Lately with all these spying revelations I thought it would be a good idea to try a more free laptop.

So I installed Libreboot (by external SOIC 16 test clip and SPI programmer on the A20) and GuixSD on a Lenovo X200, replaced the PCI Express Wifi card by Atheros AR5B95 9285G 802.11 b/g/n and removed the WWAN card.

The following lists my experience with it. "TODO" marks parts I didn't do yet but want to do in the next round.

GuixSD

Installation

There is an GuixSD image file which you can put on an USB stick and boot from it.

There is no installer. In 2015. That is bad.

Missing Programs in Installation Medium

For internet connectivity, you need to dial up or otherwise connect to the network.

However,

• no minicom in installer.
• no wvdial in installer.
• no mii-tool, ethtool in installer.

Actual Manual Installation

• TODO enable kerberos in base config.
• TODO set clock
• set up partitions
• somewhere here I noticed that I need a /etc/config.scm on the target disk.
• TODO set up keyboard mapping (currently done in my ${HOME})
• TODO How does LUKS work? "mapped-device"
• LVM is missing...
• ifconfig: set ip addr, up the link.
• TODO set user id for dannym. (user-account uid, shell)
• run guix init
• it complained about /etc/resolv.conf and failed because of network problems
• setup /etc/resolv.conf on the ramdisk
• it doesn't copy resolv.conf over, so copy it over manually
• run guix init, it installs stuff fine
• reboot
• the normal user's password has not been set!?
• most of xfce's icons don't show (for example in the panel).
• no web browser on desktop install. WTF.
• no ssh on default install. WTF.
• Xfce system integration sucks (i.e. when the application isn't installed, it asks you to select an installed file to use but it doesn't allow you to install it)
• if I want to change the hostname later on in /etc/config.scm, what do I do?! Apparently guix reconfigure /...
• guix pull
• How do I know which packages exist (are installable)? (guix -s <regex>)
• How do I know which packages are installed: guix --list-installed[=<regex>]
• TODO: test guile-emacs GUI interface for guix.

Extremely annoying problem: With substitutes connection breaks at about 121 MiB (tried 5 times). After it does, it starts at the beginning. I just don't think it's a good idea to not resume a 4 GiB package and instead start over from the beginning.

Problem: --no-substitutes texlive-20140525-texmf.tar.xz wasten 2.3 GB of bandwidth and then told me the hashes don't match.

I think that was because the disk was full.

