's approach
and other Linux distros")
+ " both speak to the unique nature of Guix and the approach it takes:
perhaps there are implications for how Guix's tooling can make initial adoption
as easy as possible.")
+ (p "There were 218 comments, which are "
+ (a (@ (href
"https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-survey/src/branch/main/2024-survey/Q7-guix-adoption-challenges-comments.md";))
+ "worth reading through")
+ ". I've summarised them into broad themes:"
+ (ul
+ (li (b "Conceptual complexity") ": comments about the overall
knowledge required being too much. Examples are:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Understanding the concepts on which guix runs\""))
+ (li (em "\"managing storage space, generations, GC roots,
profiles; generally grasping the concepts\""))
+ (li (em "\"Some interesting free software is only available
for other distros, it's hard to adapt to a system without file system
hierarchy\"")))
+ (li (b "Lack of drivers") ": issues caused by drivers not being
available. Examples are:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"can't really use linux-libre on the machine I
installed it on (lack drivers)\""))
+ (li (em "\"Getting an initial installation with working
non-free wifi\""))
+ (li (em "\"hiding nonguix\"")))
+ (li (b "Efficiency") ": comments regarding overall resource usage
making Guix slow or unusable. Example comments are:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"The evaluation of Guix is slow and
resource-intensive. My laptop was no match for it, I had to change it.\""))
+ (li (em "\"Guix experimentation is still too slow. Make
experimenting faster for new users by identifying rate limiting steps and
speeding them up\""))
+ (li (em "\"Slow network when download guix substitute\"")))
+ (li (b "Missing packages and services") ": issues where Guix
doesn't contain a required package or service.")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"missing packages I needed and getting them
upstreamed after I packaged them\""))
+ (li (em "\"Unpackaged free software, and nonfree software\""))
+ (li (em "\"Coming from Nix: smaller, less up-to-date package
set, substantially fewer home services\"")))
+ (li (b "Quality and reliability") ": issues of quality and
reliability that made Guix difficult to use. Some comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"hard time fixing config errors with reports\""))
+ (li (em "\"Broken integration between some components
(packages and services)\""))
+ (li (em "\"Basic setup is pretty easy on paper, but in
practice sometimes it breaks my system and I need to fiddle with shell profiles
and environment variables and installing extra packages to get Guix programs
play nice with native programs. And I feel like this kind of breakage isn't
acknowledged or addressed enough.\"")))
+ (li (b "Practical guides, how-to's and examples") ": situations
where a lack of direct instructions or examples made Guix difficult to use.")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Guix-unique bugs and issues that I can't find an
answer to online\""))
+ (li (em "\"Lack of docs mostly, common patterns, the fact
that's it's a pain the butt to make things works for some ecosystems on the
Guix distro (e.g any app written in Golang, Rust, JS,TS..)\"")))
+ (li (b "Error messages") ": poor experience caused by error
messages that are difficult to understand. Example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Horrible error messages\""))
+ (li (em "\"Difficult guile scheme error messages!!\""))
+ (li (em "\"Hard-to-understand error messages\"")))
+ (li (b "Configuring on a hosted distribution)") ": issues caused
when using Guix on top of another distribution. Some comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"I found the setting of numerous variables and the
comments recommending I do so contradictory and so confusing\""))
+ (li (em "\"SELinux blocked installation of packages:
remount\""))
+ (li (em "\"Problems using it on a foreign distro. Guix Home
particularly assumes that you are using guix system, I had to tweak the
.profile a lot to get it working.\"")))
+ (li (b "Encrypted boot / LUKS") ": encryption in various forms
unavailable or missing certain features:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Very poor support for full disk encryption.\""))
+ (li (em "\"Also using a LUKS encrypted root file-system was a
challenge at the time i started Guix\"")))
+ (li (b "Language ecosystems (e.g. Rust, PHP)") ": issues due to
missing packages, or attempts to package, from certain language ecosystems.")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Missing packages, and the difficulty of packaging
rust or npm packages on guix dissuaded me from contributing them\"")))
+ (li (b "Mac availability") ": situations where being unavailable
on Mac meant Guix could not be adopted.")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Linux only. nix has macos support too which would
help adoption in a team environment.\""))
+ (li (em "\"No MacOS official distribution\"")))))
+
+
+ (h3 "Adoption satisfaction score")
+ (p "The survey asked (Q6), " (b "How satisfied were you with your
experience adopting Guix?"))
