We finally managed to get a box that was able to boot up the void live image (LXDE) that we were having problems with in the past. So 48hrs later we are here to report on the experience.

This is the first distro that we are covering that relies on itself and not some other systemd infected distro. The rest we have been following are either Debian or Arch based. We did receive some heat for making a prejudicial comment in an earlier article, about void being related to Arch, or being similar at least. Ok, maybe it made the wrong impression while running in a VM, but we don’t care too much about VM installations anyway, so we didn’t spend much time with it. That command xbps-install -Suy just reminded us too much of pacman! 😉The first thing you will encounter as an obstacle to proceeding and setting up your installation is the package manager. After 2 days we are still having problems remembering that 4 letter term for it. XBPS!!

$ xbps-install -Su | for updating your installation $ xbps-install -Suy | for updating your installation with Yes as the answer to all questions $ xbps-install -S pkgname | for installing a package $ xbps-query -Rs keyword | for search the repository for a term in the package name or description (it took us a while to locate this one) $ xbps-remove pkgname | to remove a package $ xbps-install -S void-repo-nonfree | to add the non-free repository $ vkpurge rm linux-4.9.11 | to remove a kernel from the system

Use sudo in front of all commands if you are not working as root. The wiki at https://voidlinux.eu/ is very well developed and xbps should be the first place you should go to after your installation, but the above commands will still be hard to locate for those few basic common tasks.

There is also a QT based desktop package manager-wrapper to XBPS, called octoxbps. It you need someting like this give it a try. We were relactant thinking it would draw a ton of QT things with it, but it didn’t. And by the way, since void has nothing to do with Arch, when we installed octoxbps the icon that was selected by default in the menu was the character of an old arcade game called ……. “pacman”!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 One drawback to using octoxbps and needing larger fonts (for us not so young anymore) you may be out of lack. It is a QT based gui and even LXQT appearance and theme editors will not affect its font size. So you may be stuck with tiny characters. Have a magnifying glass handy when you use it. [problem solved, read comment below]



Then we worked on getting it light and nimble, as we were told that void is designed to be this way. As we started off with a full desktop image (LXDE) some things we felt as unnecessary had to be removed. Our early impression is that pkgs in Void are not linked up in bundles as much as in other distros. You can pick and choose items. This is a good thing for some of us liking a light and spartan installation. LXDE came with LXDM. We basically took the DM off, and then half of LXDE as we only use openbox. Openbox can start from console with $ xinit openbox without a display manager and worked flawlessly. Ctrl-Alt-F2 takes you to tty2 in case you run into trouble anywhere or just want to leave the desktop (Ctrl-Alt-F7 to return to desktop) and login as root or another user.

The package selection is not as huge and chaotic as in Debian or Arch but it is a careful selection of the best and those that are ported to Void to work reliably. The impression is as stable as Debian, as fresh and customizable as Arch.

The idling RAM from boot was down to 110MB with gvfs stuff removed as unnecessary (to us mounting all that we need with fstab, or manually on demand, is sufficient). This is pretty much a record with our experience and preferences. Unless we are missing some very important daemon/service it looks as light as an i3 machine.

Did we say anything about the init system? Not yet and it would take a little more experience to comment on it. It seems as bulletproof to all kinds of stress we induced, extremely fast to boot, reboot, and shutdown. And its activity is minimal when the system is running. Runit is an excellent supervision system and we have used it on top of any other init system we have tried. So once its init part is over and the system is running the supervisor takes care of things continuing to run and ready to shutdown services when it is time to turn the machine off.

We can safely say that Void is as good or better than what we have heard out there. This is why we never gave up on trying to install it as the rumor was too impressive to overlook it. It is definitely not a system for newbies in linux. And people with minimal experience will not really appreciate it as much as people with huge experience. That does not mean that someone with little experience and time to study documentation should not start with void. The forum of void is extremely helpful and very friendly, unlike others we have experienced in the past. There is plenty of material there to answer many questions and its search system works quite well and very fast.

So, from now on we are adding this distro to our arsenal of systemd-free top weapons. We are not ever going to subjectively rank the distros we cover, as better and worse, as it is pointless. Each has its own character and advantages. What makes Void stand out from all others is its “freedom” and “independence” from other distros. When all others are running behind Debian and Arch to cleanse what has been infected by systemd, Void can walk on its own relaxed pace and never run out of breath.

This is very refreshing and different. This is a serious linux distribution with potential! We shall return as we continue to explore the VOID