Installing proprietary firmware on Guix

GNU Guix [1] is an open-source Linux distribution and the Linux kernel version it uses does not allow to load proprietary firmware by default. Although, it is possible. In this post, I explain how to get work proprietary firmware on Guix.

To enable the support for proprietary firmware, it is necessary to manually modify the system configuration file /etc/config.scm. The first step is to switch to a kernel version that allows loading of non-free firmware.

Note that since I first wrote this article, an import effort has been made towards easier usage of non-free firmwre in Guix. Refer to the nonguix project for details. I keep the original tutorial here for archives.

Alternative kernel

You need to define a new package in the system configuration file for the alternative kernel. Here, I use the Linux kernel source from kernel.org.

Preprend the following lines to your /etc/system.scm. Remember that, you must have superuser privileges to edit this file!

(define-module (guix-non-free)
  #:use-module (gnu)
  #:use-module (gnu packages linux)
  #:use-module (guix download)
  #:use-module (guix git-download)
  #:use-module (guix packages)
  #:use-module (guix licenses)
  #:use-module (guix build-system gnu))

(define-public linux-non-free
  (package
   (inherit linux-libre)
   (name "linux-non-free")
   (version "5.7.5")
   (source
    (origin
     (method url-fetch)
     (uri "https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.7.5.tar.xz")
     (sha256
      (base32
       "008bpcvcdbwy3w829zc0s6ighn820nr51y24l6df5qfvah1zjdvc"))))
   (synopsis "A non-free Linux kernel allowing particularly to use non-free
firmware in GNU/Guix.")
   (description "A non-free Linux kernel.")
   (license gpl2)
   (home-page "https://kernel.org")))

Note that, you can choose any version of the kernel. Do not forget to adapt the version and the uri fields consequently! Also, it is important to update the SHA-256 hash of the tarball. To compute the new hash, you can use the guix download command followed by the link to the tarball. For example:

guix download https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.1.2.tar.xz

Non-free firmware

Non-free firmware for Linux is available in the linux-firmware repository. Tarballs are available as well.

Insert the following lines straight after the alternative kernel definition into your /etc/config.scm.

(define-public firmware-non-free
  (package
   (name "firmware-non-free")
   (version "20200619")
   (source
    (origin
     (method url-fetch)
     (uri
      (string-append
       "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/"
       "linux-firmware.git/snapshot/linux-firmware-" version ".tar.gz"))
     (sha256
      (base32
       "1i8gnmsppq531mzmq9z72w2h4wyn6dvynzvbr6xsqp2iqw0sjsi5"))))
   (build-system gnu-build-system)
   (arguments
    `(#:make-flags (list (string-append "DESTDIR=" (assoc-ref %outputs "out")))
      #:phases
      (modify-phases %standard-phases
                     (delete 'configure)
                     (delete 'build)
                     (delete 'check)
                     (delete 'strip)
                     (delete 'validate-runpath))))
   (home-page
    (string-append
     "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/"
     "linux-firmware.git"))
   (synopsis "Collection of non-free firmware for Linux.")
   (description "Non-free firmware collection")
   (license (non-copyleft "various"))))

Again, you can choose any version of the kernel. Do not forget to adapt the version field consequently and update the SHA256 hash (see Alternative kernel)!

Switching the kernel and loading the non-free firmware package

The last step is to actually make the system load the alternative kernel and the non-free firmware package on starup.

At some point in your /etc/config.scm file, you should have the following line.

(use-modules (gnu))

You need to replace gnu by guix-non-free in that line.

(use-modules (guix-non-free))

Then, insert (kernel linux-nonfree) below the line staring with (operating-system.

(operating-system
 (kernel linux-non-free)

Finally, find the line starting with (firmware and modify it in order to include the firmware-non-free package.

(firmware
 (append
  (list firmware-non-free)
  %base-firmware))

Now, you can save the file and apply the changes to your system configuration by invoking:

guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm

Note that, if at the very end you get an error related to some symbolic link failure, reiterate the previous command using sudo. Then, restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

References

[1]

“GNU Guix software distribution and transactional package manager.” https://guix.gnu.org.