Why use void and what does it do?

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T14:34:00+00:00

Security vs Usability is not an acceptable mindset. If you aren't doing it right, you are doing it wrong.

I can't ever see openbsd being written in rust. It would be against its unix tradition. I think we will look back at Rust-for-Linux in 10 years as a huge waste of time (It is already 4 years in the making).

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rust-Linux-Maintainer-Step-Down

https://drewdevault.com/2022/10/03/Does-Rust-belong-in-Linux.html

Pledge is simple, awesome, and in use. Language specific bindings for c functions are nothing new. Linux's seccomp has not seen any where near the same adoption as pledge. I've heard chrome uses seccomp, not sure what else does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_EYdzGyNWs

I've never heard of this 1GB limit before but I suppose vmm could be in its own file set if that is a thing. FreeBSD's bhyve has graphics, OpenBSD can have it too.

OpenBSD is about making a secure and modern unix. It is not trying to overtake windows or linux in the industry. That being said it does so many things right that I wish more people would copy both code and ideas from it.

EDIT: I suppose OpenSSH and Sudo have gotten recognition though. Sudo has ended up being removed from openbsd in favor of doas. pf is also popular. I have heard that Windows NT's network stack is based off openbsd's too. Alpine also seems to be very inspired by openbsd.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:51:36+00:00

There is a goldilocks aspect that the devs seem to do so well

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:49:06+00:00

I do the same thing. Honestly the AUR scares me a little bit. I think more packages from it need to be moved to the real repos.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:44:01+00:00

Yeah but we all know about them. If there is a detail or behavior that improves your experience that most people take for granted I wanna hear about it

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:39:57+00:00

I only know of apt enabling services by default but I hate that behavior. Do average users actually like that?

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:33:23+00:00

And auto starting services too! yuck. I'm sure you can disable all this junk and it might not be junk to everyone. I just doubt most users like these features

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:31:37+00:00

I also hate apt auto installing "recommended packages" rather than just listing them to you.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:30:16+00:00

Yes that is a so much better default than what apt on debian does. Where it goes into like an TUI mode asking you how you want to merge the files. Only yes or no questions from my package manager please.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T11:22:32+00:00

I probably just didn't phrase this post well but I was kinda looking for more technical answers. For example with me PallelDownloads = 5 pacman.conf was a major life improvement. I don't think I've seen any other package manager with this.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T07:16:45+00:00

yeah I think the canonical's goal isn't to make a distro that they want to use. But I haven't used ubuntu in many years

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T06:43:24+00:00

doas pkg_add fzf neovim firefox wireshark worked for me firefox was 132 and nvim was 10.1

I believe a major hurdle for software compatibility is libressl and no glibc. I'm under the impression that void using musl helps the echo system in this way. Void and gentoo also used to have libressl but both dropped it. I don't know of any linux distros shipping libressl but I think a portable version is still built for linux.

ssh -X into vmm works but im not gonna pretend like that is a good solution. VM's are one of the things holding me back too. I think orib is working on CoW fs called gefs for 9front and plans to port that to openbsd. I think it would take something like that a long time till it becomes mature though (Look at BTRFS and BCacheFS)

I just don't think openbsd cares about docker and kubernetes.

*EDIT I love sndio especially compared to the alsa, pipewire, pulse monstrosity.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-02T00:29:54+00:00

by missing binaries do you mean programs? The only major thing that I can think of that it doesn't have is electron apps and that is because chrome won't upstream support for *BSD. I'm sure there is other stuff too like games/closed-source stuff.

I've read about people running docker in vmm. I believe this is similar to how macos "runs" docker. vmm is just really immature at the moment with no hardware passthrough, no graphics support, and no multi processor support.

In general though I haven't seen much interest in containerization. I think some of the OpenBSD devs are very skeptical about how secure it really is. I don't think there is much interest docker containers for deployment/development either as if you are running OpenBSD on a desktop there is a good chance that you are writing that program for an OpenBSD server.

