(work in progress)
Note: I have not completed this section. YMMV.
GNU Guix package manager runs brilliantly on any Linux distribution (see INSTALL.org). Even so, once you get used to rolling upgrades and predictable environments it may make sense to run GNU Guix as a fully-fledged distro itself.
In the year 2016 I promised myself to install GuixSD on my laptop. I have been running Debian for about 15 years, and while I think it a great software distribution I get bitten by software updates regularly. In addition, the Debian packaging system is archaic (I dabbled in packaging, but quickly got out) and does not have rolling updates - i.e., the update and deployment system is outdated by definition. As a developer and worker in science, I like to run recent versions of my tools. Finally, Debian makes choices, such as the move to gnome3 or systemd, which is enforced on its users. I am not in favour of enforcing such radical changes and I like stability in those areas. Of course, with a little work you can use alternatives, but the thing is that GNU Guix makes choice really easy.
Image and instructions can be found on the GNU Guix website.
If you want the latest and the greatest, checkout the Guix source repository and build it as described in INSTALL.org. Next create GuixSD with
./pre-inst-env guix system disk-image --image-size=1700MiB gnu/system/install.scm --substitute-urls=http://mirror.guixsd.org
Amazingly you’ll see it boot into a Linux kernel to create the image.