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[–]Soupchek 6 points7 points  (1 child)

I downloaded glibc xfce image because i want more apps working than on musl. Using void as my daily driver. And about very minimal... be happy about having light distro! Only things i personally needed to install before being able to use it as any other distros were nvidia driver and wine

[–]null_wastaken[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

be happy about having light distro!

Actually, I revived a very old computer using it (Intel Pentium Dual, 2GB ram). Which is amazing ! Idk what to do with it though .

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (6 children)

  • glibc - shit just works
  • GNOME - shit just works
  • there isn't a "target", you can install it however you want

[–]Known-Watercress7296 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think last install was a chroot from whatever I had installed at the time, Calculate I think.

https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/guides/chroot.html?highlight=Chroot#the-rootfs-method

I switch between i3, dwm & xfce4....occasionally try others.

Void offers a base-minimal package if you are finding the standard base too much 🤣

Void is a general purpose OS...the base install is a generic starting point....the xfce4 image is there if you prefer to land in the land of browsers, wallpaper & network managers.

xtools is very handy;

xi pkgname

xrs pkgquery

No need to 'sudo xbps-install pkgname'

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Installed using the musl base-image from October 2017. EFI boot, SSD moved later to a newer laptop.

Initially set-up with awesome, currently running on leftwm.

5 years after, still rolling. No issues!

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Minimal core install

Been using kde but I'm currently making an xmonad setup, which is super WIP

[–]moopstown 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did the latest musl image, mostly because I wanted to see if I could make musl work for me. I did end up with the Discord Flatpak, but everything else is from the musl free mirror. I use xmonad as my WM, and I’ve adapted my former xmonad.hs to suit this environment. I still dual boot with Windows for a few reasons… this was mostly a test to see if I wanted to make Void a daily driver (sorta 50/50 on that). I haven’t migrated stuff over like banking access. I still haven’t figured out how to do split tunneling with OpenVPN so that I can access the sites that refuse to load with a VPN (most of my streaming is like that). I’m still not sure setting up a different Firefox profile for every window I want to launch is a good idea (that was the whole point of getting XMonad back up, quickly launching, hiding and accessing differently named windows with NamedScratchPads). It was easier with Vivaldi but that’s not musl compliant. I do have bluetooth working which is nice!

[–]ibrown39 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Daily Drive Gentoo but have used Void as my goto bin/not sourced based distro.

The ISOs are old and the community isn't quite organized in a way I like (best I found with IM functionality was a Discord), but I found little issues with the repos aside from manually having to update the US mirror (and kind of guess what the musl dir was called but it worked out).

I have pretty much exclusively installed musl images when it comes to Void.

I use i3 99% of the time but have fiddled with dwm some. Not a fan of DEs.

It felt a little weird having to manually install xbps-src from a git-repo as a opposed to it just being built-in and updating like any other package.

Tips? Totally depends on what you're trying to do.

[–]amenbreakfast 2 points3 points  (0 children)

glibc netinstall. been working just fine for the past 3 years or so

[–]Niki_Roo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  • I used the minimal install, glibc (for broader compatibility, though I intend to try the musl version at some point)
  • On my main machine, I use openbox (window manager), tint2 (task bar) and PcManFM (file manager)
  • I use it on my main machine, on my netbook, on my NAS and also on 2 other machines I only service for someone in the family (laptop and NAS) -- actually, the only machines I don't use it on are my Raspi's and the few remote VMs I manage (I could install it on the VMs, but I like to have different sorts of systems to fiddle on)

And I can give you a small tip, yes.
It actually is not Void-dependant, but I keep a small "INSTALL" script on /root/config/INSTALL.sh (stored on a private GIT repository).

I modify this script every time I consider that this or that program should be on my machines (I can actually pass parameters to specify which "category" want to install like "WIFI", "NAS", "BASE", "DEV", "X11"... and each package is linked to one or more categories, but that's probably not needed if you are OK with only one version).

So, I can quickly set up a new machine with the programs I expect to find.
That, and I also have a GIT repository on my home directory that includes the files I share between my personal machines (not all of them, and obviously not all of $HOME, and NO PRIVATE KEYS (just in case)).