+ (p "This question explores the users overall satisfaction with the
initial steps of researching, installing and initially using Guix. The question
asked the participant to score their satisfaction on one of 5 levels.")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 7: Guix adoption satisfaction"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Very Dissatisfied") (td "22") (td "2%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Dissatisfied") (td "113") (td "12%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Neutral") (td "154") (td "16%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Satisfied") (td "408") (td "43%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Very Satisfied") (td "226") (td "24%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Can't remember") (td "20") (td "2%"))))
+ (p "See " (em "Figure 5") " for a visual representation: "
+ (figure
+ (img (@ (src "/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q6.png")
+ (alt "2024 Guix user survey: GNU Guix initial adoption
satisfaction score")
+ (style "width:85%;height:85%;")))
+ (figcaption (@ (style "font-weight:bold;")) "Figure 5: Guix
initial adoption satisfaction bar chart")))
+ (p "This is probably the most important question in the entire survey
when it comes to growing the number of Guix users. Overall, it's positive with
Very Satisfied (24%) and Satisfied (43%) meaning that the majority of users are
happy with their initial experience. The comments above show there's lots of
room to find small ways to move users initial experience from Satisfied to
being overjoyed! Unfortunately, on the other end of the scale 14% of users who
were unhappy and the 16% [...]
+
+
+ (h3 "Which GNU/Linux distribution do you use Guix on?")
+ (p "As we saw earlier just over a third of users (36%) initial adopt
Guix as a package manager on top of another GNU/Linux distribution. Question 8
asked, "
+ (b "Which GNU/Linux distribution did you use Guix on top of?"))
+ (p "The results:")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 8: Hosting Linux distributions"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Alpine Linux") (td "9") (td "0.95%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Arch Linux") (td "81") (td "8.59%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Fedora Linux") (td "33") (td "3.50%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Gentoo Linux") (td "19") (td "2.01%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "NixOS") (td "22") (td "2.33%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Ubuntu") (td "111") (td "11.77%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Other") (td "170") (td "18.03%"))))
+ (p "I errored when creating this question and somehow missed out
Debian! Over 117 answers in the 'Other' category said Debian so it's the most
popular distribution to use Guix on, Ubuntu is second (111) and then Arch Linux
was third (81). There were also plenty of mentions of OpenSUSE, RHEL/CentOS and
Void Linux.")
+
+
+ (h3 "Why did you stop using Guix?")
+ (p "Question 9 was targeted at those that had previously used Guix but
had stopped. It asked, "
+ (b "You previously used Guix but stopped, why?"))
+ (p "This was a comment question and we got some fantastic answers.
There were 147 comments from participants, which lines up well with the 150
people who took the survey and classed themselves as a 'Previous user' or
'Previous contributor'.")
+ (p "This was a free form text answer, the "
+ (a (@ (href
"https://codeberg.org/futurile/guix-survey/src/branch/main/2024-survey/Q9-guix-previous-users-comments.md";))
+ "full comment are well worth a read through")
+ " . As before I've clustered the comments into themes:"
+ (ul
+ (li (b "Complexity of maintenance too high") ": many commented
that the overall experience of using Guix was too time-consuming and complex. A
slow configuration feedback loop, inefficiency, and the overall maintenance
burden were all concerns. Example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"I needed to switch to a distribution that required
less of my attention when I started my new job. I switched to NixOS with the
intention of going back to Guix at a later date, but I am now reliant on so
many parts of the nix ecosystem that I don't think I'll ever actually switch
back.\""))
+ (li (em "\"I was doing more work trying to make my setup
perfect or fix issues with it rather than working on my other projects. A lot
of things with my setup either broke with time or were just not compatible (My
setup couldn't handle printing, screen sharing, audio, suspending/hibernation
and I just didn't know how to fix all that) and I couldn't deal with it any
longer, I simply went back to whatever worked for me earlier.\"")))
+ (li (b "Learning curve too difficult") ": many aspects of Guix are
completely different from how other distributions achieve the same result. In
some instances this learning curve was too difficult and/or there was not
enough assistance. Example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Mainly the learning curve is huge for a long-time
*nix systems user. I knew it would be difficult to adapt, but for each and
every little thing I would need to go dig how to fix something. Doing proper
power management on my laptop, setting up mail (I've been using Gnus for years,
but still...!), compile and test mainline kernels on my laptop, etc. It's
awesome to learn all those things, but they all require time. And that's where
I had to give up: I wanted a ( [...]
