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I’m really digging this forum. Thanks for making it, David. I could see this becoming the premiere place to talk about Emacs online (as long as it doesn’t get overrun by noobs with questions that are answerable by 5 seconds of googling; that’s a guideline we might want to consider having someday).
This is among the most hallowed of rituals, and must be done with great care. Begin by saying a solemn prayer to the most venerable St. Ignucius. Light a candle and place it on your desk in reverence. Chant the Song of Vim backwards. Finally open up a terminal and invoke the sacred incantation:
Hello! Happy to be here. I extensively used (along with the Prot’s) the systemcrafters emacs playlists on YT while learning emacs a few years ago.
What drew me to Emacs was its orgmode, and orgroam packages. I was seeking a personal knowledge organizer tools. I started with Logseq, and then moved to orgroam. Nowadays, I am transitioning to using denote package. It’s elegant simplicity attracts me.
Hoping to learn about better managing my ~/.config/emacs/init.el file, along with completion frameworks like vertico, orderless, consult, ivy, etc. These are quite confusing at first, one cannot stop wondering whether he is using some redundant packages among these. And one seeks how to get a lean (and mean!) setup that does what he asks to do and nothing more.
TLDR; Greetings! I stumbled onto this forum yesterday and so here I am introducing myself. I seem to be retired (i.e., my last gig ended a year or so ago), and after 47 years as a software engineer (Pascal, C, C++, Python, et. al.) I am finally allowing myself the luxury of learning Scheme well enough to build systems with it. Please don’t hate me for not using Emacs; after 35 years as a Vi/Vim user and three failed attempts to make the switch, I’m just not going down that path. My current tools are Vim/Vim-slime and Guile on MacOS, but I have Windows 10, Ubuntu, and Raspbian available as needed on my home network. When not computing I do NYTimes Sunday Crosswords, study French, and watch French police dramas on TV.
On a serious note, I think it would be massively beneficial and more welcoming to new users if Emacs were to show how one can quit the program in the *scratch* buffer alongside the tip about creating files.
Wazzzzuuuuuuuup? I figure we’re about to have a resurgence in 90’s culture after gen 5 kpop is nothing but New Jeans clones searching old UseNet archives for fresh retro. The rest of the world will then catch up and we will rewind until pre-9/11 like nothing happened and it was all a dream in The Matrix.
Linux noob and non-programmer. A fresh-off-the-boat, no, not even off-the-boat Windows refugee, really, who came here inspired by long-standing annoyances with his prior PKM Obsidian’s limitations and mouse-based navigation in general.
I stumbled upon Emacs-ergo-keyboards synergies, dove into that rabbit hole, got side-tracked into asking how well that software integrates with Linux and came to realize at that point that my two big “procrastivity black holes” - identifying a new PKM software and identifying a new OS - had just converged beautifully upon this community, as a working hypothesis anyway.
Now I’m here to determine for myself if I’m about to bite off way more than I can chew as a non-coder whose time constraints have it that he must view the project in instrumental / utilitarian terms, not as a full-fledged new hobby per se.
If feasible, I’m wondering first if delayed shock-adaptation all at once is the most atraumatic way from an area-under-curve perspective, i.e. going Guix OS and Emacs and new keyboard and layout a simultaneously, but preparing the step deeply prior.
As the time until then passes, you now have a free subscription to my intellectual shitshow that leads up to it.
Switching from Windows to Guix is quite the change.
Going from something to Emacs and and ergo keyboard would be my first step.
For me, it was first Linux at around the year 2000 and then I found org-mode and ergo dox about 10 years.
There’s something to say for ripping the band aid off quickly.
If you have to get work done, I would go with Guix on top of a traditional Linux OS (I use Debian) as a base and concentrate on getting up an running with the keyboard and Emacs while training Guix in a VM on the side. As soon as you’re happy with your workflow and Guix config, you can merge your Guix config and Guix home on hardware.
Actually, I don’t use a VM but a second hand ThinkPad X13 in the evening. My system config and Guix skills still have some rough edges and holes. Also ATM, I’m concentrating on getting my literal Emacs config moved over to Guix home.
Like @dgr said, it seems wise to install a normal (aka “foreign” in Guix terms) Linux distro and then install Guix on top as a package manager. Get comfy with Linux, Emacs, Guile Scheme, and then take a dive into Guix System or re-evaluate where ever necessary.
And don’t forget to start binge watching Systecrafter’s streams!
Introduce yourself by adding your picture and information about yourself and your interests to your profile. Tell us what tools you use!
Get to know the community by browsing discussions that are already happening here. When you find a post interesting, informative, or entertaining, use the 
to show your appreciation or support!
Contribute by commenting, sharing your own perspective, asking questions, or offering feedback in the discussion. Before replying or starting new topics, please review the Community Guidelines.
