Void Linux: First Impressions

Today I talk about my first impressions of Void Linux.
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==== Time Stamps ====
0:00 Intro
1:00 What is it?
1:42 Who Should Use It?
3:27 My Impressions, The Installer, The Documentation
7:19 The Problems or The Process?
8:04 Software Availability
8:57 Back to the Problems
12:57 They're NOT Problems
18:42 XBPS
22:10 My Impressions and What's Next
#voidlinux #firstimpressions #thelinuxcast

[@TheLinuxCast]

I"m also on Mastodon where I toot about awesome Linux related content and much more. Give me a follow: fosstodon.org/@thelinuxcast

[@-someone-.]

Do you have a video showing how to enable zsh auto complete history ? I couldn’t find any simple answers on google search. I want to enable it on my raspberry pi’s, which use either konsole, alacritty, or cool-retro-term and on garuda linux 👍🙏

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@-someone-. Installation instructions are here, github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions/blob/master/INSTALL.md

[@-someone-.]

@@TheLinuxCast thanks 🙏

[@jonathancadle1261]

A small note: IIRC, Void doesn't use Runit because they hate Systemd, they use it because they wanted to offer a musl-based option, in addition to the standard libc. They have a pretty nice, but very small, community, so you're less likely to get insulted for asking dumb questions in their subreddit, but more likely to simply have trouble finding the answers you need.

[@adibemaxwell6111]

Yeah, fortunately systemd requires glibc. If you're offering muslc as an alternative you need a non-glibc based init system.

[@-someone-.]

The new Arch flex... I use Void BTW 😅

[@ArniesTech]

Kudos to Void for not bing yet another fork/spinoff! Apparently Void has been created by a NetBSD maintainer. Kinda gives me high hopes for this neat little distro!

[@LabiaLicker]

He had a mental breakdown and hasn't been involved for years now. Its on a skeleton crew.

[@sprinklednights]

Heya, a former Void Linux user (and not an old one, so I am not a neckbeard) I used Void Linux at a time where I even didn't knew how to set up fonts (wasn't too long ago), but even then I managed to do everything that I do on a daily basis as playing video games on steam with the nonfree NVIDIA drivers, talking to people on Discord. Besides that, my use case can be applied on pretty much any Linux distribution, and so does Void Linux. Pros: - The installer: While not easy, for an advanced user, it is the best one (or the least worst one). It just works! Partitioning for example, has been a painful experience for me on many installers, but on Void Linux, partitioning, creating filesystems, and mounting them just works for me - runit: I wouldn't call it a pro because Void Linux doesn't use systemd, but because runit itself is an amazing init (at least in my opinion). It is very fast, minimal, doesn't require learning many weird commands, and is overall a good option for somebody like me, who uses an init just for enabling dhcpcd - Independent Distro: I hate most Linux distributions because they are just a fork of something. I like the ones that have been written from scratch and are their own thing, and besides from the big three, the only Linux distribution that does what I need to do and is independent is Void Linux - It's very minimal: It installs the bare minimum of packages when you choose the network install, and even the local install installs just about everything that a user might need for troubleshooting such as a web browser and a graphical user interface Cons: - Packages may be outdated: I never had an issue with that, but some packages may be outdated (usually 0.0.1 version behind) - xbps packages may be missing: Many of them can be obtained with flatpak, appimages or maybe even nixpkgs, but I would rather not use them for only one package that doesn't exist on the repositories. I don't have anything else to complain about

[@przemekkasprzyk626]

Great to see you cover Void on your channel. It really needs and deserves more love from Linux enthusiasts. Granted, it's not for everyone, but an experienced user could find its BSD-like approach both enticing and reassuring. I only wish it had more software available, but that's contingent on the user base and people willing to maintain the xbps-src build templates. Perhaps your videos will encourage some to give it a go and get involved long-term.

[@folksurvival]

In my own personal use case I have found the software availability to be better than Arch.

[@TotallyURGrandpa]

@@folksurvival Just for curiosity's sake, can I ask what software you use that isn't available on Arch and is available on Void?

[@przemekkasprzyk626]

I can't generalise but the only piece of software missing from Void (from my own personal perspective) is the graphical MEGASync client. I can compile it from source, but I still wish it were available as an xbps-src template or (even better) a package.

[@przemekkasprzyk626]

Edit: Packaging MEGASync is probably aga inst Void's licencing policy.

[@rishirajsaikia1323]

@@TotallyURGrandpa excluding the AUR, void linux has almost twice as many packages in it's official repository than arch linux.

[@Chr0n0s38]

The big selling point is that it's *BSD-like. It has a binary package manager with a ports-like system. I'd consider it to be more of a workstation oriented distro than a desktop distro because of that. The other advantage is it has full musl-c compatibility. This is great for installs where disk space is critical (e.g. a container). This is why systemd can't be included, it requires glibc.

