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Void Linux: Into the Void

michaelwashere.net

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Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#41

Post by sverige »

krylon wrote: post #35

I just installed Void Linux a VM. My first impression is that it feels really snappy. I am not sure if I like the cli interface of the package manager. But I will give this one a try. Can someone share their experiences regarding Void's stability? I am currently using openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and primary laptop, and while I am mostly happy, things sometimes kind of break after installing a batch of updates.

I recently tried a number of Linux distros to get specific GNU tooling for an embedded project I'm working on. (My daily driver is OpenBSD.) The Void philosophy is very appealing to me compared to most other Linux distros. I tried both Void with glibc and with musl. Both of them would install ok but then immediately panic on rebooting, and I didn't spend the time and effort to get past that to find out whether it would be stable once I got it running.

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#42

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

krylon wrote: post #35

I just installed Void Linux a VM. My first impression is that it feels really snappy. I am not sure if I like the cli interface of the package manager. But I will give this one a try. Can someone share their experiences regarding Void's stability? I am currently using openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and primary laptop, and while I am mostly happy, things sometimes kind of break after installing a batch of updates.

Anecdote: I've used Void for a few years, and I have had it break exactly once that I recall. That one time was filesystem issues[0], fixed by fsck.

[0] Not sure what caused it; F2FS may have been less stable than I thought, or the cheap SSD might have lost a bit.

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#43

Post by pknopf »

atmoz wrote: post #40
pknopf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Darch (I'm the author), you can use VoidLinux with a replicated setup. Also, each boot is a clean boot (tempfs overlay). This ensures you capture your OS changes through your build script. https://godarch.com/ This gives me what I love about Nix (scripted setup) with OSs I love (Arch and Void).

I just automated my laptop setup with Salt [1]. I want to keep using that instead of bash scripts (what Darch uses, by the looks of it). I like the idea of having "images" with tempfs overlay. Is it possible to combine Salt with the image feature from Darch? [1]: https://github.com/atmoz/workstation-formula

I'm not familiar with Salt, but it looks interesting!

Does Salt allow you to run from an already-built (but minimal) Arch installation? The base Darch images (godarch/arch) is bootstrapped manually.

Would I have to create a godarch/arch-salt image that is bootstrapped from salt files, so that you could further salt the image?

How would salt handle the inheritance that Docker provides?

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#45

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

bringtheaction wrote: post #29

I ran the musl libc version of Void Linux for a while on one of my laptops but ran into a lot of problems and buggy behavior. If you are going to use Void Linux I would strongly recommend not picking the musl version unless you are specifically interested in improving musl support by filing and/or fixing bugs.

Odd; I've run the musl version for years without issue. What kinds of failure did you see?

The only thing I've seen is that WebKit on musl has broken JavaScript, which I suppose would be a big issue for some people.

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#46

Post by atmoz »

pknopf wrote: post #43
atmoz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just automated my laptop setup with Salt [1]. I want to keep using that instead of bash scripts (what Darch uses, by the looks of it). I like the idea of having "images" with tempfs overlay. Is it possible to combine Salt with the image feature from Darch? [1]: https://github.com/atmoz/workstation-formula

I'm not familiar with Salt, but it looks interesting! Does Salt allow you to run from an already-built (but minimal) Arch installation? The base Darch images (godarch/arch) is bootstrapped manually. Would I have to create a godarch/arch-salt image that is bootstrapped from salt files, so that you could further salt the image? How would salt handle the inheritance that Docker provides?

Yes, have a look at how I bootstrap an Arch installation: https://github.com/atmoz/workstation-formula/blob/master/boo...

All you have to do is install Salt, and then you can run salt-call to apply states.

Yes, Salt states can depend on other states, and you could choose to apply only selected states.

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#47

Post by pknopf »

atmoz wrote: post #46
pknopf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with Salt, but it looks interesting! Does Salt allow you to run from an already-built (but minimal) Arch installation? The base Darch images (godarch/arch) is bootstrapped manually. Would I have to create a godarch/arch-salt image that is bootstrapped from salt files, so that you could further salt the image? How would salt handle the inheritance that Docker provides?

Yes, have a look at how I bootstrap an Arch installation: https://github.com/atmoz/workstation-formula/blob/master/boo... All you have to do is install Salt, and then you can run salt-call to apply states. Yes, Salt states can depend on other states, and you could choose to apply only selected states.

By the sounds of it, you could do this currently.

1) Create a root image for your use that installs Salt in your Arch image. See here: https://github.com/pauldotknopf/darch-recipes/blob/master/ba...

2) For the rest of your recipes/layers, create a script/bash file like you would normally, but just pass execution to Salt.

I'll look into Salt more. Maybe there is a way to extend Darch to support different "executors" to support things like bash/Salt/Puppet/etc.

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#48

Post by efiecho »

A year ago or so I switched to Void Linux from Debian and my conclusion so far is that Void is a near perfect Linux distribution. Stable, simple and systemd free. The package manager is simply a pleasure to use.

My only critique is that most packages will install everything but the kitchen sink, so even if I only need "Writer" I have to install every single component of LibreOffice and this makes the system a little bloated.

Re: Void Linux: Into the Void

#49

Post by Vaelatern »

pknopf wrote: post #25

Hey guys. FYI, Darch (my project) has support for VoidLinux. https://godarch.com/concepts/recipes/distributions/

Question - is there any reason your project can only be used on x86_64? I can't readily find documentation about godarch that suggests it even requires 64bit hardware.
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