GNU Guix Begins Publishing System Images Based On Hurd

Earlier this year was news of GNU Guix wanting to replace their Linux kernel usage with the Hurd microkernel. For those interested, the project recently began producing system images with indeed Hurd wired up for this software distribution.

The plans laid out earlier this year were on switching to Hurd for increasing "security and freedom for their users."

A Phoronix reader tipped us off that the Guix project is indeed offering the system images powered by the Hurd micro-kernel.

The Guix+Hurd OS can be downloaded from guix.gnu.org. There still is GNU Guix System on Linux with the project still trying to support the Linux kernel albeit is likely to go into an unofficial state. But alongside that is the new GNU Guix System on GNU Hurd option.

Given the GNU Hurd's limited hardware support, GNU Guix is offering their Hurd image just as a QCOW2 image for usage within virtual machines. Hurd can play fine in most VMs but beyond that the hardware capabilities are really lacking with it struggling to support the likes of 64-bit, SMP, modern USB versions, and most other modern hardware currently being unsupported in the context of this long-standing GNU micro-kernel project. There is the Hurd hardware guide that does outline supported albeit largely vintage hardware working well with the GNU platform.

So far this year the Hurd code has seen less than 50 commits, mostly fixes, and the Mach code just around 100 commits in 2020.