 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 996, 28 November 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 48th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
While many of the world's Linux distributions are built upon popular parent distributions - such as Fedora, Debian, and Arch - there are some projects which are independent. These projects often try out new or less commonly used technologies. This week we begin with a look at Void, a Linux distribution which is independent and runs an unusual combination of technologies. Void uses its own package manager, the rarely implemented runit init software, and offers multiple C libraries. Read on to learn more about this unique distribution. Then, in our News section, we talk about Debian's warning to users of its development branches that the Anacron service may have become disabled, preventing scheduled jobs from running in some cases. We also report on Fedora making its new web-based system installer available for testing. Plus, we talk about the Redox OS platform running on some physical hardware. We also offer tips on remotely shutting down a computer and how to set up complex command line aliases. Do you make your own command aliases? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus, we are pleased to share details on the distribution releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Void 20221001
The Void project produces an unusual Linux distribution with a number of special characteristics. The project is described on its website as follows:
Void is a general purpose operating system, based on the monolithic Linux kernel. Its package system allows you to quickly install, update and remove software; software is provided in binary packages or can be built directly from sources with the help of the XBPS source packages collection.
Void is a rolling release distribution which features the fast XBPS package manager which can work with both binary and source-based software. The distribution uses the super lightweight runit init software for booting the system and managing services. Void is also unusual in that it provides multiple builds, based on different C libraries. A C library is a core component of the operating system. While most Linux distributions use the glibc library, Void offers both glibc and musl libc varieties for most supported architectures. Speaking of CPU architectures, Void provides 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x86_64), and ARM builds of its distribution. Most of these builds are available in both muslc and glibc variants. I decided to focus on the x86_64 editions and selected glibc as I figured it would be more likely to work with a wide variety of software.
At this point I could also choose whether to take a minimal Base edition or an edition with the Xfce desktop. I decided to take the desktop edition. The Base edition is 650MB in size while the Xfce edition is still relatively small by modern standards, weighing in at 983MB.
Booting from the live media brings up a menu offering to run the distribution from the media or to load Void entirely into RAM to run from memory. The distribution boots unusually quickly, even from the live media, and presents us with the Xfce desktop in under five seconds.
The Void project publishes default login credentials on their download page, though I did not find they were necessary for testing and installing the operating system.
The Xfce desktop is arranged with a thin panel at the top of the screen which holds the application menu, task switcher, and system tray. At the bottom we find a dock with application launchers. There are icons on the desktop for launching the Thunar file manager to browse the filesystem in various places.
Void 20221001 -- Browsing the application menu
(full image size: 321kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Installing
There is no launcher for the system installer on the desktop or in the application menu. According to Void's documentation we can launch the system installer by running void-installer from the command line.
Void uses a text-based menu system to configure the operating system and install it. This series of text menus walks us through selecting our keyboard layout, enabling networking, choosing a preferred language, and setting a root password. The keyboard and language codes are short and cryptic - using "en_US" rather than "English (American)", for example - and this may take less experienced users by surprise. We are asked to partition the hard drive, also with console-based tools. We can use fdisk or cfdisk to carve up the disk. Another series of menus then walk us through assigning filesystems or swap space to the partitions. We have the option of making a regular user account and setting its password. The installer copies its files to the local drive, operating unusually quickly. The whole process can take as little as five minutes, even on my less-than-high-end equipment.
Early impressions
My new copy of Void booted almost instantly to the login screen. This is one of the fastest booting systems I've encountered in its time from power on to graphical environment. From the login screen I was able to sign into my account which presented me with the Xfce 4.16 desktop.
Void 20221001 -- The Xfce desktop and the Thunar file manager
(full image size: 314kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Xfce desktop appears to be set up to be as vanilla and uncustomized as possible. The system doesn't use any special or eye-catching themes, no welcome window, and no pop-ups. The distribution simply leaves us to explore and adjust the environment as we wish.
One odd characteristic of Void is there is no volume control in the system tray. We can access networking features, but no audio features from the system tray. This has been the case for a few years now and I find it an odd default to assume users won't want to adjust their sound levels.
Hardware
I found Void ran smoothly in VirtualBox. The distribution was fast and responsive, in particular when booting. Menus and applications were quick to respond too. This performance continued when I ran Void on my laptop where the distribution always felt snappy.
As I mentioned before, the system doesn't include an audio mixer in the system tray or in the application menu. When I installed one while running Void from my laptop, I found that even with the mixer installed the distribution could not detect my sound card. This is really unusual and, even after reading the section on working with sound systems in the documentation, I was unable to get audio working on my laptop. I thought this was an interesting development, because a month previously I ran Redcore Linux on this laptop and had the same issue with my sound system not being detected. However, other distributions I've run on this laptop recently (including XeroLinux, SpiralLinux, and MX Linux) have all handed the sound system of this laptop flawlessly.
At first audio did not work when I was running Void in VirtualBox either. However, I found the audio was simply muted. Once I had installed audio mixers and adjusted the volume (of both the ALSA and PulseAudio sound systems) I was able to play audio files and hear streaming videos.
Apart from the audio issue, the distribution correctly handled my hardware. Networking and video resolution worked as expected. By default my touchpad did not register taps as clicks, but this can be adjusted in the Xfce settings panel.
Void is a small and lightweight operating system, especially compared to most mainstream desktop distributions. A fresh install takes 2.2GB of disk space, about a third of the size of many mainstream distributions. When signed into Xfce the operating system Void uses a mere 320MB of RAM, which makes it lighter than most desktop distributions, particularly those running KDE Plasma and members of the GNOME family.
