Isn't embedded shell scripts exactly what you want though? I can't imagine having the flexibility of configuring entire unix systems without beeing able to ever touch a shell script. Unless you are writing shell scripts in some kind of meta language, but that's just writing shell scripts in another form.
In fact I just spend 5 minutes to search for the source of a few Guix packages and I couldn't find it. I found this: https://guix.gnu.org/en/packages/ which is a meager list without any link to the packaging source. Huge red flag for a distro.
Re:Why GNU Guix Matters
by nextaccountic on Sunday December 19, 2021 @05:55AM
(#29612959)
> I found this: https://guix.gnu.org/en/packages/ which is a meager list without any link to the packaging source.
I clicked the first
https://guix.gnu.org/en/packages/python-pyxel-1.4.3/
It says "Package source: game-development.scm" linking to https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages...
It's a lisp code that does what a shell script might do, but declaratively. Indeed it isn't much different from an Arch Linux PKGBUILD.
Guix is not tied to any kernel version. Hurd and Linux-libre are officially supported. But it is trivial for users to incorporate non-free firmwares.