Ancestors

Written by futurile on 2025-01-24 at 13:41

The #guix survey also showed that our users are knowledgeable #Linux people. Almost 50% are experts/advanced and 47% are intermediate!

A lot of the attraction is the #nix value of declarative configuration and reproducibility. Users also identified that Scheme, Guile and Lisp are cool! Perhaps the overlap of two different communities! That was my path from #clojure and #ubuntu /#debian

See Q1 in the post:

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2025/guix-user-and-contributor-survey-2024-the-results-part-1/

[#]scheme #emacs #guile #lisp #declarative #reproducible

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Written by Ludovic Courtès on 2025-01-26 at 20:26

@futurile I would love to reach out to the beginner/explorer type, for good.

After all, that’s the whole point of the “practical user freedom” stance, which led to the overall design and even to the way some of the documentation is written.

Probably we need more in the way of popular education?

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Written by Cayetano Santos on 2025-01-26 at 21:02

@civodul

From the graph, it seems that the install process imposes a clear cutoff here.

Consider that the survey includes a strong bias: we only have a return from people answering it. Those below the cutoff probably consider not useful providing any feedback from their fail experience.

@futurile

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Written by Simon Tournier on 2025-01-27 at 09:06

@csantosb @futurile @civodul « Those below the cutoff probably consider not useful providing any feedback from their fail experience. »

Yes, we are observing the bias itself. 😀

That’s said, to reach out to the “Beginner/Explorer“ profile, we have two directions, IMHO:

• Make Guix “easy”; @futurile describes some 9 of many items which could help.

• Make Guix “simple”, it’s probably more in the spirit “user freedom”; something à la “Linux From Scratch“.

Personally, I am more aligned with “simple” than with “easy”.

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Written by Cayetano Santos on 2025-01-27 at 10:17

@zimoun

In my experience, #guix is already simple for most users. Documentation is easy to follow and clear enough to keep going.

My point is that the cutoff originates during the install itself, a game over for not technically skilled people.

@futurile @civodul

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Written by Simon Tournier on 2025-01-27 at 10:49

@csantosb Your analysis assumes that the “Beginner/Explorer” profile only jumps in installing Guix System bare metal, when VM and/or Guix on Foreign Distro are also options. Well, somehow your intuition’s probably right about the “why” of this cutoff, I don’t know.

My point’s we cannot say much because we’ve not enough data to explore this bias itself so I refrain about this “why”. 😀

Instead, we observe the “Beginner/Explorer” profile did not answered, therefore:

1. How could we reduce this bias for the next survey? (if any 😀)

2. Based on the general lines we got with all the other trends, what can be done? And yes, improving the installer seems one of those. 😉

Morevoer, the documentation’s on “simple” side but not “easy” side, IMHO.

@civodul @futurile

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Written by Cayetano Santos on 2025-01-27 at 12:01

@zimoun

I don't even consider Guix System when it comes to not skilled people, way too complicated.

Only foreign, as a first step towards using Guix.

@civodul @futurile

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Written by Cayetano Santos on 2025-01-29 at 15:19

@futurile @civodul @zimoun

An example of my whole point here: 1.5 hours to just install guix.

https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2025-01-29.log#130603

Most users just give up after such first experience, and so the cutoff in previous graph.

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Toot

Written by Simon Tournier on 2025-01-29 at 16:35

@csantosb I agree that 1.5 hours for the first “guix pull“ is a bad user experience.

However, give up after this experience isn’t related to the “How knowledgeable a Linux are you? (Q1)”. Is it?

I mean, I consider myself as « Intermediate (e.g. comfortable with the command-line and configuring many aspects) » or « Advanced (e.g. you correct the Arch Linux Wiki!) » and I would probably give up myself with such user experience.

@civodul @futurile

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Descendants

Written by Cayetano Santos on 2025-01-29 at 16:51

@zimoun @futurile @civodul Don’t get me wrong: I just wanted to point out that, based on missing feedback from the survey corresponding to beginners/explorers, probably due to failure to install guix, provides an interesting insight about why some people don’t use guix, and so, on how to to improve the situation.

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