Included software
The distribution does not include many applications by default. The Firefox web browser is included along with an image viewer, a system monitor, and the Thunar file manager. The Parole media player is included along with codecs for playing video and audio files. The sudo utility is present for performing administrative tasks. Void includes the GNU command line utilities and manual pages. There are no compilers on the system.
Void 20221001 -- The Xfce settings panel
(full image size: 307kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Behind the scenes, Void uses the blazingly fast and lightweight runit init software which I'll touch on later. The install media ships with version 5.19 of the Linux kernel.
We are not given common tools like LibreOffice or an email client. These can be added later through the package manager.
Package management
The Void distribution doesn't ship with any graphical software centre. Working with packages happens on the command line and uses the XBPS package manager. We have a short cheatsheet for XBPS and the Void documentation has more details and examples.
Void 20221001 -- Performing package upgrades
(full image size: 380kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The XBPS package manager works quickly and it has fairly clear output. However, its command line syntax is a bit cryptic. Some package managers use a single command with an English verb which I find easy to use. For example, "apt install", "apt upgrade", "apt remove", and "apt search" are fairly straight forward. XBPS uses separate commands, with fairly clear names, but with some strange syntax for upgrades and searches. The equivalent XBPS commands are "xbps-install", "xbps-install -Su", "xbps-remove", and "xbps-query -Rs".
I soon got into the flow of using XBPS and it worked well for me. I had no problems when performing upgrades or installing new packages.
One of Void's key features is the ability to easily work with source packages. The Void source framework can be built using the xbps-src utility. This allows us to change build-time flags and dependencies for software in the distribution's repository. Usually this will not be necessary and building from source is a lot slower than installing pre-built binary files, but this is convenient for people who need to tweak low-level features of their software.
runit
Another special feature of Void is the runit init software and service manager. As I mentioned earlier, runit is unusually light and super fast. Void boots in less than half the time of most distributions I've trialed with systemd or SysV init software. Despite its small nature, runit can be fairly flexible and its service manager provides some convenient features such as optionally automatically restarting crashed services.
Managing runit services is closely tied to the filesystem and uses symbolic links to sort out which services will be started by default. The syntax for managing services is fairly simple and is handled by the sv command, which is detailed in the manual pages.
Once I got used to the location of service files and a few basic sv commands, I felt quite at home with runit and appreciated its simplicity.
Conclusions
There are a lot of aspects of the Void distribution I enjoy. The project walks a tightrope between being too minimal and cryptic on one side and being full featured and heavy on the other. Everything seems to be set up to provide just enough features to get things done, but without providing any more than is necessary.
The installer, for example, has easy to navigate screens, but they're text-based and sometimes use short-hand, terse messages. Someone who has been around Linux for a while can navigate it, but it's not a simple point-n-click experience. The same goes for package management. There is a very capable package manager, but no graphical front-end. There is a very fast and flexible service manager accompanied by useful documentation, but again no graphical tools to make it easy for newcomers.
Void 20221001 -- The Void documentation
(full image size: 493kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Basically, Void is set up to be "easy" to use for experienced users while probably being too minimal or cryptic for beginners. It's a lot faster and more convenient to set up Void than, for example, Gentoo or Arch, while also being a far cry short of the beginner friendly experience of Linux Mint. Which, for someone like me, is pretty ideal. I've been using Linux for over 20 years and can navigate the command line easier than I can read the menus at some restaurants. At the same time, I want the experience to be quick and easy (for my skill level). I don't want to spend time customizing, tweaking compile flags, and hunting down drivers. I just want to use my computer, have it work efficiently, and stay out of my way. I'm not too worried about the distinction of working on the command line or the desktop, as long as the tools I want are available and the documentation is clear.
Void very nicely fits into this niche - of being convenient to use for more experienced users, of being efficient, of staying out of the way. It's not particularly pretty, it's not beginner oriented, it doesn't have flashy GUIs or welcome windows. But it has enough features and performance for me to pretty much install it and get to work in five minutes. Which is really nice.
Void certainly isn't for everyone. If you want graphical administration tools, if you want a huge repository of official software the way Debian or Ubuntu has then Void isn't ideal. It's more minimal, it's smaller, it has fewer packages. But it probably has enough for most people.
My one key complaint this time around, as with the last time I used the distribution, is the surprising lack of out of the box audio support. I could get audio working in VirtualBox, with some effort, but it requires installing and running a sound mixer and maybe setting it to auto-run to make it accessible each time we login. It's something I haven't had to do with other desktop Linux distributions and I'm not sure why the Void team continues to ignore this common feature. Otherwise, I think Void strikes a good balance, at least for more experienced users who want performance and have no need for hand holding.
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Visitor supplied rating
Void has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.3/10 from 190 review(s).
Have you used Void? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian warns Anacron service may be disabled, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Redox OS runs on some real hardware
The Debian project has published a summary of developer news. One of the items is likely to also affect users who run Debian's Testing or Unstable branches. People running one of these development branches may find their Anacron service is no longer enabled, which can cause cron jobs to no longer run when expected: "If you run Debian Testing/Unstable and ever installed anacron 2.3-33 on a systemd based system, then anacron will no longer be enabled and the daily/weekly/monthly cron jobs will not be run until it is. Since not all cron jobs have migrated to systemd timers, Debian Testing/Unstable systems with systemd and anacron may be missing some essential cron jobs, such as making backups of [the] aptitude state."
