Hello,

just curious if anybody from fellow Slackers did gave Void Linux a try and what is his experience.
Information about this distribution are very sparse, although has some appealing features like rare non-systemd based init, SSL implementation by LibreSSL, full-featured package manager, vanilla package versions and KISS principle design.

I've installed it out of curiosity on a new home computer and feel impressed. Runit seems very straightforward and simple in comparison to systemd's complexity. Setting services was easy and intuitive, having customized and working system in less then half of a hour. An user used to work in a console would feel home like in Slackware.

I'd watch quality of updates, this is a big unknown for me and reason I'm asking about long time experience.

I don't intend replace Slackware in any way, this is still my number one in business and on personal laptop. Only keeping an eye on valuable alternatives when things get borked.

I've been running Void on one of my boxes for the past few months. It's nice. No major breakage which is surprising considering how bleeding-edge they try to keep packages and how small of a dev community they have at the moment.

As you said, runit is very fast, simple, and intuitive.

Xbps isn't the best package manager I've used. It's quick and featureful but I dislike how packages have to be part of a valid repository (local or remote) in order to install them. The 'xbps-query' only searches local packages unless you specify the -R switch (for remote repository). Not a big deal; I just made an alias 'alias xxfind="xbps-query -Rs"' but it's small nuances like that which really turn me off.

The xbps-src (which is like Arch's ABS system) is a nice idea. I enjoy having the ability to easily compile the packages from source or pull in 3rd party scripts from git. However, it's just too complicated. They want you to use a custom method for basically everything! What's wrong with plain scripts like in SlackBuilds? You're obfuscating things that don't need to be obfuscated.

I've had issues with the Nvidia package. After a few minutes of fighting with it, I said screw it and installed directly from the Nvidia binary blob. They may have fixed my issue but, like I said, the blob works fine.

The owner can be a bit abrasive at times from what I've seen on Google+, but nothing too bad that would make me think twice about contributing.

There's a small but growing community of Void(ers? users? ites? something?). I'll probably keep it on a box and follow the progress it makes.

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@foobaru Thanks for the contribution, appreciated.

also bin using void on my desktop pc for a few months already. I like it a lot, but frequent package updates and all too bleeding edge for me. Im more slackware guy. set it and forget it

Runit has a small fan base and it's modestly developed still. Its been quite stable for a while now. I did testing with it using LFS and our small team found it highly intuitive as an init system (FYI BusyBox contains a partial Runit implementation), but the daemon execution state files, run and finish, can be tricky to draft as well as diagnose at times, and not all daemons will run correctly without some heavy TLC and masterful arts of script-fu.

One of the guys on the Devuan and s6-supervision suite mailing lists has a repository for Runit, s6, and daemontools service scripts (not sure if Void uses a variation or their own), but they are interesting nonetheless.

I did find Void very streamlined and innovative however, and it's a small distribution so you can customize it a bit. It's not mainstream, but often the non-mainstream distributions do innovative things, and try to keep it simple. It is rather bleeding edge and the main developer is a bit on par with OpenBSD's Theo De Raadt in terms of handling people (not always a good or bad quality mind you), but he has whipped his distribution into shape very well.

I think it has potential like Slackware had in its early days.

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{disclaimer: u asked for slackware users, n i've always been far too poly-distro to claim i'm [just] a slackware user. my first slack install was 2004... so, it's at least fairly familiar. so i'll carry on from that perspective, not strictly a slackware user perspective.}

i've been using void since spring sometime. i dont recall when exactly (maybe as late as may). it was impressive enough that it very quickly became not just an os for my testerbox, but became my main os on my lenovo x60t laptop.

admittedly my os situation was already up in the air n wasnt feeling well entrenched anywhere, having been exploring nixos prior, and happy to explore other distros too, and then my x60t and my ocz ssd decided they didnt like talking to each other, so i lost my slackwares, crunchbang, vsido, gentoo, exherbo, and a couple old bedrocks.

void was exceptionally expedient at getting up and running with a full system. [edit](tho, vsido's 4 minute installation still looks unbeaten)[/edit]

my laptop's void install, started life as the full gnome... just outta curiosity as much as out of just needing the expediency n [emotional] security of having a full system ootb. i am not a gnome user though, and it was light work to cleanly remove all gnome crap i didnt actually want. for such a relatively insane move on my part, it was quite painless.

my big main rig; long time running vsido before becoming bedrock alpha4 with sid, slack, arch and gentoo; then became void too, this time a more direct n sane aproach of starting from minimal. it was every bit as painless n clean as starting from a gnome incumbered system. top marks there for the package management convenience n apparent relative clenlyness.

some manual installing of packages not in the repo (spectrwm), but it's rare. the packages available are more numerous n complete than i expected. ... prior to trying, i had thought it would be so painful with such a small repo (debian n gentoo n arch+AUR have contorted my expectations), but it's utterly fine. i've even come to really appreciate the lack of haskell packaging, n leaving it to cabal. ... almost to the point i now think this is /the/ right way to do haskell stuff. any past times trying cabal in other distros were always as a last resort, and always came with great pains. not in void... at least not currently, when the sun is shining n all is well. ^_^

so anyways, i then installed void on my 32bit netbook... and so then all my machines (except raspberrypi) were on void.

