this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Guix provides security patches. You can also define your own derived packages and patch them. Or fork the distro and build it with a different kernel and base packages, like the nonguix fork does. Or add an own patched OpenSSL library.
But what such approaches come down to in practice is that maintaining a forked distribution is a lot of work. For most people, the sane approach is to build on an existing distro.
It is not an easy problem. For example, the buildroot distro which is popular for embedded devices, AFAIK has only one release every six months.
Guix provides grafting for that case.