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  • x86_64 base live image (glibc). Because I wanted to try out a wayland only install (no particular reason), and with a base install I could do that on a clean system.
  • I installed plasma just to have everything set up in 1 go (like gtk and qt themes) and have a working environment while tinkering. Good thing I did. I found out that with installing bismuth I could make kwin into a tiling wm as well. But I'm using qtile wm mainly (no packages available on void unfortunately). I installed alacritty, rofi, firefox so far.
  • The base install was good for me as I had the choice what graphical environment I was going to use. And the thing I like about void is that it gives you control. You are in charge. For newcomers it might seem a bit bare, but if you want to learn a lot about the workings of a linux distro, void is just superb.
  • The only tip I have is: don't overthink it. If there are 5 options for a particular functionality, just read the descriptions of each, pick 1 and try it, op pick one you already know. Unless ofcourse you have very particular wishes for it, then do some research, but probably you'll have something in mind already.
  • Also: document (what did I need to do to get it working) and backup. Make a git repository somewhere and put any changes in your .config or your /etc on it. If you completely bork your install for some reason, you'll be up and running in no time.

[–]Srazkat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

iso i took is glibc xfce, i use KDE Plasma, although i also have wayfire installed, just don't use it much

for tips, it's usually just, download a graphical interface, get the basic tools you need, and then whenever you need anything, just, grab it. Also, my biggest tip when it comes to software availability, since, even though void's repos are quire furnished, they aren't perfect. For apps outside of void repos, i use flatpaks if it is a gui application, or a distrobox container running either arch or debian if it is cli

[–]IUseDebianBTW[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. void-base-x86_64.iso or something. Just the base with no DE

  2. I use Bspwm. I used to use Dwm, i3, and Herbstluftwm, but I like Bspwm the best. Just Polybar, Dmenu, Dunst... nothing fancy

  3. I used the base install and built my way up. The hardest part was connecting to the internet, but I know how to use wpa_supplicant.

  4. Uh idk

[–][deleted]  (2 children)

[deleted]

    [–]null_wastaken[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Yep, the documentation is really good. What patches do you use with dwm? Any tips for using it?

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    -glibc for better support (I daily drive void)

    -minimal because I like to customise

    -I use dwm with dwmblocks, dmenu and st but I'm considering using awesomewm

    -The base image is fine for a daily driver, but you'll want to go through the wiki. Since void is so minimal, there might not be some things you'd expect to be there

    -Start by checking any config files of interest, installing any daemons like ntpd and cronie, install a text editor, xtools and any tools you usually like to use, familiarise yourself with xbps and runit, then install xorg and a wm or de and proceed as normal.

    On my first install, I installed and changed everything as I went, making notes of everything I did, and after a few months nuked it and started out with all of my prior knowledge. It wasn't necessary, but it kept everything clean once I was up to scratch. Have fun!

    [–]null_wastaken[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    On my first install, I installed and changed everything as I went, making notes of everything I did, and after a few months nuked it and started out with all of my prior knowledge. It wasn't necessary, but it kept everything clean once I was up to scratch

    exactly what I'm doing rn

    [–]reverber 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Daily driver is base install, adding things as I need them.

    Windowmaker is one of those things. I started with WM in olden times on Debian (pre systemd). It helps that I like to tinker.

    Going on four(?) years now. Time flies.

    [–]DrownedAxolotl 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    A bit late, but here I go:

    Installed on my old laptop a while ago, but planning to switch to void in the near future.

    Used glibc for compatibility with xfce because it's an easier install and I don't want reinstalling to be an issue. (I have a tendency to break systems)

    Chose btrfs because of its snapshot feature as the filesystem, but the installer doesn't set it up properly, so I had to do some additional tweaking.

    I use xfce, but wanted to try something different here and wayfire caught my eye. I don't have anything too special installed alongside it, just udiskie for automounting, thunar for file management and wf-shell for additional DE-like features.

    I wouldn't say the base is not for a daily driver. It can be whatever you want it to be.

    As for tips, if you need packages that aren't in the repos try the nix package manager. It's definitely not like any other, but it increases your selection by quite a bit.

    [–]null_wastaken[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    How is your experience with Wayland? Is it stable and working properly? I do want to try it but the blogs say that the project is not mature enough.

    [–]DrownedAxolotl 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    My experience has been smooth so far. One issue I did run into is that from time to time lightdm won't be able to log me in at which point I can either reboot or escape into the tty and start wayfire manually (wayland equivalent of startx). I haven't found any real issues when I'm actually inside of the wm though. I was even able to start using some x apps without any additional tweaks like xlunch.