+ (li (em "\"But the problem ends up to be that the whole
ecosystem around guix basically assumes super knowledge about what scheme is,
how to use it and worse of all deep comfort and will to use emacs as the main
interface to it all. It's too high of a hurdle to dedicate when just wanting to
write some files, evaluate them, declare some packages, shells, etc. I have
zero interest and will to use or learn emacs and putting it so much upfront
does a huge disservice to the wh [...]
+ (li (b "Lack of drivers within the distribution") ": the lack of
drivers to enable hardware was the most commented on specific issue. Some
examples of those comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"As a long time Arch user I found it difficult to
configure Guix for daily use. I need proprietary video drivers (and possibly
other bits to get everything working?) and I don't remember if I ever got those
up and running.\""))
+ (li (em "\"I have a lot of respect for the technical side of
the project, but the politics of free software absolutism (to the point where
we are supposed to tell people to replace perfectly functional hardware in
order to use Guix, instead of telling them about Nonguix) and the user hostile
email based contribution workflow made me realize Guix would likely never reach
critical mass, so my time is best applied elsewhere.\"")))
+ (li (b "Unavailable proprietary software") ": proprietary software
not being available was also mentioned (not quite as much as drivers), often in
comments that focused on Guix not being practical as a distribution for
professional use. Some specific comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Lack of proprietary software, primarily CUDA, MKL,
etc.\""))
+ (li (em "\"Although I like FSF license purity, NixOS was much
more amenable to get working on various hardware & did not preclude using
Nvidia CUDA.\"")))
+ (li (b "Efficiency and resource usage") ": there were comments
about guix pull taking too long, whether this was actually the fault of Guix
pull locally or remote servers, the overall experience was mentioned multiple
times. Some example comments were:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"The core tooling was far too slow (e.g. pulling
updates, etc.); Nix is slow, but nowhere near as slow as Guix (was back then,
but I'm not aware of the kind of order of magnitude improvements that would
have been required). Core functionality was not reliable enough for a server
operating system (shepherd, logging, system rollback). Arcane contribution
requirements (no provisions for non-Emacs users, e.g. regarding code
formatting; baroque and counterproductive [...]
+ (li (em "\"Guix pull is too slow. The guix ci servers are
inaccessible from my location, requiring a proxy. Guix System does not have a
large enough community to be reliable and universal enough for daily use (in my
opinion)\"")))
+ (li (b "Missing packages and services") ": there were lots of
comments about both missing packages or services and this making it difficult
to use Guix. Example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Much of the software I needed wasn't packaged, and
it eventually became frustrating. I tried to package what I could, but some
things felt extremely difficult, E.g., `jujutsu` `ghc`. However unfortunate it
may be, I also rely on various pieces of nonfree software, and Guix was working
against me in that regard. I do not like that I have to use nonfree software,
but I often have no choice.\""))
+ (li (em "\"Still use to some extent as package manager on
foreign distro. For desktop use, waited for usable KDE Plasma packaging, and
for laptop, coverage of working builds for ARM. Hoping to return; there is
progress on both of these fronts. Size of store and speed of guix pull where
also issues (on limited hardware).\"")))
+ (li (b "Out of date packages") ": meaning that although there was
a package within Guix it was lagging, with particular concern about security
implications. Example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Outdated or absent FOSS software (ex: Gnome, KDE,
etc)\""))
+ (li (em "\"Too many packages updates were lagging behind, this
was raising concerns for me from a security point of view\"")))
+ (li (b "Quality and reliability") ": general issues with quality
and reliability that undermined the users belief that the project was ready for
real use. Examples:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"An upgrade broke the system and crippled it from
booting. Moved on to other distribution\""))
+ (li (em "\"I like the whole idea of guix. But it feels like it
is not really ready.\"")))
+ (li (b "Guix not fully supporting disk encryption") ": full disk
encryption in a variety of forms came up multiple times as a Guix weakness.