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The Fedora team is in the process of testing out a new system installer with a web-based user interface. The new installer can be run on test media which the developers hope will provide users with the chance to report feedback. "We are excited to announce the first public preview image of the new Anaconda web interface! Our vision is to reimagine and modernize our installer's user experience (see our blog post Anaconda is getting a new suit). We are doing this by redesigning the user experience on all fronts to make it more easy and approachable for everyone to use. Today, we would like to introduce our plans for the public preview release, as our new project has already reached a point where core code functionality is already developed and the new interface can be used for real installations." Details on the new test images and the web-based installer can be found in a Fedora Magazine post.
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Redox OS is a Unix-like operating system written in Rust which features a microkernel and a number of shifts in design in an attempt to modernise the operating system. Up until now Redox OS was almost entirely limited to running in virtual machines, but the open source operating system is making strides and is now compatible with a number of physical hardware components. "We have a lot to show since the 0.7.0 release! This release, care has been taken to ensure real hardware is working, i686 support has been added, features like audio and preliminary multi-display support have been enabled, and the boot and install infrastructure has been simplified and made more robust." The announcement lists supported hardware and warns this release does not yet work with USB or wi-fi devices.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Remotely shutting down and complex aliases
Shutting-it-all-down asks: I have my computer set up so I can SSH into it to check on things. Is there any way I can suspend the machine remotely?
DistroWatch answers: There are a few ways to put a computer into suspend/sleep mode remotely on the command line. One is to run the pm-suspend command. If you're not logged in as root you may need to prefix the command with sudo, for example:
sudo pm-suspend
On distributions which use the systemd software you should also be able to run the systemctl command as follows:
sudo systemctl suspend
Keep in mind that using either of these commands will likely cause your secure shell connection to immediately freeze when the suspend command takes effect. In other words, it'll seem like your remote shell has locked up. You can force OpenSSH to drop the frozen connecting by pressing the ~ key followed by a period. (~.).
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Making-things-complex asks: I've been setting up aliases to act as shortcuts on the command line. Some of the stuff I want to do involves quoting parameters, like "foo=bar --value='do this'", but the quotes mess up the alias. Any advice?
DistroWatch answers: An alias, for those who haven't used them, is basically a bookmark on the command line. When you set up an alias, whenever you type the name of the alias, the value of the alias gets substituted in its place.
For example, if I create an alias called "hi" which has the value "echo hello world", each time I type the command "hi" in my shell, the text "hello world" will get printed to the screen. It looks like this:
$ alias hi="echo hello world"
$ hi
hello world
Usually this sort of thing is done to help us avoid repeating long commands over and over. For instance, I might set up an alias called "update" which runs "apt update; apt upgrade", thereby saving me some typing each time I want to upgrade all the packages on my system.
Assuming I understand the issue in the question correctly, when you're setting up a shell alias you're typing something like this:
alias foo=bar --value='do this'
Which does not work because the space between the "bar" and the "--value" tells the alias command it has hit the end of the alias. You can fix this by placing double-quotes around your alias, for example:
alias foo="bar --value='do this'"
In situations where you find yourself making more complex aliases, perhaps stringing multiple commands together or using quoted parameters, it might be worth looking at creating a script instead of an alias. An alias is great for short, simple commands. For more complex tasks a one or two line shell script can work just as well and be easier to enhance in the future.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Oracle Linux 8.7
Simon Coter has announced the availability of Oracle Linux 8.7, an updated release of Oracle's Linux distribution (its legacy 8.x branch) built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL): "The Oracle Linux team is pleased to announce the availability of the Oracle Linux 8 Update 7 release for the 64-bit Intel and AMD (x86_64) and 64-bit Arm (aarch64) platforms. As with all Oracle Linux releases, this release is 100% application binary compatible with the corresponding Red Hat Enterprise Linux release. Notable changes are in the areas of security and high availability and enable customers to manage their systems more efficiently by simplifying administration tasks and operations at scale. Network Security Services (NSS) libraries are updated to set the minimum key size for all RSA operations from 128 to 1023 bits. Greater compliance with the DISA's STIG requirements for Oracle Linux 8, part of the updated scap-security-guidepackage. Enhancements have been introduced for Pacemaker, including 'multiple-active', 'allow-unhealthy-node', access control lists and UUID for Pacemaker clusters." Read the release announcement and the release notes for more details.
Proxmox 7.3 "Virtual Environment"
Proxmox is a commercial company offering specialised products based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company's latest release is Promix 7.3 "Virtual Environment" which is based on Debian 11.5 and supports ZFS storage volumes. "Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.3 comes with initial support for Cluster Resource Scheduling, enables updates for air-gapped systems with the new Proxmox Offline Mirror tool, and has improved UX for various management tasks, as well as interesting storage technologies like ZFS dRAID and countless enhancements and bugfixes. Here is a selection of the highlights: Debian 11.5 'Bullseye', but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 5.19. QEMU 7.1, LXC 5.0.0, and ZFS 2.1.6. Ceph Quincy 17.2.5 and Ceph Pacific 16.2.10; heuristical checks to see if it is safe to stop or remove a service instance (MON, MDS, OSD). Initial support for a Cluster Resource Scheduler (CRS). Proxmox Offline Mirror. Tagging virtual guests in the web interface. CPU pinning: Easier affinity control using taskset core lists. New container templates: Fedora, Ubuntu, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux. Reworked USB devices: can now be hot-plugged. ZFS dRAID pools. Proxmox Mobile: based on Flutter 3.0" Further information is provided in the company's release announcement and in the release notes.