[@trajectoryunown]

Void Linux is actually very intuitive relative to other distros I've tried, and their documentation is also more comprehensive as well. I would 100% not say that it is more complicated than Arch, actually about the same if not a little easier. It's the "learning everything from scratch" that causes the learning curve. You're right about it being a process. Most of the trouble a newer user will experience that effects Void also effects Artix or any other OS that doesn't use systemd. The big differences between Void and Arch are software support and running a different init system. The documentation is about the same in terms of quality but not in volume. The Arch wiki is great until you want to learn something specific and pray that someone on the wiki has made an article.. (spoiler: they didn't. Learn to Google. Read man pages for BSD when available. Thank me later.) Void was my first real, focused effort to move away from Debian-based distros after experiencing catastrophic trauma from Pop! OS, the Gnome team , and Ubuntu spins. Void is by _far_ the _fastest_ OS I've ever used in my life, and it wasn't just opening applications. Even the mousepad was more responsive than in any distro I've used. This isn't only due to the init system being different. Artix was closer to Arch than Void in terms of responsiveness. I've since settled on Arch due to their repo didn't contain Discord and experiencing trouble with the audio and opening links in the Flatpak version. That along with more of the expected pulseaudio drama. I'm just waiting for either the Void team to replace that wretched dumpster fire, pulseaudio, with the simpler, easy-to-manage, infinitely less buggy Pipewire. (Matter of fact, I don't think I've _ever_ had a serious bug occur with Pipewire.) These days running Pipewire by default is the starting point for deciding on an OS. If it runs pulse by default, it's off the list. I advise everyone else to do the same, especially new users. Nothing's more disheartening than having to close EVERYTHING just to restart the damned audio server, else everything that was open prior to the restart will be irrecoverably muted. I know 100% I will main Void in the near future... That was decided when I first started using it. It's by far the best , fastest, most responsive OS I've used. IThe biggest issue I had back when I tried it was the lack of software support. Now they just gotta get Pipewire on their. The repo has grown to a respectable size, and I now know how to build packages from source. I'm just not familiar enough with the underbelly of Linux to implement Pipewire myself at this time, otherwise I'd be typing this on a laptop running Void, whilst accessing a virtualized Void instance, served up from a server running... wait for it... Yep, that's right. Void Linux. It was just that good and memorable for me in spite of knowing next to nothing about Linux at the time. Unless something big has changed, that's my final destination in Linux... The only possibility after that is BSD or making my own OS from the ground up... Fat chance of that though. Sorry for the rant about pulse. But seriously eff pulseaudio.

[@Cecep91]

I keep wondering does pipewire works in void linux . There is a documentation on their website though, but other users kept mentioning about a buggy experience using a pipewire in void linux. I hope it get solved soon(or it already is), cuz dude, i helplessly need EasyEffect for eq-ing audio.

[@0x007A]

This is the reason you should always document the steps to install and configure distributions such as Arch Linux, Artix Linux, or Void Linux.

[@colbybraden]

Void has been a blast for me so far. I've used it for a couple weeks as my daily driver to try it out. Once you get used to the "void way" of doing things it functions great and so far very stable. It is definitely more for those willing to spend the time to tinker and learn, mainly because it doesn't use systemd or hold your hand. ;)

[@thewalkingforest5185]

I’ve been using Void for about a year now, I’m really happy with it and don’t see myself distro hopping anytime soon. It was kinda frustrating getting things setup (XDG was my biggest issue) because of how little Void does for you, but I learned a lot about Linux and my own system. XBPS as a package manager is probably my favorite to use, I find it much more intuitive that pacman but maybe not as easy as apt or dnf. One thing that does bother me a lot is some packages have capital letters in their name. Runit is pretty simple to use and, except for having to sym link services to enable them, there’s not much difference from systemd (from a user’s perspective). In all, expect to put in some more work tinkering and problem solving than you would with, say, PopOS or Fedora. Void really lets you make your system your own. I do agree that some of the documentation could be a lot more thorough, but it’s supposed to be Void specific stuff so I wouldn’t expect it to have as broad a scope or be as in depth as the Arch wiki.

[@folksurvival]

Some of the difficulties you had with the minimalism aspect are taken care of when you install a desktop environment because the DE pulls in those packages etc. So part of it is that you are setting up the system with a minimal window manager etc. With a DE there's still packages you have to download manually such as ntfs-3g but some stuff is taken care of by the DE so for people who use a full DE the process is more simple than it would be for those who just use basic WMs.

