When comparing GNU Guix vs Ubuntu MATE, the Slant community recommends GNU Guix for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” GNU Guix is ranked 58th while Ubuntu MATE is ranked 73rd. The most important reason people chose GNU Guix is:
A method which works across languages and provides a reproducible programming environment.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Can setup a shell which has exactly the defined libraries available
A method which works across languages and provides a reproducible programming environment.
Pro Can always roll back to a safe state
Guix creates new profile generations for each operation. If anything goes wrong, a simple --roll-back gets you immediately back to the previous, working, generation. Because it is a purely functional package management system, generations don't affect each other, so you're back to the exact same state as before : still working.
Pro Can create independent packages
Guix pack creates packages which do not need Guix to be run.
Pro No side effects when building packages
Guix is a purely functional package management system. This means that the act of building a package does not have side effects, such as destructively updating or deleting files that may be used by other packages.
Pro Can build containers right-away, from docker to tarballs
See guix pack --help and here.
Pro Easy to add your own packages
The clean and declarative syntax makes it easy to define new packages by using an existing one as an example.
Pro Doesn't require root privileges
Normal users can install packages on a Guix-enabled system, or even run their own Guix instance if the system isn't Guix-enabled.
Pro Works great on old laptops
It does not have a lot of system requirements so it works pretty well even on older laptops.
Pro Simplicity of Gnome with the power of Ubuntu
Debian was good to use but has limited documentation and is difficult to pick up. Ubuntu MATE brings the ease of design and logic of the Gnome 2 style desktop so it's easy to get around coupled with the vast documentation, forums and ease of learning/using the Ubuntu system.
Pro Perfect for people who like Gnome 2
The goal of MATE is to maintain the look and feel of Gnome 2, while maintaining compatibility with Gnome 3. To that end, it has also forked and renamed many of Gnome's core applications. It benefits from the years of work and polish that have gone into the Gnome project.
Pro Highly configurable
Comes with an option to configure as Windows-like, Mac-like, Gnome-like, etc. in a single click. Wonderful to get you started without having to learn it all from scratch.
Pro Behaves like Ubuntu with Unity - after Ubuntu-Gnome transformation
No better place to continue Unity experience with Ubuntu (Left-side panel, HUD) and not as awkward as Gnome.
Pro Based on Ubuntu
Cons
Con Updates take a long time
It's gotten better over time but both updating Guix itself and updating the installed packages can take a long time.
Con Cannot handle filetypes that have different semantics across different versions
While the functional approach that Guix takes is great for sandboxing binary artifacts of packages, it seriously lacks any power in handling configuration files or user data. It's difficult to upgrade and downgrade files where semantics and syntax can change between versions.
Con No very good Software Center by default
The Software Boutique is not good. You can install Gnome Software from it.
Con Too much bloat included by default
Con Redundant
There is absolutely no reason to install it, since it uses the same package repositories as Ubuntu and you can transform any Ubuntu install into a Ubuntu MATE install.
Con Not bleeding edge
Users who want the latest and greatest software would be happier using Arch Linux, Antergos or another rolling release distro. However, because Ubuntu MATE is based on Ubuntu, users still have access to a large repository of recent software.