Alpine Linux 3.17.0
Alpine Linux is a community developed operating system designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, containers and servers. The project's latest release is version 3.17.0 which upgrades OpenSSL to the 3.0 series. The release announcement offers details: "We are pleased to announce the release of Alpine Linux 3.17.0, the first in the v3.17 stable series. Significant changes: OpenSSL 3.0 is now the default OpenSSL version; OpenSSL 1.1 is available via the openssl1.1-compat package; Rust is now available on all supported architectures. Upgrade notes: as always, make sure to use 'apk upgrade --available' when switching between major versions. Deprecation notes: PHP 8.0 has been deprecated; ISC Kea moved to main repository for long time support while ISC dhcp moved to community repository; Users of dhcpd are encouraged to migrate to Kea. Changes: the full list of changes can be found in the wiki, git log and bug tracker."
BlueOnyx 5211R
Michael Stauber has announced the release of a new version of BlueOnyx, a specialist server distribution which provides a fully-integrated internet hosting platform. Version 5211R is based on AlmaLinux 9.1: "We just published the first ISO image of our new BlueOnyx 5211R (AlmaLinux 9.1) to the download mirrors. The ISO image provides the usual installation options that you might already know from previous BlueOnyx ISO installs. Just boot off the ISO image and in the boot menu choose your form of installation and the rest of the procedure is entirely free of user input. After the reboot at the end of the installation, login to your new BlueOnyx 5211R server with the login details shown on the screen. That will automatically launch network_settings.sh to perform the initial network configuration. It may be that after configuring the network details for the very first time after installation, the server still has no network connection due to the gateway settings not having been applied correctly by NetworkManager. If that's the case, simply reboot." Here is the brief release announcement.
BlueOnyx 5211R -- Accessing the web interface
(full image size: 117kB, resolution: 972x638 pixels)
UBports 16.04 OTA-24
UBports is a community project which develops a GNU/Linux distribution for mobile devices. The project's latest update is UBports 16.04 OTA-24 which introduces a number of improvements, particularly with handling text messages and fingerprint unlocking. "Note: This is the last OTA for Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial) with major features. The next OTA-25 will be mainly security fixes and long-term support updates for xenial. Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal) base has progressed quite far and so we are preparing everything for the switch. This also means that we will prepare OTA support for 20.04! Fingerprint unlock: More backoff time between read retries. Initial gesture support with double-tap to wake for selected devices. Handle sms:// URL scheme to open messaging-app properly Aethercast: 1080p support, various other fixes. messaging-app and sms/mms middleware: Various fixes. Media buttons on headsets work for most devices. Mir-Android-Platform performance tweaks, configurable." Additional information along with install and upgrade instructions can be found in the project's release announcement. A list of supported devices and download options can be found on the project's devices page.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,795
- Total data uploaded: 42.6TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you create your own command line aliases?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about command aliases and how to include complex parameters. Aliases are shortcuts which help the user run long or complex commands with a short-hand command. We'd like to hear from our readers if you create your own command line aliases.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using a swap partition versus a swap file in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you create your own aliases?
| Yes - I make my own aliases: | 539 (45%) |
| No - but I use aliases provided by my distro: | 139 (12%) |
| No - I do not use aliases: | 521 (43%) |
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $89 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Henry T | $19 |
| John T | $18 |
| Ronald M | $10 |
| Sam C | $10 |
| Joshua L | $5 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Matt | $5 |
| Joe H | $3 |
| Vory | $3 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| c6WWldo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- Exodia OS. Exodia OS is an Arch-based distribution which can be installed the Calamares system installer. It features the bspwm tiling window manager and offers multiple editions geared toward general purpose computing and penetration testing.
- risiOS. risiOS is a Fedora-based distribution which provides utilities to further customize and tweak the distribution, making it easier to add codecs, third-party packages, and web-apps.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 5 December 2022. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Decade celebration (by biopsin on 2022-11-28 02:17:25 GMT from Norway)
I switched from crunchbang to void when it was announced debian adopting systemd and I have never looked at any other system since. Deployed on many different hw configs without much fuzz. I feel I found my second love for life.
2 • Create aliases, but using same name (override the original command) (by LiuYan on 2022-11-28 02:23:51 GMT from China)
I do create aliases, but the alias name is same as the original command.
Aliases were created to fit my hobby:
* Ignore cases (grep less ...)
* Colorful output (ls ip grep less ...)
* Disable IPv6 (wget curl host ...)
* Continuous downloading (wget aria2c rsync ...)
3 • Alieses (by penguinx86 on 2022-11-28 02:45:47 GMT from United States)
I used to use aliases all the time back in the day when I was a Unix sysadmin. Stuff like
#alias la="ls -al"
is very useful in a production environment. But recently, I studied for the LPIC-1 exams in my home computer environment. I had to learn all the commands and options from the man pages to study for the exams. Aliases will not help you pass the exams! That's why I stopped using aliases. But if I ever did find a Linux job in a production environment, sure, I'd use aliases again.
After getting the LPIC-1 certification, it seems like nobody in the USA even knows what it is. Maybe it's more well know in Canada? CompTIA Linux+ is much more well recognized in California where I live. So I recommend the Linux+ certification over LPIC-1 to anyone who wants to get certified in the USA.