[@itildude]

I switched to Void for the first time about a month ago on my daily driver. So far, I am absolutely in love with it. I see why they say it cures distro hopping. Fast, just the way I want it setup, and just works. Yes, it took me a good afternoon to get everything setup but now it's done and great and it will be much faster in the future thanks to my notes.

[@folksurvival]

It's the best distro I have found. Minimal in a clean way, rolling but still stable, great package manager, good selection of programs in the main repos (I've never needed to go outside the main repo), no systemd, fast to run and fast (and easy) to install. It checks more boxes than any other distro.

[@raphael2407]

even as an old and longterm Debian guy, Void has me totaly impressed. I am officialy in love with runit 🙂

[@Chrisg457]

I have been a Void user for almost a year. One thing a person can do to minimize the time it takes setting it up is to use the unofficial Voidbuilds ISO where many of these problems are solved already. I have used both official and unofficial, the latter helps when needing to be up and running pretty quickly.

[@soanvig]

Also one point from me: it never breaks. Im using this for 3 years, and it just works.

[@mjmolby]

I made the jump and switched 100% over to linux about a year and a half ago and distro hopped a lot in the beginning and at first I thought Arch was going to be my forever home until i decided to try out void after watching some youtube videos on it. At first I ran into a lot of little headaches a lot of what you experienced (i did a base install with no XFCE, went with i3gaps). I agree that upon first entry there is a lot to figure out (both due to me being fairly new and the lacking documentation) but once Ive gone through and learned the quirks (im still learning) I absolutely love Void Linux and it has been my main distro for over a year now on multiple computers in my house. I still run into some weird things here and there (like having to restart the power-profiles-daemon service every now and again but that could be a me problem). Ive even made an install script to get things running the way I like it when I install on a new machine. Glad to see youre reviewing Void, even if you dont like it in the end.

[@n1vz3r]

Void is one of those distros that make Arch look like something mainstream

[@keylowmike85]

I've heard of Void Linux, but never had the chance to use it. This should have a label saying "Must be at Master level to install" and I'm not anywhere near ready for it. Great work!

[@KC_rocka]

I love Void now but it was a bit of a learning curve for me, it's very fast, lightweight and like Arch you build it how you want it to be, you can search repos using xbps-query -Rs then the package or dependency (the "R" is for repository and the "s" searches your system), if something doesn't start or work properly try starting it in the terminal and it will usually say if there's something else like a dependency you need to install, make sure you add all of the repositories so you can get more software (void-repo-nonfree, void-repo-multilib & void-repo-multilib-nonfree), you can also get quite a bit more software including some proprietory stuff from their source package installer called xbps-src, it's similar to Arch's aur.

[@zeusthundr6876]

What font are you using on the terminal. Your ranger icons look awesome. 9:24

[@KrakonosovoBabka]

It felt a lot similar to me when I started with void, but after like 20 days, it all went away and now I have almost no problems.

[@cezarcj9357]

To make things easier, I have an advice for people that install a new distribution or anything else for that matter. This is a good advice that you can give to anyone switching to Linux, also. The first time will always be a bit of a bumpy ride until you will figure things out. It will be less frustrating if you document everything you do, in a notebook or something because the second time around, you will now what things need to be taken care of for your personal system. If you do this, you will have a smoother journey overall and even if you forget something, you have it written down.

[@Bob-1802]

Excellent advice I haven't seen much, if at all, on Internet. Can really save precious time if reinstalling is needed.

[@Kalasklister1337]

Better yet, always write down your setup process as an install script in bash (easy way). Or if you are a programmer/devops person you can go the hardcore way and make ansible playbooks for all your systems. I don't really care much about the install process anymore since i always automate things so i can get my system up and running with all my setup and programs without any manual steps

[@Anthropomorphic]

I tried Void a while back. Regarding software availability, did you find out about the restricted packages? I recall there being some software I initially thought was unavailable, but actually had to be built from Void's GitHub repo using xbps-src. I remember having to do that to get some of the applications I normally use on a daily basis. There's also a nonfree repo that isn't enabled by default. I also recommend a package called "xtools" that simplifies some of the commands for XBPS. I think it shortens the package installation command to just "xi".

[@plebisMaximus]

xtools is awesome, xlocate has made using repos through a CLI on par with GUI. Can't give them enough credit for xtools, a must have package for anyone using Void.

[@hagoryopi2101]

The reason I'm enjoying Void is because it's high setup, low maintenance. You need to know what you want out of your system, and have a checklist of how to get it there, like you described. But once it's set up how you want it, and you've ironed out all the kinks (like my boot partition showing up in the file manager for some ungodly reason, or my laptop not going to sleep when the lid is closed), it just works. It's not like Ubuntu/Mint, where everything is supposed to just work but if it doesn't you're SOL with regards to fixing it. It's not like Arch/Manjaro, where you have to keep up on your system after you went through all that work setting it up or else a buggy "cutting edge" release can brick your system. It's not like modern day Fedora, where IBM hates everything that FOSS stands for. You set it up yourself, which is hard, but once it's set up, it just works. And that's perfect for me.

