
Void Linux - da02
https://www.voidlinux.eu/
======
a-nikolaev
I installed Void Linux on my new laptop this May, switching from Arch, which
I'd been using for about six years. The experience is very positive overall.
For desktop, I'm using AwesomeWM and NetworkManager, altho Void comes with a
variety of options to choose from.

I were afraid that their Wiki is not detailed enough, and expected that some
packages could be missing. However, I could easily install everything I needed
from the repository (except flashplugin). TeX is installed slightly
differently, but the wiki entry helps here. Regarding documentation,
DuckDuckGo does not show search results from Void Wiki, so I have to use
Google search instead. Documentation seems sufficient, and where I need more,
I can refer to Arch wiki.

With Arch, all services seemed automatically enabled when the packages were
installed, otherwise you had to use systemd commands for configuration, which
seemed a bit opaque to me. In Void, which is using Runit, enabling a service
(like alsa, crond, cupsd, etc) is a matter of creating a symlink, which feels
very transparent and reliable. I think, I like the idea of keeping the
information about your services in the plain view in the filesystem. I have
never been a configuration guru, so prefer this transparency and simplicity,
and it felt robust so far.

~~~
majewsky
> In Void, which is using Runit, enabling a service (like alsa, crond, cupsd,
> etc) is a matter of creating a symlink, which feels very transparent and
> reliable.

It's exactly the same in systemd, although people usually use systemctl. It
will report what it does:

    
    
      $ sudo systemctl enable sshd 
      Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/sshd.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/sshd.service.

~~~
daptaq
I belive his point is that you actually use "ln -s" to activate a service,
instead of it being done by some utility, without you knowing what else it
might have done too.

~~~
majewsky
You can just as well do the same in systemd. In fact, I'm shipping these
symlinks in my configuration packages to enable services, e.g.
[https://github.com/majewsky/system-
configuration/blob/f1326a...](https://github.com/majewsky/system-
configuration/blob/f1326a086d55ed0730befbb683ca4c45bdc020cc/hologram-
openssh.pkg.toml#L10-L13)

~~~
shevy
Are you really reasoning in favour of some obscure program rather than a
simple "ln -s"?

Dude, we have been using *nix since decades.

There is nothing wrong with keeping things simple - no need for systemd
whatsoever.

------
djsumdog
I use Void on my router:

[http://penguindreams.org/blog/building-a-thin-itx-
router/](http://penguindreams.org/blog/building-a-thin-itx-router/)

It works really well. Runit is an interesting init system. I wish it was a
little better documented.

I hope we start seeing hosted providers offering Void base images. I'm a
little weary of the current state of Linux distros where everything new seems
to be either Debian or RHEL based.

~~~
eloy
Why did you choose Linux over OpenBSD? I'd choose pf over iptables, although
nftables looks pretty neat.

~~~
mmirate
I'm guessing they assumed that BSD would have a lesser chance of having
drivers for the hardware in their router (or if their router is ARM-based:
specifically supporting the router's exact+particular system board and
configuration of hardware) compared to Linux. _A priori_ , I would make the
same assumption; when I hear "router", I think "oh, that'll need OpenWrt".

------
daptaq
Here's a great inteoduction, for anyone new or interested in using Void:
[http://troubleshooters.com/linux/void/whyvoid.htm](http://troubleshooters.com/linux/void/whyvoid.htm)

I personally use it on my raspberry pi, which operates as my server/home page
([http://phi.k.vu/](http://phi.k.vu/)) and it's been fantastic for me. Far
lower memory usage and much easier to configure. Xbps is fast and efficient,
runit keeps it simple. It's like rediscovering linux or arch all over again,
if that analogy means anything to anyone. Really deserves to be better known.

The one thing that keeps me back from using it on my laptop (where I run
Debian) is that texlive has to be installed as one whole package, and the
incomplete wiki is the other (although arch wiki can cover up quite well for
tt's blindspots)

------
cgb223
What is the motivation for supporting MIPS here?

