6 GNU Distribution

Guix comes with a distribution of free software⁵ that form the basis of the GNU system. This includes core GNU packages such as GNU libc, GCC, and Binutils, as well as many GNU and non-GNU applications. The complete list of available packages can be seen by running guix package (see Invoking guix package):

guix package --list-available

The package definitions of the distribution may are provided by Guile modules in the (gnu packages ...) name space—for instance, the (gnu packages emacs) module exports a variable named emacs, which is bound to a <package> object (see Defining Packages). The (gnu packages) module provides facilities for searching for packages.

The distribution is fully bootstrapped and self-contained: each package is built based solely on other packages in the distribution. The root of this dependency graph is a small set of bootstrap binaries, provided by the (gnu packages bootstrap) module. These are statically-linked binaries of the core tools without which building anything at all would be impossible.

Our goal is to build a practical 100% free software distribution of Linux-based and other variants of GNU, with a focus on the promotion and tight integration of GNU components, and an emphasis on programs and tools that help users exert that freedom.

Building this distribution is a cooperative effort, and you are invited to join! Please get in touch with us on bug-guix@gnu.org. We welcome ideas, bug reports, patches, and anything that may be helpful to the project.