[@hichamabh6280]

Void-Linux is amazing and very fast

[@MajinHico]

Also I think that only Void installation/configuration is not for everyone. Once Void is installed correctly, everybody can use it. I installed it for my grandfather and he uses it without any trouble.

[@texmex6083]

grandpa using linux😤

[@soanvig]

You can use archwiki to work with Void. The only thing to avoid are things related to systemu. The ncurses installer misses encryption unfortunetaly

[@Axenide]

What a coincidence, I was just searching for a review because I'm seriously thinking about distrohopping from Arch to Void.

[@maybeanonymous6846]

For LightDM, do you install the greeter? I am using LightDM on Artix with the GTK greeter, for example

[@cezarcj9357]

I love a distribution that gets me out of my confort zone because it teaches me not to take anything for granted and also, when a problem arises, I can learn how to fix it! :D It's just awesome. You actually are the System Administrator!

[@peppe540]

Really interested in your experience, I have had my dalliances with Void as well. At least it felt very snappy, but that's just my 'feeling'. Why I would use it remained a bit unclear to me, but possibly you'll enlighten me later on ;-) Thanks, matt

[@SRAZKVT]

Proprietary applications such as discord and chrome are packaged, however, they aren't distributed. if you want to install them with XBPS, you will need to build the packages yourself using the xbps-src tool, although the best option is imo to just use flatpak.

[@tanakahirosi6453]

The dbus issue is actually not void related, otb made a video on it recently, like changing the session desktop file for fluxbox.

[@ne0ne0]

At the end of this video you mentioned there would be a follow-up. Where is it?

[@MendenLama]

By the way, lightdm does not work before running dbus as a service. You have to do: ln -sf /etc/sv/dbus /var/service/dbus and reboot. Another trap: use lightdm-gtk3-greeter, and not lightdm-gtk-greeter.

[@alfredklek]

Just found your channel and I think you're going a great job. Just wanted to comment on your intro. I've been using Linux for 20+ years first using Debian Potato (yes I remember my first functional distro) in 2001 or so. If you consider yourself a N00B, you're either super modest or I just suck :). Could be both TBH.

[@PippeML]

I have ZERO experience with Linux (any distribution) and last 2 days I've taken the challenge to "revive" an old laptop-potato (Vaio VGN-FJ330F) and it's been FUN, I feel I've been learning about a world hidden to me (of course I have much to learn) and there's always youtube and forums to dig in... trial and error... understanding why's and how's... so far the Laptop is now running Void... I can surf the web... but youtube is sluggish... I ordered more RAM (1x2 DDR2) and a 2.24Ghz compatible processor to upgrade... maybe I'll get a SSD too... anyways, Void just uses 300mb of RAM, so it's perfect for thIs little old laptop... thx for the video man. Void Linux is awesome... I'm tempted to install it on my daily driver 🎉 Greetings from Monterrey, México.

[@pewolo_nyenh]

Once you go void, there is no going back!

[@trajectoryunown]

I am SO glad you mentioned the spacing on standard keyboard for the package manager commands. I'd venture to guess that devs tend to be too caught up in their work to actually focus effort on such a simple concept, but it's ever so important. apt - left pinky, right pinky, right right - simple motion rpm - left index, right pinky, right index - same pacman - long but common, easily accessible, and more importantly, grouped characters flatpak paru, aura... every package manager I've used is easily typed in a fraction of a second, 1 second tops for longer ones xbps does not follow this convention. Assuming proper typing form, you have to reuse the same finger to type two of the first 4 characters. There's overlap. That's precisely why it feels weird and abnormally long to type. Repositioning of the same fingers and letters that don't ever go together in our language as far as I'm aware. This would actually be forgivable if things like "install" and "uninstall" weren't hyphenated, individual commands but simplified like they are for pacman. I don't care about typing out 6 characters because saying "install" is only "-S". It's shorter overall.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

what are you talking about.. x is typed with ring finger, b with index finger you don't use same fingers, but yes x is not comfortable to type

[@trajectoryunown]

@@JamesSmith-ix5jd I could have sworn I replied to this 3 months ago... Anyway, X and S both use the same finger. You type X, B, P, then you need to lift the finger that's over the X key and move it to S. That's what makes it uncomfortable.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

@@trajectoryunown you don't type like that, you hit X and then immediately go back to S, by the time you need to press it it will be under your finger. Using the same finger means words like le[ss], or sch[ool] or pi[zza]

[@trajectoryunown]

@@JamesSmith-ix5jd I don't do that. I just move directly to the next key. Never really thought about it before, but that sounds like quite a lot of wasted motion. Course, that would probably assist with accuracy. 🤔

[@bhavyakukkar]

@@trajectoryunown X and S (having a 2 letter interval) use the same finger but A and C (having no interval) in pacman dont?