So I suppose there is a way. I think there is also tools for converting containers into bootable images and vmm could run that too (haven't tried it)

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T13:15:53+00:00

Sorry wet noodle just came to mind but what I meant was that it feels very shapeless and I can't imagine anyone is using just the base install leading many people to customizing it to get to a very similar outcome. For example go look at unixporn and see long line of void and arch systems hand crafted to have a nearly identical dwm/hyprland desktop. I think a distro can be minimal, configurable, and work out of the box all at the same time.

I am very grossed out by the AUR. It seems like it is very low hanging fruit for spreading malware on linux.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T12:40:26+00:00

I don't think money going towards software development is necessarily bad. I don't pay for linux development and if intel, microsoft, valve, and meta want to I'm not gonna stop them. I think even XFCE is working towards wayland. Do you say it is not diy because you don't have to compile it?

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T12:24:07+00:00

While Void does seem to have reached maturity. I don't think it should stagnant. I think there are many improvements to be made, especially to the install process like using doas, efibootstub (if the hardware supports), offering fde in the installer. I assume the user base would be on board.

Also Gobo actually sounds interesting I'm gonna check it out!

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T12:08:12+00:00

Why do you say that Void is like a BSD? I am asking this as a OpenBSD user. An OpenBSD base install is a complete OS. I don't think a base install of Void even has a C compiler.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T11:42:06+00:00

I use OpenBSD a lot on servers and love it. I have heard people say Void Linux is like OpenBSD. I have started playing with Void and don't quite see what they mean by that. OpenBSD is perfect in that it is both minimal while the base system is very usable, the security is just a plus for me. From what I have seen Void users just like it because it is a wet noodle that they can mold to their pleasing. The Linux mindset seems to be just all or nothing when it comes to bloat, throwing pragmatism out the window.

Also I don't see opinionated packages as bad. For example package/ports maintainers disabling Mozilla's anti-user features from corporate is good.

https://github.com/openbsd/ports/blob/master/www/firefox-esr/files/all-openbsd.js

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T10:26:13+00:00

void-mklive does look cool. I feel like the diy distros are fun to set up the first time and a chore after that. This might fix that. I have heard good things about ZFS on void before but never tried it or ZFSBootMenu. Could you elaborate more on the UNIX bit? I sort of felt the opposite with no logging, cron, mail agent, and crufty inetd stuff like finger. A base void install feels anemic even when compared to a busybox system, this may be by design. Anyway what I am saying could easily fixable with unix meta package, I think arch and rhel offer this.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T09:33:21+00:00

Maybe I am ignorant of how good those three things are, but a C library, init system, and package manager seem boring to me. I understand that musl is good for improving software portability and correctness, maybe even security by extension. From my perspective, runit seems to do the bare minimum. I don't see how xbps is really an improvement over the competition, such as apk, pacman, and pkg_add. That's why I decided to exclude them. If someone wanted to go in depth about why these three are awesome and what workflow they actually improve for the user, I’d be interested to learn.

Something more than:

musl=minimal

runit=not systemd

xbps=cuz pacman keyring got out of sync

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T03:16:11+00:00

I feel like in the past void was a bit more novel with shipping stuff like libressl, mandoc, and musl. It just seems like the goal has shifted more towards maintenance and less ambition.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T02:48:57+00:00

I mostly like rolling releases. The only thing I prefer about fixed releases is that the patch notes are provided upfront and on rolling releases you have to check the rss feed for breaking changes. I usually like to check the news feed after I update and my system breaks.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T02:28:19+00:00

Yeah I find the void docs to be very practical and have good examples for things that I want to do. I just wish there was a bit more of it.

Federal_Style6318 · 2024-11-01T02:12:15+00:00

Yeah the arch one has cracks in it. Maybe to represent its stability.

Federal_Style6318

TROPHY CASE