4 • November Void (by mnrv-ovrf-year-c on 2022-11-28 04:12:36 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I had Void for three months but just got sick and tired of it because inflexible XFCE resisted all my attempts to change it visually. In customization it was the complete opposite of Fedora XFCE. If only Void had the good looks of default Gnuinos. Turned off by "musl" branch too because I depend on Wine 32-bit much more than 64-bit. It was my fault becoming adventurous about "musl" but it's pretty much worthless for what I'm usually interested in doing, and discovered this as well with Static Linux (Russian distro) as well.
5 • Audio support by Void, RedCore Linux et al (by Ben Myers on 2022-11-28 04:51:37 GMT from United States)
Void apparently does not support the audio in Jesse's laptop. Which is the audio chip present in the laptop. So Void, RedCore Linux and others can deal better with this problem, how about identifying the audio chip in the laptop? That way, developers of the distro might be able to correct the problem, which can often be specific to a particular chipset, and may simply be the absence of a specific audio driver. Or maybe not. Without specifics, it is difficult to know.
.
6 • Void (by Bert on 2022-11-28 05:25:19 GMT from Belgium)
Beleave it or not: I had Void sceduled for testing (installing) today, so the review could not have been published at a better time and I thank Jesse for the link to the cheatsheet, I'm sure that'll make things a litlle easier for me. I'm looking forward of testing the Void myself.
7 • void linux (by user on 2022-11-28 06:15:07 GMT from Bulgaria)
Void is a true systemd deliverance to me and runit is great. Void setup with zfsbootmenu is superior over any other zfs-centric Linux distro setup. The fun of Linux is back.
8 • Void, and Aliases (by Andy Prough on 2022-11-28 06:15:56 GMT from United States)
I used Void last year, really liked it. I can attest to the crazy boot times. The main things I liked was that it can be so minimal, and that it's a rolling release yet at the same time the packages were not bleeding edge like with Arch and Tumbleweed. So the system never experienced any breakage or instability.
One thing I did not like about it is that Void uses a combination of reddit and various github issue trackers instead of a normal user forum, so searching for answers to complex issues is a big mess. Also the fact that most 3rd party programs are not created in a format that can be easily used on Void.
===========================================================
Regarding aliases, one thing you can do is combine aliases with &&:
alias combo1="alias1 && alias2 && alias3"
With aliases you can use a lot of your regular commands. For example, you can add a pause of a few seconds between commands by inserting a sleep command:
alias combo2="alias1 && sleep 4 && alias2 && sleep 4 && alias3"
You can pipe the output of one alias into another alias, or pipe the output of any normal command into an alias. They can get pretty exotic.
9 • aliases (by Dr.J on 2022-11-28 07:45:59 GMT from Germany)
I can't imagine handling my system without aliases. I use them since I switched to Arch and work much more with the console than before (Linux Mint). I use them for everyday things (like pacman and trizen, journal evaluations, dmesg etc.; as an example: just three letters "tri" and the system is upgrading Arch and AUR) as well as and especially for very long command chains that I need from time to time (like "compact" for the very long command to virtualbox to edit a virtual machine or various rsync commands that are not automated). There would be many more, but I have integrated several aliases into the filemanager and buttons or toolbars do the job.
10 • this should be default aliases (by always curious about FOSS on 2022-11-28 08:32:04 GMT from Germany)
alias update='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --with-new-pkgs'
alias install='sudo apt install'
alias delete='sudo apt purge $1 && sudo apt autoremove'
With these aliases as as predefined defaults in the distro would be made using the commandline for package management very easy for newbies.
Also possible for the other package managements like dnf or pacman and so on.
11 • easiest way to write an alias (by always curious about FOSS on 2022-11-28 08:50:19 GMT from Germany)
In a former edition of "Questions and Answers" Jesse gave an example for writing an alias in the .bashrc file.
If I remember correctly, he did the commandline this way:
echo "update='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --with-new-pkgs'" >> ~/.bashrc
I used this way for a longer time, but today I do an other way:
cat >> .bashrc (the terminal go to a new line )
'sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --with-new-pkgs'
STRG + d
12 • @11 (meself) a mistake (by always curious about FOSS on 2022-11-28 08:58:15 GMT from Germany)
"Da hat der Fehlerteufel zugeschlagen" as we say in German.
I was too hasty and the error was already in.
The command line does not forgive inaccuracies.
correctly:
cat >> .bashrc (the terminal go to a new line )
alias update='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --with-new-pkgs'
STRG + d
13 • @4 - XFCE is not the only option (by Uncle Slacky on 2022-11-28 09:47:43 GMT from France)
Other DEs are available on Void if you don't like XFCE. The Void website used to offer several downloads with different DEs, and even now you can find nightly builds of many of them at https://www.voidbuilds.xyz if you don't want to install them yourself.
14 • No sound in the Void (by Appalachian on 2022-11-28 09:48:21 GMT from United States)
As it turns out I tried out Void a couple of weeks ago, and I had the same audio problem that Jesse reported. I tried the steps laid out in the Void handbook, as well as numerous tips resulting from online searches. Complete silence. I have had no problems with sound on this same laptop when running Arch, Debian, SUSE, etc. Oh well, guess Void isn't for me.
15 • Void Linux (by Hoos on 2022-11-28 10:06:05 GMT from Singapore)
Void is definitely the fastest booting distro I run and I like it, though it's not my main distro.
