mrh

Lemmy has certainly already won me over reddit. Going back to centralized social media is something I will actively avoid if at all possible.

However I believe nostr is a theoretically better protocol than activitypub. Having your account/identity tied so strongly to a particular instance is undesirable. As soon as there is a reddit-like (or even forum-like) client for nostr which is relatively active/polished, I will switch. Nip 172 can't come soon enough.

In addition to being less popular / newer than activitypub, nostr is also full of bitcoin[^1] bros and twitter refugees (not my crowd). But frankly I think complaints about that are like the complaints that lemmy is a place for tankies a couple years ago when people's only exposure was to a (much smaller than today) lemmy.ml.

[^1]: monero support would be nice though...

I have never used nix or nixos. I liked their shared idea (functional, atomic, reproducible systems), and so when I looked at their differences they seemed to all be pros for guix:

1. Clearer, more robust, more centralized documentation
2. GNU Project
3. Guile Scheme (Lisp) as opposed to Nix DSL
4. Unparalleled emacs integration

The only bittersweet aspect of guix compared to nix was the foss only stuff, as I do need some proprietary drivers, but nonguix is so easy it hasn't been a practical issue. And of course I am big advocate of free software so I like that guix is pushing that forward.

There's also a theoretical issue that guix has less packages, but the standard channel + nonguix has had everyhing I use.

Seconding ivpn. Have accepted monero for a very long time and check just about every VPN box you could hope for (including port forwarding).

Though if this is for e.g. torrenting rather than geohopping or clearnet obscurity, consider I2P instead of a VPN, especially if cost is a factor (NEVER use a "free" VPN).

Alternatively if price is an issue (NEVER use a “free” VPN) you could torrent over I2P, which is free and very safe (at least as safe as tor, if not moreso).

Also the next release of qbittorrent is about to have built in I2P support (but also standard I2P comes with its own torrenting software).

Memmy has been working very well for me. Lots of updates very quickly and feeling good.

Been really enjoying Memmy. Has been getting updates at a super fast pace and already feels pretty good and featureful. More to go but the dev work has impressed me.

Yes you can install non-free software on Guix. By default Guix only ships with non-free software in its iso and standard repo, but there is a nonguix channel (read repo) which comes with all the non-free software I've ever needed.

It's very easy to add channels to Guix. Flatpak and Nix are also available on Guix if you'd prefer to use those ways of getting non-free software.

I quite enjoy it!

Being able to rollback any change I make to the system, either package changes or system configuration, makes it completely unbreakable and provides great peace of mind. It means I can fully enjoy its rolling-release nature without worrying.

Having my entire system configuration declared in a single, robust programming language (Guile) across a small number of files makes it very easy to understand and just stick into source control to reproduce.

Being able to hack on it in a lisp (scheme) is the cherry on top, along with the great emacs integration. I would highly recommend it to any lisp/emacs/gnu enthusiasts.

Sorry I don't have jerboa so I can't test this myself, but definitely let the dev know! I'm sure they would appreciate the bug report.

I run the complete system. It's true that the standard iso comes with the linux-libre kernel and the standard channel (think repo) contains only free software. However there is the nonguix channel which comes with the full linux kernel, and all the proprietary drivers you could ask for.

Nonguix offer an iso with the full kernel too in case you have a proprietary wifi card and don't have ethernet for the initial setup. The nonguix README I think is pretty clear, but Systemcrafters also made an excellent guide for doing this.

My wifi card unfortunately requires proprietary drivers and I have personally never had an issue with guix + nonguix for all my software needs, proprietary and otherwise.

Hope that helps profligate!

I daily drive GNU Guix instead, and I would strongly recommend any emacs and/or lisp enthusiasts interested in the benefits of functional, reproducible, declarative, and hackable system management to give it a try!

tip: you should create relative links to communities so that people aren't torn from their instance when following, like so

[my link text](/c/nix@programming.dev)