:O

all my machines on the same os!? i dont think that had ever happened since i only had the one machine.

admittedly i have since put the netbook onto freeslack. (cos i missed slack, n all machines on same os unerved my long-time distro-sluttyness, and a slacker friend twisted my arm (didnt take much)).


but still... that was huge for me. all machines on the same...


i'd ramble incoherently and ineptly about more technical matters, but other matters require my attention else where, n i think that's a nice enough characterisation.

~ oh, except to suggest perhaps taking a look around their git repos, and how they've arranged their git repos. even that seems quite imbued with some kind of insightful clarity too. i think slackers may find much to like about void. ... heck, folks from just about any distro will find stuff to admire in void linux. _|

P.S.
i consider myself a bedrock user first n foremost these days, n have been waiting for the next release of bedrock, this time used to explore other distros i might want in bedrock. ... voidlinux will be my main client/strata that i'll get things from first, come this next release of bedrock. ... my bedrock might even contain /only/ voidlinux for a while at first. probably going to hijack-install bedrock on void. ... slack will doubtless end up in there too.

p.p.s i could have answered with just this:
came for the no-systemd, stayed for the everything else.

Hi,

former 10+ years Slackware user here. A friend told me about Void and that it is a relatively fresh distro. I'm not a distrohopping person, but I thought I'd give it a try on one of my spare machines. At that time Void had still systemd.
I liked the quick package manager and how easy it was to write pkg builds. Everything was were I expected it to be. The creator of the X binary package system (xbps) is a former NetBSD developer and knows his stuff pretty well.

Another plus was the text based install. I don't get it how people can manage to install a system with this GUI tools that most of the time are broken or are throwing random errors that nobody cares about.

Someone before me asked why not using something like Slackwares shellscripts. Well, for Slackware they work fine and I've written and updated a few myself. But look at how many lines you have to write/copy paste to build a Slackware package.
You don't have to really repeat yourself with Voids package build system. Also adding flavors to packages is done in a way that does not involves adding a new script.

Every fix for packaged software gets send to upstream so that everyone can benefit. Just keep in mind that some Debian maintainers are _not_ doing that.

Due to my OpenBSD related job, I don't use Slackware nor Void at my machines atm. I'm still an from time to time active Void contributor and package maintainer. I'm probably at bit biased because I sponsor the main build server and package mirror, but you should really give it a try.
As long as you are able to read the man pages before asking, people will be nice and help you.

Note: I'm not speaking for the Void project in any way.

2 members found this post helpful.

I'm not really much of a rolling release fan, but I might try it.

*shrugs* When I use src2pkg, I don't have to repeat myself either.

I'm don't know what "adding flavors to packages" means.

I'm sure that Void is a nice distribution. (It was mildly interesting when I looked the website.) Perhaps the maintainer(s) of it should request a forum here.

that is my only drawback to this Void Linux too -- I am currently using it as a main system though - for the most part what I've had to install that is not in the repo I compile from source code .. Void has had 98 of the dependencies I've needed to get the app installed and running -- that is to side step the xbps-src system that have -- as this user said I've thought the same thing why not make it eaiser like Slack has it to install outside of repo apps? besides that what I use from sound mp3 and other formats and video for playing and converting both sound and video with apps (and some command line bash scripts) Void runs rather well for me ---

PS for Flash support in FireFox I just unzipped a rpm of chrome and got that pepper flash moved it to the directory it needs to be in then install Voids wrapper and it works fine

I installed Voidlinux on my test rig last night , it was a breeze to install. and the system is snappy and fast.

Will see how well XBPS works...

sweet I've been using it regularly every since I've installed it, xbps works like a charm, the only thing I have a problem with (persoanlly) is using there methoid of install other programs in Void that are not in there repo, they have a system what lets you build and install without having to use sudo or root privileges, but for me it is too much of a bother to set it up, so i just DL the source code and do it the old fasion way I've never had any problems, just the normal ones having to hunt down the dependents if the ones I need are not in there repo, but that is just part of what Linux is ... its better then Debian, because its closer to Slackware, and its nicer then Slackware because Void has a repo that is updated daily, and it can install other programs like debain, without all of that bloat that Debian puts in theres, or like how slackware does it, with everything not in the ico that one wants to install, "after factory" programs. that is a lot of typing and time to install everything, especially when there are a lot of dependencies invovled. besides that I enjoyed Slackware.

I hope you Void

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sweet I've been using it regularly every since I've installed it, xbps works like a charm, the only thing I have a problem with (persoanlly) is using there methoid of install other programs in Void that are not in there repo, they have a system what lets you build and install without having to use sudo or root privileges, but for me it is too much of a bother to set it up, so i just DL the source code and do it the old fasion way I've never had any problems, just the normal ones having to hunt down the dependents if the ones I need are not in there repo, but that is just part of what Linux is ... and it's been far and between that I've had to do that, only like 3 or 4 times.

its better then Debian, because its closer to Slackware, and its nicer then Slackware because Void has a repo that is updated daily, and it can install other programs like debain, without all of that bloat that Debian puts in theres, or like how slackware does it, with everything not in the ico that one wants to install, "after factory" programs. that is a lot of typing and time to install everything, especially when there are a lot of dependencies invovled. besides that I enjoyed Slackware.

I hope you Void