I installed the Cinnamon version years ago and it continues to run well. Didn't have problems with sound, but Cinnamon's logout/shutdown/reboot applet didn't seem to work. I had to do some research before I found the solution. It was something to do with permissions/privilege escalation if I recall. Very strange -- I'd not encountered that issue previously in Mint and Geckolinux Cinnamon.
16 • Aliases (by DachshundMan on 2022-11-28 10:40:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Even though I did learn about them in an HP-UX course many years ago I do not tend to create any aliases so I answered no. However, I notice that Mint Mate has the following predefined aliases and I do use ls so maybe I should have answered yes.
alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]\s*alert$//'\'')"'
alias egrep='egrep --color=auto'
alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto'
alias grep='grep --color=auto'
alias l='ls -CF'
alias la='ls -A'
alias ll='ls -alF'
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
17 • Void (by 0323pin on 2022-11-28 11:12:36 GMT from Sweden)
Been running Void, with musl libc since October 2017. Rolling since then without issues. Installed from the base ISO and currently using LeftWM.
18 • Void -Sound issue (by Arjen on 2022-11-28 11:24:40 GMT from Netherlands)
I had also some sound problems but after installing
$ sudo xbps-install pipewire
$ sudo xbps-install alsa-utils
the soundissue was solved
VOID is amazing fast!
19 • @4 void - customizing xfce4 (by always curious about FOSS on 2022-11-28 11:47:58 GMT from Germany)
mnrv-ovrf-year-c wrote:
"I had Void for three months but just got sick and tired of it because inflexible XFCE resisted all my attempts to change it visually."
So please tell me. What did you try to change and why didn't it worked? For me XFCE4 is my favorite Desktop just because it's easily to customize in it's look and feel. I can give you a lot of advices about it.
mnrv-ovrf-year-c wrote:
"In customization it was the complete opposite of Fedora XFCE."
So what do you mean? It's always the same XFCE with the same possibilities to change it, no matter what distribution it is based on.
Or did you mean the default theme of Fedora XFCE ? For myself the default theme of Fedora XFCE is such boring, so that i never get warm with Fedora.
20 • Void (by crayola-eater on 2022-11-28 13:10:01 GMT from United States)
At sometime during my journey to find a comfortable systemd-less light-weight and slim distro, I gave Void a spin. It pretty much checked all the boxes for me, and after a short bit getting used to it's particular ways of doing things, I had thought that maybe this was the one.
There was at the time a graphical upgrade tool (forget the name) that was not really advertised, but it did do a nice job, especially if you desired to just do a bit of browsing the repository. Don't recall any sound problem that was not readily fixed.
What I think the reason is that it is not my daily driver today - rolling release. Twice I did an update that broke the system. I just enjoy 'update and continue on' more than I desire the latest and greatest (cut my teeth on Slackware in the early 90's - does it show?). I can break a system by myself quite handily, I don't need any additional help.
Still, I did like Void and it's overall construction. I keep looking at giving it another go, and this new review seems to say maybe it is time.
21 • A rose by any other name (by Trihexagonal on 2022-11-28 13:43:43 GMT from United States)
I've never used aliases with the command line.but a day doesn't pass where I use it extensively on FreeBSD and Linux. It's more orderly that way IMO.
I use the up arrow to access previously typed out commands and can go back through every command to the first command I issued at the desktop after the initial install on my Kali boxen
I don't change the default shell either and prefer sh but can use whatever presents itself.
As a longtime Fluxbox user I abhorred any and all DE as someone else forcing their choice of programs on me till I started using Kali last year. I still use Fluxbox exclusively on FreeBSD but mostly use Xfce on Kali due to the sheer number of programs I have installed.
I use the same fonts across different programs for continuity on all my desktops and even though I have rxvt-unicode and Xfe installed use the default terminal and File Manager with Xfce.
22 • No aliases (by LIFE!!! on 2022-11-28 13:53:28 GMT from Ireland)
I have life and girlfriend so can't afford to waste my time on such things.
using only distros that can be configured with graphical tools
23 • Void is awesome (by Matt on 2022-11-28 13:54:50 GMT from United States)
It does a better job of keeping it simple than Arch does. I never had an update break something in Void. Also, Void has options for all the major desktop environments in their official repositories, so it is quite easy to switch to something else besides XFCE. Runit does everything an init system needs to do and nothing more.
There are only 2 drawbacks to Void for me:
(1) The installer does not help at all if you want to use disk encryption. Disk encryption is problematic for a lot of installers, though (including Calamares).
(2) I use a lot of applications that are either not easy to install, or require compiling from source. This includes Grsync, Unison, Kile, Kbibtex, Zoom, and Google Chrome.
24 • Void Linux (by Otis on 2022-11-28 14:08:45 GMT from United States)
I found that audio issue, along with networking issues, in Void and most BSD distributions. The workarounds or solutions are basic, of course, but in my opinion should be resolved by the developers of those distos and passed along to users via at least documentation but ideally configuration choices at installation time.
Yes, they want to keep things light for that genre of OS in the distro world, but there is that balance of lightness vs fundamental usability. And the resultant aggravation. ;)
25 • @22 • No aliases (by LIFE!!! from Ireland) (by Leonie on 2022-11-28 14:11:14 GMT from France)
That's exactly WHY 99% uses THE OS, and 1% uses Linux. ;)
Not only one gains the lifetime, but it also saves one from writing nonsense as above (@24 • November Void (by mnrv-ovrf-year-c from Puerto Rico).