[@jd31068]

I have a purple 14" HP Stream with an Intel N3060 1.6GHZ 4gm RAM and 32gb of emmc storage, I was running Chrome OS Flex on it (this thing ships with Windows?!). I use this strictly for watching KZbin. I must agree with the documentation sentiment, I was able to find a good installation article fairly quickly though. The process is reminiscent of installing Linux 8-10 years ago. My biggest issue was getting sound to work, which again, was fairly easy to solve with a bit of searching online. In the end I find that Void, with its minimalist distro stance, is running MUCH better than Chrome OS flex on this device.

[@plebisMaximus]

I absolutely loved Void, probably my favourite distro... for about a week until I got a kernel panic and now I'm back on Debian. I'm sure I fucked up somewhere myself, but it's still a pretty negative experience. I'll definitely install it again some other time though, I adore xbps and xtools.

[@RHTORAS]

You should show us Obarun, Adelie, Gabeeos (based on void), Slitaz and Chimera Linux too... awesome projects...

[@aymenbenbellil]

the reason behind every xbps variant having it’s own man page is because each one of them is a different software that does a specific thing, rather than one software that does it all

[@TotallyURGrandpa]

Is there any chance you'll have a look at Bedrock Linux? It's incredibly unique in what it sets out to do and is perfect for certain use cases. Definitely worth a shot imo.

[@-someone-.]

I checked their website, and it looks very interesting! It’d be awesome to see how all the different components from different / incompatible distros work togetner! Have you managed to make a frankenlinux? 👍

[@TotallyURGrandpa]

@@-someone-. I'm currently using a Debian base with an Arch strata. This setup allows for a rock solid setup stability wise, while also allowing me to get new packages with the Arch strata. Also thinking of adding a Void strata on-top so I don't rely on the AUR as much.

[@torsten.breswald]

ha, yea void might not be for everyone, but at the end you might like it few things, that ntp issue i had as well and it was the first issue of this kind in void since the last two years, that bugged me, so don't let that be representative for the distro, it was just bad luck, i do agree on the lack of documentation though and the weird syntax stuff of xbps, i went with aliases right from the start until i wrote my own little wrapper script, there is also 'xi' available in the repo IIRC next you wanna install the non-free repos for some more software AND you wanna figure out how to use the void-packages, Jake@Linux has made a video about it, with these two things you should be able to pretty much install everything you want and if needed you could dive even deeper into it and build your own templates for xbps-src the lack of systemd is not what makes void great, it just happens to not use it. what makes void great is it provides a stable operating system that is very much bleeding edge once you have configured it. it doesn't go out of your way, yes, but that forces you to set it up the way you want and then you know what you have done to the system which pays off at the end

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

Jake@Linux is going to be so happy you gave this a try... :-) Thanks Matt! LLAP 🖖

[@charlie_chiu]

true lol

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

@@charlie_chiu :-)

[@filleswe91]

What do you think about GoboLinux? Have you done a video about it?

[@Auguste86]

Used void on vm for a year. Never put it on hardware. You can also use aliases for the xbps commands.

[@BtZealot]

Void is a Linux goal for me. I look at it as a grail.

[@miyolinux]

YOU CAN DO IT!

[@rishirajsaikia1323]

Void linux is for people who wants to make their own system but the packages are tested to make the distro stable unlike arch Linux which is untested bleeding edge.

[@SumanRoy.official]

Disable secure boot, for blinking cursor issue

[@soanvig]

It has proprietary software. It nas nonfree official repos, and AUR like void-packages github, which contains proprietary software AS well.

[@VojtaJavora]

Woudn't apropos xbps or man -k xbps do what you want?

[@denizkendirci]

i recently switched from glibc version to musl version. void is a really good distro. i remember that i followed the documentation in my first installation, and didn't encounter any problems, i installed wayland + river wm, i don't use display manager etc. edit: sorry, i encountered one issue. river config was different than arch, on arch you use "Super" and on void you use "Mod4" in the config file. So i had to change all Supers to Mod4 in the config file (which was pretty quick in vim, of course) and that was all. xbps, in my opinion, is the second best package manager after portage. different commands for different functions actually makes a really good package manager, that helps it to be a tidy package manager, yes it's kinda tedious to type, but you can make aliases for them so not really a problem. my void system idles at 85 mb ram usage after boot, and it idles at 150-160 mb ram usage after i launched the window manager. it's very lightweight.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

my gentoo build was 55mb with bspwm, st and htop running. I wonder if it was my kernel config, or if it really the result of specifically compiling for the hardware.