I can't think of a single system that runs MIPS instructions.

Also, what does this distro do differently from the other 1000+ distos?

Why VOID? Why not something else?

~~~
da02
I was drawn to it because it doesn't use systemd. (There seem to be a lot of
people who dislike systemd.) Void uses runit instead of systemd. This has made
it (for me at least) easier to use than Arch/systemd.

It was also one of the first to adopt LibreSSL.

The main downside for me is I have to manually install browsers. Void's
packages for desktop software is sometimes out-of-date. But, I'm willing to
overlook it because of all the other positives.

~~~
nine_k
(Writing this from a Void Linux installation:) I don't know about Chromium,
but Firefox 55 was no more than a week late, which I can totally live with.

~~~
bugmen0t
If you download a Mozilla build of Firefox into somewhere user-writable, like
~/opt/, it will update itself.

------
noncoml
No _systemd_ and _dwm_ as the default window manager? I’m sold!

~~~
aerique
I've been running it at work as my main dev OS for a couple of months now
(before I ran Debian) and I've run into far less issues than I expected. It's
really well done.

Before Void Linux I contemplated jumping ship to FreeBSD or OpenBSD but Void
Linux combines the best of BSD and Linux _for me_. (Except the awesome
documentation and man pages found in the BSDs and it still uses a piece of
Lennartware by default (but it can be removed): PulseAudio.)

Oh, a disadvantage (at least when I installed it) was I had to go through a
wiki page to get an encrypted setup. It's not in the default installer.
(Wasn't too hard though.)

 _edit: this last paragraph might not be true, see replies_

~~~
opk
Is pulseaudio really there by default? I've been using void for a couple of
years. Made the choice early on to have sndio but no pulseaudio but I don't
remember ever having to particularly remove pulseaudio.

~~~
aerique
Now that you mention it, perhaps it was installed because I grabbed a Void
Linux image with MATE?

I'd have to do a reinstall to check, but I've got work to do ;-) I'll update
my original post if I can though.

Still, good to know it probably does not come with PA by default.

~~~
a-nikolaev
Me too, I started with Void with MATE, which brought Pulseaudio among other
things. I later removed Pulseaudio, and using only ALSA.

------
r0brodz
Well I just switched from ArtixLinux (arch-openrc) to Void. I simply
reformatted my partitions execpt /home and viola. Its very nice. Nicer than
Artix. Clean, the BSD-style bleeds thru. I know because I have installed a
_lot_ of distros on this machine.

A few screenshots. [http://imgur.com/a/2IE94](http://imgur.com/a/2IE94)

Thank you very much VoidLinux devs and volunteers! Awesome work!!

------
rurban
I use it sucessfully to test musl with my apps.

------
snarfy
What problems do .deb and .rpm have that .xbps solves?

~~~
Qwertious
From what I've seen on it's page on the wiki: Sane design. That's more than
the .deb format can offer.

------
rohshall
If only it had a good documentation like that of Arch Linux, i would have
given it a try. It seems promising, marriage of simplicity of BSD systems, and
configurability and availability of vast number of packages of Linux.

~~~
digi_owl
I have found that the Arch wiki can be useful for any distro.

------
softblush
<edit> fooled

~~~
vertex-four
April 01 is April Fools' Day.

~~~
softblush
Haha they got me there. Maybe I should wake up properly before reading HN

------
pweissbrod
"We were the first distribution to switch to LibreSSL by default, replacing
OpenSSL."

I'm not seeing the wisdom in this. OpenSSL has problems so instead of fixing
them incremenally we are going to leverage a complete replacement thus risk
many histories repeating itself plus a bevy of new undiscovered issues that
come with less mature/less utilized projects. I'm not sold on that.

~~~
burke
LibreSSL is a fork of OpenSSL that declared it was worthwhile to remove a
bunch of legacy code to incrementally fix OpenSSL. It's not a rewrite.

