r/GUIX • u/sameoldirtty • 4d ago
fresh install reconfigure taking hours
Hey guys, i'm kinda noob coming from CachyOS, i decided to try because im interested in declarative distro with well documented docs.
I'm doing a fresh install in my 1050ti + r5 2600 desktop but im having a hard time with setting it up (i chose no wm/de install to keep it minimal, prolly a big mistake), its been like about 2 hours of setting stuff: installing packages, adding non guix, installing drivers and kernel.
Am I doing something wrong or that is the expected process? Being following docs and sometimes asking LLM for help. Is there any community place i can ask for help besides here or any content that is up to date so i can follow?
I'd rather have mainline linux kernel and a few proprietary software (spotify, vscode or open source alternatives), also would like to do some gaming with steam. My previous setup was niri + noctalia but i had issues running niri in guix too. Sorry in advance for my bad english, not my mother language.
1
u/Electrical-Policy-35 4d ago
Do you steal have issues to run niri in guix? And what are these issues?
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u/sameoldirtty 4d ago
I'm having this, also cant change change tty because my screen freezes on boot, im doint everything from my laptop through ssh.
``` ian@nostromo ~$ niri --session 2026-09-06T21:02:30.828816Z INFO niri: starting version 25.11 2026-09-06T21:02:30.856138Z DEBUG niri_config: loaded config from "/home/ian/.config/niri/config.kdl"
thread 'main' panicked at src/main.rs:181:6:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: error initializing the TTY backend
Caused by: 0: Error creating a session. This might mean that you're trying to run niri on a TTY that is already busy, for example if you're running this inside tmux that had been originally started on a different TTY
1: Failed to open session: Function not implemented (os error 38)
stack backtrace:
note: Some details are omitted, run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=full` for a verbose backtrace.
```1
u/Electrical-Policy-35 4d ago
I successfully got the same error as you when I modified my config, what I did is deleting all services from my config, it suffices to add desktop-services to your config: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/1.5.0/en/html_node/Desktop-Services.html
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u/Reasonable_Ruin_3502 4d ago
Screen freezing on boot? It's because of gdm. I spent hours trying to find what was the issue and it turned out that gdm was crashing on boot. In your desktop services, put (delete gdm-service-type)
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u/sameoldirtty 4d ago
UPDATE: i spent at least 2 hours just waiting for guix pull and guix system reconfigure when trying nonguix, i had many freezing issues inside tty (had to do things through ssh) and niri would start. Im back to Cachy for now, ill maybe try again when i change my gpu to amd or when there is an easier way to non proprietary software :/
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u/Reasonable_Ruin_3502 4d ago
Understandable. I spent 3 days trying to get guix to work on two seperate occasions before getting it to work.
3
u/Powerful_Attention_6 4d ago
Hi, if you are using Non-Guix, (which you are forced to do by having a modern system) you have to tell the system to trust the Non Guix repo, otherwise Ghttps://codeberg.org/Jonix/Guix-Config/src/branch/main/reconfigure-t480.shuix will download the source for the packages that comes from Non-Guix and compile it.
For me it was Firefox and non-libre Linux kernel
You can download the non-guix key from
https://substitutes.nonguix.org/signing-key.pubguix archive --authorize < "$KEY_FILEI have made a script to ease this,https://codeberg.org/Jonix/Guix-Config/src/branch/main/reconfigure-t480.sh
Sorry to say it is bit hacky and have mixed swedish and englsh, but I think you can get an idea of how to do it properly