[@denizkendirci]

@@JamesSmith-ix5jd specifically compiled software. Because i use the exact same things in my arch and gentoo laptop (laptops are the same model). And arch is 155mb ram usage in window manager after boot and gentoo is 90 mb ram usage after in window manager after boot. Hardware specific compiling matters.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

@@denizkendirci ok thanks, I guess if you want to be really minimal you have to run gentoo, but at the same time it requires compilation which is not the best thing for very weak systems.

[@denizkendirci]

@@JamesSmith-ix5jd sadly true. the laptop i use gentoo was 14 year old laptop with a fan or circuit problem it shuts down when overheat. I took it apart clean and paste it but it still shuts down when overheat. So i installed gentoo with great effort then i setup the way i want it then leave it as it is. I never update that laptop now. Because it shutsdown it cannot complete the update lol.

[@KakashiHatake-jz4bu]

@@denizkendirci Same thing happened to me recently with my laptop too and so I've been trying out different distros. I also cleaned, took it apart and pasted but fan would spin for a little, stop, overheat, then shutdown. Did you ever figure out a fix? I'm thinkin' I might have to go with a windows manager as well.

[@prezes4478]

Hi, can you tell me pls what "fetch" do you use? I personally use neofetch, but yours looks more compact and "tidy", and i would love to try it out!

[@TheLinuxCast]

That is neofetch

[@TheLinuxCast]

Check out neocat. That repo has a lot of cool neofetch configs

[@prezes4478]

@@TheLinuxCast thanks man

[@oalfodr]

So this distro requires all the usual pieces of software to work properly? Outrageous!

[@deardiso9193]

Hey my unkonw friend, 2 things, runit is not "his own init system" runit is very old but not "the own of void" void has a version of it. also i can't sign your comment about "well documented", but ok i'm a linux sys admin for yers and using void... for years, eventually i need not a lot of doc to understand whta's to do. But at the end of the day, you are awesome und a like your videos and this void video from you, it's special cool. if you have any questions or so, let me know. have a nice weekend my friend.

[@charlesmangum2100]

Be ready to learn.

[@chrisMuc1966]

0:02 Did you ever try Nix OS?

[@nomoredarts8918]

How about NixOS?

[@newdev76]

you can use vpm instead of xbps .

[@MelroyvandenBerg]

Void linux does offer xfce by default, aside from the base image.

[@ajx803]

Void linux is my favorite fun linux to explore and learn all little nuances of linux. You are in control of each of the things that are running on void; enter runit. It's fast and light on resources. xbps is fast and reliable. xbps-source also makes it easy to install apps from source. How about installing even the nvidia driver is easy? I have failed to get nvidia drivers working on Debian except on it's derivatives MX or Pop OS. It was funny to even needing to install pulseaudio, whisker menu plugins - even after installing the xfce version. The documentation is good where we need to know something void specific; lets say it is not intimidating as the arch documentation. Honestly apart from a few packages that I wish void had, it did not have any issues for me - ran stable, no crashes, glitches or issues in updates. However, I am not using it now just because I rather stick with the mainstream distros else I get spoiled by this perfectly working little linux distro.

[@hello_there0]

Void is a distro I want to switch to, but for some reason the llvm and gcc packages are very far behind so that isn't gonna happen. :/

[@fruitedlight]

i't's one of my favorite distros, but it lacks a few packages

[@OcteractSG]

ls /bin | grep xbps Then use man on every command in the output. Not ideal, but it'll probably get you most of the information you need. I've seen web versions of man pages too, so those could be another avenue.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yeah they do exist, but not one for just the general package manager.

[@mckendrick7672]

@@TheLinuxCast That's because XBPS is a collection of programs which do their own job. There is no single "xbps" program you can run.

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@mckendrick7672 Right, I'm aware of that. I just meant that it would be nice if there was a list of manpages on your system for XBPS

[@tylerdean980]

Void is the only distro that hasn’t had my wifi firmware. Even FreeBSD and gentoo had it, but not void for some reason. I like void, but use Artix with runit these days on that machine.

[@rezaosman92]

xbps-install and xbps-remove have separate manuals because simply they are designed to be separate binaries. same case for apt-get and apt-cache have their own separate manuals. there are no "xbps" binary, so there's no need to make manual of it.

[@ironmanlifts]

We can't blame void for our ignorance. There are a ton of tutorials out there already on how to use btrfs and partition. That being said I do agree with you that there are some things that are not so straight forward. Matthew has great tutorials on xbps so I wont say much about that. I've used it before firefox seems to start faster, haven't figured out on arch why it takes 30 seconds to start my firefox not gonna mess with it going back to void.