    What I also really like about wayfire is how I can use this wm with really over the top animations on a 10 year old machine with it still being lightweight and this is where wayland supposedly excels at (haven't tried any effects on xorg, so can't make a comparison).

    I don't know if the blogs you read have mentioned this or not, but one area where wayland is supposedly lacking (again haven't tested myself) is nvidia GPU compatibility. I don't know what all the issues are off the top of my head and I know that it's getting better, but not quite there yet. For example, nvidia's own settings app is meant for X only. That's enough for me to hold off on using wayland with nvidia for the time being.

    [–]null_wastaken[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Thank you!

    [–]iEliteTester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I originally downloaded the lxde (or is it lxqt now?) iso but within the day I switched to xfce (it was really easy to change).

    If you want something lightweight that gets you to a functioning daily driver I can't recommend xfce enought.

    Now I use bspwm with polybar and some fork of picom/compton as a compositor (I would also recomend comptom with xfce).

    [–]EatTomatos 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    For a desktop, at minimum you may want Dbus and a udev esque daemon. For more daemons, alsa, avahi, cron, kmod, are probably the most useful things to consider. If you're on musl, install gcompat, otherwise use glibc. Then you can go about actually installing xorg, installing something like lightdm and your DE, and then finally login and check your system to make sure all your daemons are working within your xorg session. I assume that policykit is a dependancy of most DEs, so that shouldn't need manual configuration.

    [–]libertyworx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I’m running muslc, in general I don’t have any problems with software compatibility but I have had the occasional issue. How has gcompat worked for you - I haven’t tried it yet.

    [–]paper42_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    and a udev esque daemon

    That's enabled by default, you don't have to care about that.

    If you're on musl, install gcompat,

    That's not a great advice. Almost everything in repositories works without gcompat and what doesn't has gcompat in dependencies.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

    > I use the unofficial glibc base iso from voidbuilds

    > I use Hypr with xfce4 and xfce4-panel

    > official base iso is severely minimal and unless you have Ethernet, WiFi is a pain until you download NetworkManager. Why I use the unofficial base. They even pack the official base iso with only vi as a text editor

    > unofficial base is really nice

    [–]paper42_ 2 points3 points  (3 children)

    official base iso is severely minimal and unless you have Ethernet, WiFi is a pain until you download NetworkManager

    You just have to know how to use wpa_supplicant or the installer. Or just get the xfce iso, use GUI NetworkManager to connect to internet and do a network install. You will end up with the same system.

    They even pack the official base iso with only vi as a text editor

    just xbps-install vim if you want that. The unofficial isos are of course not supported and sometimes randomly broken. The xfce or the base isos should be enough for everyone.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    For sure, but if your just going for a minimal base install but don’t want to have to deal with annoyances right off the bat the unofficial builds are good

    [–]paper42_ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    You can just use the xfce iso to do a base install, that's easier than any base unofficial iso.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    It really isn’t any different since they both use the tui installer

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Here’s the unofficial base ISO’s package list:

    GRUB

    grub-i386-efi
    grub-x86_64-efi
    grub-btrfs
    

    BASE PKGS

    dialog 
    cryptsetup 
    lvm2 
    mdadm
    

    NETWORKING

    NetworkManager
    ntp
    

    UTILITIES

    wget
    bash-completion
    xterm
    htop
    

    PACKAGE MANAGEMENT

    topgrade
    

    DEVELOPMENT

    git
    

    FILE SYSTEM

    exfat-utils
    fuse-exfat
    ntfs-3g
    gptfdisk
    btrfs-progs
    

    TEXT EDITORS

    nano
    vim
    

    REPOSITORIES

    void-repo-multilib
    

    [–]1985Ronald 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    My daily driver is the base install with musl. Running dwm, compiled from source.

    [–]null_wastaken[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    What patches do you use?

    [–]1985Ronald 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I think I just use the pertag patch, my build is on GitLab here:

    https://gitlab.com/ronaldr1985/dwm

    [–]Simeonlps 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I opted for the base Void image, with Glibc, and am using it daily on my ThinkPad with the budgie desktop

    I've installed the following to get up-and-running: dbus NetworkManager elogind polkit xorg budgie-desktop xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-gtk xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk emptty pipewire wireplumber

    I've disabled the following built-in services: dhcpd

    I've enabled the following services (in this order): dbus elogind NetworkManager emptty

    do note that most desktops come with a display manager, so that emptty is probably not the recommended route for those, and Pipewire is being launched by emptty using a script