;)
:) :) :)
26 • aliases (by Jay on 2022-11-28 14:31:44 GMT from Latvia)
What's the point of even having a shell without aliases, functions, or scripting? You can't be efficient or effective at the command line without them.
27 • No aliases (by Goal on 2022-11-28 15:04:59 GMT from Italy)
@25
The goal of GNU/Linux has never been to create an operating system for the masses.
28 • @27 • No aliases (by Goal from Italy) (by Leonie on 2022-11-28 15:46:23 GMT from France)
"The goal of GNU/Linux has never been to create an operating system for the masses. "
Truth.
And that's why it was, is and will forever stay irrelevant.
Namely, the rest consists of 'freaks' and 'weather simulations'.
;)
29 • Is it though? (by Friar Tux on 2022-11-28 16:31:04 GMT from Canada)
While I agree that the goal of GNU/Linux has never been to create an operating system for the masses, I don't think Linux "was, is and will forever stay irrelevant." It's relevance is in the fact that it is a very good workable alternative to the two "Big Guys" out there. I've been using Linux for many years and have never had a "lost-time" issue. (And I was an avid Windows fan until Windows 10.)
30 • GNU/Linux irrelevant (by gfhzo on 2022-11-28 18:54:33 GMT from Germany)
"And that's why it was, is and will forever stay irrelevant."
@28: maybe true on the desktop side. But definitely does not apply at the server side. Furthermore the Top 500 supercomputers are running meanwhile *all* on OS family Linux.
https://www.top500.org/statistics/list/
31 • Void Linux (by FRC_KDE on 2022-11-28 19:29:39 GMT from Brazil)
I have started to "multiboot" up to 12 distros back in 2017, and so I gradually moved from "buntus-based" to Arch Linux as my main distros, over these 5 years. - I have KDE Neon, yet, but last 12 months I have uses mostly Arch Linux. - Debian testing and MX Linux (stable) are fine to me, too.
Void is a "recent" acquisition to me (2019 to 2020), and I face a few problems with it, yet, but it seems to be "a possible future" to me. - Redcore is more recent to me (2022), and I guess it can be the a "possible next step" after Void, to me, in the future.
I had some problems with Audio in Void, too. Basicly, I did install "alsa-utils" e did use "$ alsamixer" command in order to enable the channels I needed and configure their volume levels. - I always use volume 80% for the system and 50% for VLC, and if I need a few more control, I just use Youtube / Twitter / Facebook etc. controls for eventual cases.
So, I don't really need "Audio control" on Panel - even if I can use it in all my other distros - all of them with KDE.
When I installed Void, there was none "KDE ISO", so I have used the basic ISO, because the Xfce ISO would not make it possible to me to choose another DE, and there was none clear "official" documentation right to install KDE. - I don't know if I did it the right way. Maybe, there was no "right way", back then.
Void (with KDE) is not my quickest distro to boot, but is one of the lightest among my distros with KDE. No crash over these 3 years using Void Linux. Just 1 time, I had a minor problem (as with Debian testing, too), but I think it was a KDE problem (not immediately solved by Void team).
Void Linux keeps KDE just a few days behind, e.g., Arch and KDE Neon, but it is not a problem to me. - MX Linux and Mageia keep their KDE months behind them, and it is nice to me.
I have no problem with "new" or "old" Kernel, in any distro, as far I my hardware is not so "new", and I have none utility for strange GPU cards, nor to Wifi, Bluetooth and so on. - Just an Intel iGPU on Asus motherboard + i5-9400 CPU.
Upgrading Google Chrome is sad, indeed. Not an automatic task. And there are other 2 or 3 packages in this case, to me. - But these are not so big problems, as I can work a whole week (or a few weeks) without them.
If Void Linux was my unique distro, maybe I would have solved these problemas (or given up Void Linux), but I can use Arch (and other distros) for now, so, I feel no worry.
32 • Running an alias manually (by K.U. on 2022-11-28 19:51:39 GMT from Finland)
I don't usually feel much need for aliases because I can find long commands easily again from command line history using the bash backward search (ctrl R).
I have just one home made alias in regular use and it this one:
alias mpv='mpv --no-ytdl -af=equalizer=0:0:4:4:3:1:2:1:-1:-2'
I find the above command again with ctrl R o-
and modify and run the command when needed.
Then I can play a stream easily with or without equalizer and other switches easily like this:
mpv $(curl https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p002vsxs.rss | awk -F \" -v RS=" " '$1=="url=" {print $2}') #Business Daily
I also have a long file with mpv commands for various streams to be played in random order.
Some streams may need different switches than others and the various switches are included in the commands as well.
By issuing the above alias with equalizer and other switches before running the file with streaming commands the same equalizer will be applied to each mpv command within the file.
33 • Fedora (by Panther on 2022-11-28 20:06:38 GMT from United States)
Last week's review of Fedora was much better than previous, thank you for that .
I am guessing most people who answered "no" for the use of Bash aliases use their distros aliases as most distros have at least a few set by default and one would have to specifically disable them, but hard to know.
@5 "Hardware
I found Void ran smoothly in VirtualBox."