[@Tala2n]

I'm playing with Alpine and I noticed less bad surprises. Alpine is minimal like Void, but with a better CLI and it seems to be less buggy.

[@johnterpack3940]

Void, Gentoo, and Alpine are on my short list of distros I want to use in my homelab. Can't help it, I like being in control of what goes on my system rather than relying on some dev somewhere to let me have something useful.

[@heroe1486]

Unless you write everything from with Assembly you're still depend on some devs tbh, all the distro you listed still have enormous levels of abstraction.

[@johnterpack3940]

@@heroe1486 Abstraction at that level makes no meaningful difference in my daily operations.

[@ledira8539]

Should I try void? I don't know. Is arch still good? I heard it's just ok now. Am I a lemon? Perhaps.

[@alexlee9358]

maybe play with it in a vm

[@night_h4nter]

void linux is (or at least, used to be) heavily undermaintained. idk how's it now, but it used to be a few month ago. basically, the versions of libc implementations were more than a year old, and i believe that's just scratching the surface

[@adriansrfr]

Why are you using ntfs with linux?

[@TheLinuxCast]

It was a Windows drive.

[@kim-hendrikmerk4163]

Xbps does not have a man page because there is not program called xbps. All of the functions are separate programs so they have their own man pages.

[@soulprestigio9162]

I'm interested in void...but it simply fail to install it due to the UEFI bootloader

[@rishirajsaikia1323]

Use cfdisk. Make a 250M efi partition and the rest linux filesystem partition (you could add a swap partition if you want). And then after writing the changes, mount "/" in the linux filesystem partition and "/boot/efi" in the efi partition.

[@jamesmackinnon6108]

Void is not great for amazing exciting features, void is good because it offers a happy medium between most options, rolling release while remaining rock solid, minimal but not so minimal it has trouble booting, etc. Void is good because everything is very functional and never seems to break, contrary to arch or even Ubuntu, I've never had void crash on me. On top of that, runit is probably the best init system out there imo, lightning fast boots, always shuts down when you want it to, intuitive commands. There is no secret feature in void, most people who use it were distro hoppers then landed on void and found no reason to move off from it.

[@Wonderingax]

gosh I just installed it few days ago, I dont even have an opinion on it

[@Norbert9696]

Xbps probably doesn't have a man page because there's no binary called xbps. Xbps-install and Xbps-remove are separate binaries.

[@folksurvival]

Yes and they each have man pages.

[@anon_y_mousse]

Where is Jake? I expected him to be all over the comments. Haven't seen a video from him in a while either. On the naming scheme, I hate them all now days. There needs to be some draft standard that all the distros adopt and just make a singular command for managing packages that works amongst every distro. Something like say, you type: pack {install|search|remove} and it would just work everywhere.

[@ReLoneR]

i gave up on void when i struggled for like 2 hours to make shared folder between void and windows and vm. and what is the most important - not only make a share folder, but also make it to auto mount whenever your void linux starts with this "beautiful" runit initialisation system. i mean it so stupid that after you install a programm, you shoud figure out a way for your beautiful runit system to start this programm for you. Like its double trouble, so stupid

[@RESPEKTOS]

void worked fine for me for about 6 months until one day it simply wouldnt boot anymore. the issue is the updates fill up a certain partition and never remove old versions eventually leading to a full bricked system. lack of documentation meant no one could help me

[@folksurvival]

You have to remove them yourself, same as on Arch.

[@jamesmackinnon6108]

Type xbps-remove -oO every once and a while to remove orphans and cache.

[@BUFU1610]

@@jamesmackinnon6108 or just put it in Cron for a daily run or something like chrony for a weekly cleanup.... It's really not that hard

[@junglistfpv8553]

vkpurge...

[@Winnetou17]

This sounds a bit rough if you don't know about it and when it happens you can't boot. But I do assume it is not a fully bricked system, that is, if you have something else installed, on a separate partition or if you have any live usb/cd/dvd you can still boot into these and recover your void system, right ?

[@MendenLama]

If you aren't into xbps write a shell script wrapper for it like: case $1 in install) sudo xbps-install -Su $2 ;; search) xbps-query -Rs $2 ;; *) echo "and so on" ;; esac Call it apt and do apt search, apt install etc.

[@TheLinuxCast]

eh, I just use aliases, fewer lines.

[@WinningEmpire]

@@TheLinuxCast use xtools.

[@voidmaker2039]

there's a package called vpm that does exactly this. you can just use vpm install, vpm remove, vpm search etc. I did install this but honestly after a while I just got used to the default xbps command I ended up uninstalling it lol

[@ByteMeCompletely]

I installed void linux on a proxmox vm. I updated it weekly, until it no longer boots. Now I call it de-void.. 8o)

[@cschannel7502]

In order to run any python program you need to install python itself.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I did

[@MajinHico]

In my opinion void is the best

[@Perry....]

