Noob question, is it possible to change the OS in a foreign distro using the guix system command?. I’ve only used it for vms, but my hardware is not fully supported.
You installed Guix on e.g. Debian and now want to change to e.g. Arch using Guix? Or what exactly are you trying to do? 
Ideally trying to install guix on top of debian (replacing it). Modifying the kernel and other parameters so that it can work. Besides that, I just want to know what use cases does guix system have on a foreign distro (other than the vms which work great).
It could be possible, but you’d still have the same limitations as if you had installed Guix from scratch on the machine because it will start using its own kernel and drivers.
Using the Nonguix channel should help you get past the hardware support issues, though.
Yes, this is what I have in mind. I’m reinstalling debian anyway so I wanted to experiment with guix system. My understanding is that the guix system command can replace the kernel and components of the guix installation.
“guix system vm” works perfectly but the documentation does not explicitly states what other commands work only in a full guix system installation.
If you have an empty partition somewhere attached to your foreign distro system, you an guix system init a system to the empty partition.
You can also test your code on the foreign system by doing, as you said, guix system vm, or just guix system build.
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Thanks!, I will try using a separate partition, testing it in a vm first. I have tried the vms with the minimum requirements for postgres and django, but not for a full system yet, lets see how it goes.