guix package -i guile-cairo alsa-utils mpv[has ruby as dependency and who knows what else, mesa, texlive what the actual fuck...]
TODO guix package -i pidgin : package not found!
guix package -i icecat
guix package -i python-3
guix package -i gfortran
guix package -i python-numpy
            uses deprecated API
guix package -i python-scipy
            uses much Fortran
guix package -i openssh
guix package -i imagemagick
guix package -i octave
guix package -i wpa-supplicant
update env vars
K:
            guix package -i postgresql
                        System error
            OK sshfs-fuse
            guix package -i curlftpfs ??
            guix package -i scilab ??
            guix package -i clang
            OK lirc
            guix package -i pypy ??
            OK icedtea7 (java)
            guix package -i mono (corefx, coreclr, roslyn)
            OK libreoffice
            OK sane-backends
            OK ant
            OK automake
            OK autoconf
            OK bison
            OK cdparanoia
            OK claws-mail :-) immer noch
            OK colordiff
            coq
            cryptsetup
            OK ddrescue
            OK duplicity backup
            OK rsync !!
            OK emacs
            OK evince
            OK fdupes
            OK fetchmail
            OK ffmpeg
            OK file
            OK flac
            OK flashrom
            OK flex
            OK fluidsynth
            OK gcc
            OK gdb
            gdc DNE
            OK geeqie
            geiser
            geoclue
            OK ghc
            OK ghostscript-with-x
            OK gimp
            OK git
            OK glade
            (gnome-themes-standard)
            OK gnupg
            OK gpgme
            OK graphviz
            OK gst-plugins-ugly
            guile-xcb
            OK gv
            gmessage (like zenity) missing
            haskell-mode
            OK hdparm
            httpd
            [i2c-tools]
            OK indent
            OK inkscape
            OK inotify-tools
            OK iotop
            OK iw config utility
            OK lame
            OK llvm
            OK ltrace
            OK lsof
            OK luajit
            missing lxterminal
            lxtask
            OK make
            OK mc
            mit-krb5
            mp3info
            mpc
            OK mu !!!
            not [nginx]
            OK ocrad
            OK ocaml
            opus
            PAN is missing
            OK parallel
            parted
            pcb
            pem
            petsc (partial diffeq)
            OK pingus !!!!
            ploticus
            OK powertop
            OK qemu
            OK qpdf
            r
            OK racket
            rc
            OK rdesktop
            rdup
            OK recode
            XXX rhythmbox
            ripperx
            OK rsync
            OK rtorrent
            rubber
            OK samba
            OK sbcl
            OK screen
            OK sdl
            OK setxkbmap
            OK smalltalk
            OK smartmontools
            OK sqlite
            OK strace
            OK tcpdump
            terminology !! not yet
            thunar-volman
            timidity++
            OK tk
            OK tmux
            OK transmission
            OK unionfs-fuse
            units
            OK unrtf
            OK unzip
            OK vala
            OK valgrind
            XXX vlc
            OK vorbis-tools
            wakelan
            OK wayland
            wv
            OK xbacklight
            OK xev
            OK xfce4-battery-plugin
            OK xfce4-clipman-plugin
            OK xlsatoms
            OK xlsclients
            xnee
            xorriso
            OK xosd
            xournal
            xpdf
            OK xprop
            OK xrandr
            OK xrdb
            OK xsetroot
            OK xterm
            OK xwininfo
            OK yasm
            OK youtube-dl
            OK zathura (commandline PDF viewer)
            OK zathura-djvu
            OK zathura-pdf-poppler
            OK zathura-ps
            OK zathura-cb
            OK zip

            TODO setup hibernation
            TODO setup suspend & resume
            gnuplot missing lua support.
            use deco service manager
            weird stuff:
                        Dolphin Wii emu
            pyside support missing.
            fluxbox
automatic:
            gstreamer
            gst-plugins-base
            gdk-pixbuf
            librsvg
            xawtv
            qpdf
            xcb*
            gtk+-2
            matplotlib
            cups
Chemistry: ALEKS.com
leptonica ?!
wayland ?!
useful: guix system reconfigure
Problems: laptop doesn't standby.
block packages:
            mysql
            qt
cd burning:
            brasero
How does installation of fonts work?
guix package -i font-liberation font-dejavu font-bitstream-vera font-alias font-adobe-source-han-sans

Commits 776463b and c28606b backport the Guile fix to (guix
http-client), which is what 'guix substitute-binary' uses.

You can check that it solves the initial problem you reported by running
the daemon with the new substitute code:

  ./pre-inst-env guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild

Thanks,
Ludo'.

missing command-missing in bash that installs stuff.
missing ldd.
missing gdc.
missing nim.
missing rust.

TODO stellarium
TODO blender
TODO snes9x
TODO pcsx2
TODO xdpyinfo
TODO nvramtool
TODO linux-libre-headers https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2013-02/msg00032.html
TODO binutils
TODO iasl (Intel ACPI Source Language)
cc -> gcc
flex
dmidecode
libpciaccess
pcutils
alsa-utils
hexchat
lm-sensors
gnuplot

Libreboot, Coreboot

Libreboot/Coreboot ROM image by default overwrites NVRAM every time you boot. This makes it impossible to change BIOS settings.

The setting fn_ctrl_swap can be changed by finding the file cmos.default in the ROM image using cdfstool.

Even better, if the file cmos.default is missing, it won't overwrite NVRAM on boot.

So use: cbfstool x200_8mb_ukqwerty_vesafb.rom remove -n cmos.default

Coreboot Crossgcc Toolchain

libelf missing "de" target in "po". Doesn't build.

My Configuration

run TODO_xkb, make scratchpost-mount appear, make "info" folder appear, .netrc.