I agree. It's Linux at its peak. Stable, up to date, lots of obscure packages, hasn't broke on me once in over a year

[@Perry....]

@@9ix1 I think the ratio may be a little more underrated

[@adibemaxwell6111]

Void Linux doesn't market itself as being for new users. And that's a good thing. It doesn't lie to you. It doesn't hold your hand. Neither does Arch,but with Arch you can basically get through it by following the documentation. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The Linux community needs basic gatekeeping.

[@itsfish8672]

Matt watch Jake vids, he is in the no he uses it an Jakes vids help,he is the man pages for Void.GVM

[@silvernode]

I miss the founder of Void as much as people like to hate on him.

[@leopard3131]

Although there are a ton of void linux fanbois who wants to spend the time at such a low level? And after all that what benefit is there? If I was going to put in that much work I would go with Arch or gently. After doing these sort of distros and learning how to fix it I learned it it a better to go with Fedora. You don't have to start with a broken system to learn linux look at the boot log and services and read up on them if you so desire but you at some point may find void , Arch, gentoo, LFS are sort of a waste of time as everything just works on Fedora and I have interests outside of reading man pages and debugging.

[@motoryzen]

From what others have told me...Void = a STABLE arch experience...period. I don't recall those people saying anything else much about it (Shrugs)

[@folksurvival]

Void is very quick and easy to set-up though, or at least it is if you use a DE. You just run through the guided installer then add whatever software you want and you're done.

[@leopard3131]

@Folk Survival not according to this video.

[@AndrewErwin73]

I never like when someone says "this is what [distro] looks like..."... distros all look exactly the same, at least at first! Change your shell and your PS1 sure... and then the WM or DE is look the same out of the box. It's all about configuration, and NOTHING AT ALL to do with distro.

[@soanvig]

I don't use DM, i just startx. I don't see a point in DM.

[@amineneggazi8455]

Please take your time when testing new software, distros... I really love your videos, But some of what you said is not true, it's just that Void is not for everyone and that is the Aim of the developers of Void, and most people looking to move to void usually have installation scripts that install their systems automatically with all their software configurations. to conclude, Void is more suitable for hardcore linux users that are past complaining about software and most of these `hardcore` users have the knowledge to create their own custom distribution.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I never said void was for everyone. In fact, explicitly said it wasn't for everyone. I'm also think you missed the first impression part of the video. This wasn't a review.

[@amineneggazi8455]

@@TheLinuxCast Oh yeah, my bad I totally missed the impressions part!

[@benezen]

at last. i know you cant escape from void.

[@KirilIliev_Utube]

Linux is great. It is technologically superior, faster and more reliable. It never lags or grabs your pointing and keyboard devices like Windows. However for everyday use to the non savvy and tinkering user it just does not cut it. Most free office applications lack basic features, like Table numbering with chapter numbers in word processing, presenter view regardless of the number of displays in presentations and a consistent formulas for working with arrays as far as spreadsheets are concerned. All desktop environments and window managers have different configurations and nobody has to read the mantras and spells that make up working through the terminal to get basic things done. There is no development roadmap for any of the projects, and updates are done when the developers feel like it. It took 20 years for Linux desktop environments to start looking like Windows 95. And the shortcuts and keybindings are still different for every desktop. That is why, sadly to say it will hardly gain in users. You don't believe me?- get ready to plunge into dependency hell. Not addressing these issues is actually a betrayal of the principles of open source and good software development and is leaving the few die-hards to battle it out on their own. And Windows takes perfect advantage of this - it will not be long before we wont be able to install anything outside what is pushed down our throats. What a waste of talent and programmers work.

[@heroe1486]

The Linux kernel isn't updated once every six months, it's heavily developed, probably even more than Windows and Macos minus the telemetry/locking stuff. DEs like KDE and Gnome are also heavily developed and you'd certainly find roadmaps. They're accessible to most users. So what's the problem ? The fact that your rust ls command replacement you've installed isn't heavily developed ? Do you know those are developed by the open source community ? If you want faster results just contribute. And what's the problem with diversity of programs ? Why would so many DE/Twms exist if they needed to be all the same ?

[@invisiblegame899]

AgarimOS.

[@melloh6783]

Linux users sure do adore massive headaches. I'll stick with mint

[@sharkuel]

Oh Matt, we are all Linux noobs, don't worry about it.

[@sigbin5878]

systemd is just "force upon" to users. why would anyone use it when most of the packages CAN and will run without it. systemd is just a forced dependency for a problem that did not exist

[@wallyhare8616]

Arch vs BSD ……. I’m just going to A…Void 😂