Examples:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Guix does not support an unencrypted /boot
partition. But also does not fully support LUKS2 due to grub.\""))
+ (li (em "\"I love Guix System, but it still misses a few
quality-of-life improvements, such as better support for full disk encryption
on install (entering two passwords!) and faster servers for South America. I
kid you not, it takes me several hours to install a base system with MATE!\"")))
+ (li (b "Missing guides/how-to's and examples") ": we've already
seen that lack of specific how-to documentation was an issue, there were
various comments to that:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Examples were insufficient, documentation expected
much more in-depth linux knowledge. I would like to try again using it, as I
love the concepts of it and I find that I resonate with the people representing
Guix, and while I am on NixOS currently I find some social aspects of the Nix
project concerning.\""))
+ (li (em "\"I switched back to NixOS due to more Community
support\"")))
+ (li (b "Free Software as a constraint") ": Free Software and GNU
as an organisation were commented on as a constraint to having a practical,
usable system that met user's needs. Note that the next bullet is the reverse
of this. Some example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"No ease of access to the tools I depend on without
jumping through hoops. VSCode, Chrome, Discord, all required flatpaks. Gnome
was extremely out of date and didn't work well with flatpaks making it even
harder to use them. NVIDIA drivers unavailable. I would have to work entirely
around Guix to make it usable for the real world. I can't just convince my
friends to stop using Discord. I can't just convince my job to not depend on
VSCode extensions. I have spent [...]
+ (li (em "\"Exclusion of all references to non-free software
(and no suggested step-by-step easy setup) made a full-featured initial
installation untenable.\"")))
+ (li (b "Not enough GNU") ": there were also some comments that the
Guix project was not sufficiently supportive of GNU and/or Richard Stallman:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"I am disappointed that you veered off the course of
freedom and added nonguix. Also that you hate on RMS.\""))
+ (li (em "\"I stopped using Guix after it ran a campaign
against Richard Stallman. I don't plan to return back.\"")))
+ (li (b "Language ecosystem issues") ": as tools like Docker, and
languages like Go and Rust become more important, friction with them is more of
an issue for users:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"my use case is to package tooling for other distros
and use it to build docker images reproducibly for use in CI environments. it
does not work for this use case very well. can't run guix daemon inside a
container\""))
+ (li (em "\"Lack of packages, stance on 100% reproducibility
which makes packaging software with transitive dependencies hard, slow
evaluator, obscure communication and collaboration mediums, patches take months
to even get a review, cryptic error messages.\"")))
+ (li (b "Nix is more modern or practical") ": many users seem to
have explored Guix as an alternative to Nix. Example comments:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"I looked at Guix as an alternative to NixOS, and
like its design a lot, but struggle with the 100% free software approach as I
need some non-free software (for various reasons, hardware support, required by
work, etc.). I'm aware of the non-guix channel which mostly solves this, but
having to compile most things myself got too cumbersome for me — I wish there
was a more complete substitute server for that channel, or perhaps even a
derivation based on guix with [...]
+ (li (em "\"There were too many packages missing or so out of
date as to be de-facto missing. Using Guix was therefore much harder to use
than Nix, where I had more packages (both Free and non-Free) and they were more
up to date.\"")))
+ (li (b "Old-fashioned communications") ": here were some comments
about communications within the project being old-fashioned, both from general
users and those that had tried to contribute:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"There seems to be shortage of packages and slow
development. Email or only free software is definitely an hindrance to many
people to daily drive guix. It has become hit and miss for me, so staying with
nixos as its rich and I can followup on its development easily on git repo,
discourse, matrix and all.\""))
+ (li (em "\"The main two reasons are that I find the
irc/email/emacs flow very hard to work with and I do not feel safe in the
mailing lists.\"")))
+ (li (b "Unavailable on Mac OSX") ": there were a few comments that
in a professional context the fact that Guix isn't available for MacOS made it
difficult to use:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Being unavailable on macOS. I have my nix home
manager setup on both linux and macOS. Also the lack of a number of packages
was a challenge. Like typst, bottom, hugo, tree, ruff, and sd for example. I am
interested in becoming a maintainer but I want my setup to also work in
macOS.\"")))
+ (li (b "Incompatibility with hosting Linux distro") ": running
Guix on top of another distribution was confusing, particularly for graphical
programs:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"Guix home breaking Fedora. Troubles with binary
applications due to the non-fsh nature.\""))
+ (li (em "\"Setting up the package manager & daemon was
confusing. The command \"guix pull\" felt excessively slow. A lot of packages
were not up to date. Breaking the FHS\"")))
+ (li (b "Poor contributor experience") ": the patch process itself,
slow reviews and inconsistency in response were all mentioned as issues.