34 • @20 - graphical upgrade tool (by Uncle Slacky on 2022-11-28 21:23:27 GMT from France)
I think you're thinking of Octoxbps: https://github.com/aarnt/octoxbps
35 • Void Sound (by Rick Smereka on 2022-11-28 21:40:51 GMT from Luxembourg)
@18 and anyone interested in the Void Linux sound issue,
I have previously spent a lot of time trying to the get the sound to work in Void. I don't think it is an audio card detection problem. It seems to be centered aound the fact that Void installs ALSA and PulseAudio. In the past, I did get the audio working for one session. Upon reboot, the audio would mute again.
I can confirm that @18 comments do work except some items were forgotten. In addition to the two xbps-install commands, I installed xfce4-alsa-plugin and then went into the Panel utility and added the ALSA Volume control and the sound works.
BTW, I installed on hard metal, not a VM on an rather old Dell Latitude with 100% Intel chipset.
36 • Alias fan (by AdamB on 2022-11-29 05:41:49 GMT from Australia)
Over the years I have become an increasingly heavy user of aliases. I have several headless servers (either physical machines or virtual machines) so I spend a lot of time on the command line. Even on graphical Desktop Environments, I now often find it quicker and easier to work from the command line.
Working effiiciently from the command line is made much easier with my preferred collection of aliases, particularly those relating to 'ls' and 'pushd/popd'.
If a distro pre-configures aliases, I disable them, because they will usually conflict with my own. Most of my aliases can be set up on any Linux distro, and even FreeBSD.
When setting up a new machine, one of the first things I do is to scp in a file which I source to set up my navigation aliases.
37 • Remote Suspend (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2022-11-29 07:31:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
Writing to /sys/power/state directly should suspend the machine regardless of init system. It also does not require any pm-utils bloat :-)
38 • Void working well (by AdamB on 2022-11-29 09:29:47 GMT from Australia)
I installed Void more than 2 years ago on my multi-boot machine, when I was having trouble with Arch. I installed it, from the beginning, with the MATE desktop environment, and it has been working well. I have never had any problem with updates. As far as I can remember, most things worked right away.
Sound works well; alsa-utils is not installed, but pulseaudio is installed. There is a 'sound' icon in the system-tray, which works.
My only reservation with Void is that its repository does not hold some appications that I use, and that are available in Debian/Devuan or Arch/AUR, so I have to boot into Arch (which worked OK after re-installation) in order to use those.
39 • aliases (by DaveT on 2022-11-29 10:45:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
A lifetime ago I had to learn to create aliases for the UNIX module of my MSc.
I haven't needed to create an alias to make my work easier since the mid 1990s.
40 • Void Linux Sitrep 2022 (by Experienced Void User on 2022-11-30 21:16:36 GMT from United States)
Many Void users are minimalists who customize WMs and don't want a sound system imposed on them. That's my guess. Void can run without PulseAudio, unlike other distros. Run PA if you like, but Void can do pure ALSA (use apulse for Firefox). Void repos also have PipeWire.
So Void gives choice. Void has never been into desktop spins. Unofficial nightlies mentioned by Uncle Slacky are your best bet. Void focuses on automated build infrastructure.
Still yes, *official desktop spins* should have working sound. Pure ALSA would be the way to go, because PulseAudio can be added on top. Just a few months ago, I had to get ALSA working on a laptop. You can reorder sound cards in /etc/modprobe.d rather than .asoundrc. Slackware has good tips:
https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:hardware:audio_and_snd-hda-intel
I've been on Void musl for years without hiccups. Whether musl or glibc, Void supports containers, docker, flatpak, wine, chroot. So what Void lacks in packages, you can make up in other ways.
Void has the best ZFS support of any Linux distro. And if you want disk encryption in Void, you might try Split Linux.
I find musl more stable than glibc. You will have a problem if you need a closed-blob printer driver. In that case either run a glibc print server on your LAN (whatever distro your printer OEM likes), or use Void glibc. Technically you can run both musl and glibc on the same machine with chroot, but this trick means maintaining two distros on one disk.
A key problem in Void is the lack of 'big browser' choice. Repos have two big-name and a dozen toy browsers. People have begged for years for serious alternatives. You'll need flatpak or somesuch if you want them. Of course, Void would welcome competent coders willing to maintain browsers. The issue seems to be manpower. Void repos also have plenty of orphans needing love.
Void rollingness is sensible. Arch crashes by tracking the most recent upstream kernel. Void delays until point releases have shipped. You can run the latest kernel if you want. It's just not Void's default until then. And Void never deletes a kernel, so you can always fall back. Use vkpurge to delete old kernels. You can have multiple kernel series installed and pick which to boot from GRUB. Void will update each kernel series like any other package.
41 • Void is fastest Linux OS (by Pawan on 2022-12-01 14:37:50 GMT from India)
In my experience of using Linux over 16 years and almost 25+ Linux distros, I found Void to be fastest linux OS in the mainstream OS. After using Void every other distro seems to be slow in all aspects (boot, responsiveness).
And its minimalist, stable rolling release model makes it most suitable to those who want their PC and OS to just get the job done and not come in the way.
I am using it on my PC from last 2 years and did not find the issue of sound not working, may be that is applicable to only some specific cards.
Number of Comments: 41
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| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
StressLinux
StressLinux is an openSUSE-based minimal Linux distribution that runs from a bootable CDROM or via PXE. It makes use of some utilities such as stress, cpuburn, hddtemp, lm_sensors, etc. It is dedicated to users who want to test their system(s) entirely on high load and monitor the health of these systems.
Status: Dormant
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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