The developers of the GNU Guix package manager and the GNU/Linux Guix System distribution built on its basis, announced the publication of a 64-bit version of the Guix/Hurd distribution. In this version, a GNU Hurd kernel is used instead of the linux kernel. An option for installing Guix/Hurd on systems with x86_64 architecture has been added to the installer. However, the capabilities of this distribution option are currently very limited. For example, support for running the X server has not been implemented yet.
In the 32-bit version of Guix/Hurd, support is provided for approximately 1.7% of all packages from the Guix repository. In the 64-bit version, this figure drops to 0.9%. By comparison, Debian GNU/Hurd builds 75% of Debian packages, highlighting the scope of development still required for Guix/Hurd.
The GNU Hurd kernel, which previously only supported 32-bit mode, has now been ported and stabilized for x86_64 architecture. Work is also underway to implement Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) support for enhanced performance.
When preparing Guix/Hurd, support for user-space drivers is provided. These work using the rump (Runnable Userspace Meta Program) mechanism developed by the NetBSD project. User-space USB and TCP/IP stacks have been added, along with drivers for SATA/USB drives and network adapters, enhancing the functionality of the distribution.
GNU Hurd is a kernel developed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, operating as a set of servers running on top of the GNU Mach microkernel. It implements various system services such as file systems