Examples:")
+ (ul
+ (li (em "\"I still use Guix, but am a previous contributor.
Important patches (for me) which I submitted were/are ignored, so I’ve stopped
contributing.\""))
+ (li (em "\"Perceived Inconsistent patch reviews. I did create
couple of patches for guix, I do believe to contribute to project that I use.
Sometimes I see patches getting stuck without feedback on them (not necessarily
mine), the process to review patches is unclear to me and most likely to most
people. Also guix lack automation to help everyone understand what is going on,
if patches break rules, if this trivial change could be merged easily, etc.
maybe it’s there for y [...]
+ (li (em "\"I was passed over for commit access (even though I
surpassed the 50 commit requirement) because I could only find 2 people to
vouch for me, not 3. Then my patches stopped being merged, and some
2-year-pending patches I sent were closed without good reason. With the way
Guix is run and how they treat contributors, it is an insulting/degrading
process that I am no longer willing to put myself through.\"")))))
+ (p "As we can see there are a wide variety of reasons why users
stopped using Guix, many of them are similar to the challenges that many users
find, but they're even more powerfully felt by these users. It's really useful
to have these themes and comments captured, as contributors may be able to pick
up some of these issues and work to resolve them!")
+
+
+ (h3 "How important is Guix?")
+ (p "Focusing back on all users, the next question was, (Q10) " (b "How
important is Guix in your computing environment?"))
+ (p "There was a good range of answers:")
+ (p
+ (table
+ (caption (b "Table 9: Adoption challenges"))
+ (tr
+ (th "Category") (th "Count") (th "Percentage"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Not using") (td "97") (td "10%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Tinkering") (td "156") (td "17%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Slightly important") (td "147") (td "16%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Moderately important") (td "194") (td "21%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Important") (td "133") (td "14%"))
+ (tr
+ (td "Essential") (td "216") (td "23%"))))
+ (p "A visual representation:"
+ (figure
+ (img (@ (src "/static/blog/img/2024-guix-survey-q10.png")
+ (alt "2024 Guix user survey: GNU Guix's importance in
users computing environments bar chart")
+ (style "width:85%;height:85%;")))
+ (figcaption (@ (style "font-weight:bold;")) "Figure 6: Guix's
importance in users computing environments")))
+ (p "This is an interesting mixture which is probably reflective of
many new users, and how Guix is used as a package manager on top of another
distribution. Over a third of users consider it to be essential/important where
it would be difficult to replace, while the bottom third are tinkering or
exploring it.")
+
+
+ (h3 "Some thoughts")
+ (p "We've looked at the first 10 questions of the survey which covered
the composition of the Guix community, initial adoption and satisfaction, and
challenges that led to users moving away from Guix. The first thing to say is
how fantastic the response has been to the survey, it's amazing to have over
900 participants!")
+ (p "Some big take-aways:")
+ (p
+ (ul
+ (li "Interest in declarative configuration, reproducibility along
with Scheme, Guile and Lisp are bringing in lots of new user - around 50% have
been using Guix for less than 2 years")
+ (li "Guix users are knowledgable Linux users who are comfortable
being hands-on with their system")
+ (li "Around 50% of users adopt Guix as a GNU/Linux distribution,
36% as a hosted package manager on top of another Linux distro")
+ (li "The survey produced great feedback from current and previous
users on areas where the project can improve")
+ (li "Around 67% of users were satisfied (or very satisfied) with
their initial adoption experience")
+ (li "Guix is essential or important for over a third of users,
part of their environment for the next third, and being explored by the last
27% of users")))
+ (p "The next post will cover more of the survey - which parts of Guix
are most used, what sorts of deployments are being used, architectures and
drivers details, and how users view contributing to the project financially.")
+
+ ) ;; end of content
+ ) ;; end of list
+) ;; end of end
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