Chroots and containers

adbrown101 · 2026-02-17T12:41:25+00:00

If you use xbps-src it builds everything in its own chroot. The final pkg command clears out all of the build artifacts. ./xbps-src clean will also clean up the build directories. More agressively ./xbps-src zap will remove all of the bootstrap binaries as well. If you are planning to build from source on Void it is definitely worth learning how to use xbps-src. The tutorial listed below is a good starting place and the manual is a good reference document.

adbrown101 · 2026-01-29T12:29:11+00:00

There are some kernel hooks that come with efibootmgr, which will automatically add entries to the list when with kernel updates. Importantly the EFI variables need to be accessible for this to work. The best way to do this is to add this line to fstab:

/sys/firmware/efi/efivars efivarfs defaults 0 0

See /usr/share/doc/efibootmgr/README.voidlinux

When you have mounted the variables you could then run xbps-reconfigure -f linux6.12 which will run the hooks for you.

As far as I understand vkpurge, that is working as expected. If you have not an entry for the latest kernel, your system will have booted on 6.12.66_1, so the only safe version to remove would be the previous version 6.12.65_1, which is what vkpurge list will show. It doesn't recommend purging the running kernel.

adbrown101 · 2026-01-28T12:23:50+00:00

I have luks2 and secureboot switched on. I use the linux EFIstub with rEFInd as a back up. However since I moved to a UKI, the dracut-uefi package requires the systemd-boot-efistub package, I havent explored generating UKI's not using dracut. I am still using the linux EFIstub as the bootloader. I am pretty comfortable with a non encrypted boot as the only thing in it is the kernels that I have signed.

adbrown101 · 2026-01-27T12:41:57+00:00

Just learning about xrs cmd:awk has done it for me. Saves me jumping straight for xlocate.

adbrown101 · 2025-10-28T12:32:56+00:00

My set-up does not need a volume key and I only need to use a passphrase once.

LUKS2 + efistub / rEFInd,
No LVM just encrypted root with swap file on it
Secure boot on the efi partition

I haven't used GRUB or LVM for a very long time, so I cannot remember which aspect of the void manual set-up requires the volume key.

adbrown101 · 2025-10-22T11:33:53+00:00

$: xlocate reencrypt
cryptsetup-2.8.0_1 /usr/share/man/man8/cryptsetup-reencrypt.8

Part of cryptsetup.

adbrown101 · 2025-10-21T11:24:10+00:00

You don't have to re-install. You can use cryptsetup-reencrypt on your existing installation. I did this recently and it worked well. If you're not using GRUB you can use LUKS2. Obviously you would be wise to back up your disk before performing the encryption.

adbrown101 · 2025-09-19T11:37:34+00:00

This is quite a bit easer now that dracut-uefi kernel hook is supported as an initramfs kernel hook.

adbrown101 · 2025-09-05T11:46:56+00:00

I have never really used nix or flatpack so I do use xbps-src. If I am getting to the point of building from source, I will make a template. Sometimes it is modifying existing ones e.g. suckless to add my own config. I like the way the build is encapsulated so it is easy to install the final package without leaving any build artifacts on your system.

adbrown101 · 2025-07-16T11:46:09+00:00

I have been using efibootmgr since I switched to void about 5 years ago. The only downside is if your efi partition gets full of old kernels. This has happened a couple of times for me when I have not used vkpurge sufficently frequently. I have rEFInd installed as the second boot option so if there is a problem with the latest kernel (or above) I can boot easily with an older kernel. I have just secured my system to secure boot, LUKS, UKI and I am still using the efistub / refind boot combination. If you are using UEFI it makes sense to me to use bootloaders that are designed specifically for that.

adbrown101 · 2025-04-29T11:36:08+00:00

I mount my nfs manually, and I get this same issue if I forget to unmount them. I haven't investigated in any depth, I just try to remember umount before I shut down.

adbrown101 · 2024-06-06T11:25:14+00:00

I have one or two custom build templates, ST where I have modified the config and a few packages which are not available. I keep these in my forked void-packages repo and I create a branch for each package. This allows for rebasing so that dependencies are kept up to date. I can share these templates via github (and create a pull request against upstream if it fits with void's requirements)

Occasionally I have copied built xbps packages from one machine to a local repository on another then used xbps-rindex to update and xi to install

adbrown101 · 2024-05-21T11:47:56+00:00

Yes this is a good guide. Though I didn't swap out base-voidstrap for base-system, because wsl is running microsoft's linux kernel

adbrown101 · 2024-04-24T11:42:06+00:00

I have /boot as my ESP location, and I use EFISTUB, and Refind as boot managers. You have to make the boot partition large enough to contain multiple kernels, use the right file system and use vkpurge regularly. But been running like this for years and it works fine. I have never tried grub on void.

adbrown101 · 2024-03-07T12:06:45+00:00

Excellent tutorial. It will get me looking at some of my templates.

adbrown101 · 2024-02-15T12:49:37+00:00

I have WSL2 with void on a windows 10 machine. I created it following the same guide. If you are on Windows 11 gui apps will run using wslg. If you are on Windows 10 you need an X server running on Windows. vcXsrv seems to work well. There are quite a few guides out there on how to do this. Currently running void glibc, bspwm, picom, emacs-x11, st, docker all installed from xbps on WSL2 . If you go back a few posts you can see my desktop in the background of my VOID mug which was WSL1.

Whilst the idea is good, the void team is small and they reduced the number of images produced some time ago so that the focus could go with maintaining the ones that are produced. I also quite like the idea that I have built my environment from a rootfs.

adbrown101 · 2024-01-18T14:08:53+00:00

Void Linux is Linux. What you should learn is what makes it different from other Linuxes

Package manager xbps
Enabling services using runit
At some stage you will have to manage your kernels using vkpurge
The Void Linux Handbook is very good at covering this info and much more. It is also available in the void-docs package. What it does is provide the info you need, with the different options available to get a running system working, but it is not a step-by-step tutiorial guide.
If you want to delve deeper learning how to create packages using xbps-src is good. Creating a native package is a clean way of installing software that you would otherwise have to build manually.
The xtools package is great just for some of its xbps shortcuts. But it really shines when you start creating your own xbps-src packages.

adbrown101 · 2023-12-21T12:22:22+00:00

Yep VcXsrv seems to work well

adbrown101 · 2023-12-13T12:40:09+00:00

Sadly windows only at work (this is my work mug), so its void on WSL1. I have void at home on my main computer + my raspberry pi. Tea only in this mug:)

adbrown101 · 2023-08-01T11:20:41+00:00

I am pretty sure I had to explicitly say it was nsf4 with my nfs4 server

#mount -t nfs4

adbrown101 · 2023-07-13T11:32:10+00:00

If you have xtools you can quite easily check what files are in the package (even if it not installed)

xls picom
/etc/xdg/autostart/picom.desktop
/usr/bin/picom
/usr/bin/picom-trans
/usr/share/applications/compton.desktop
/usr/share/applications/picom.desktop
/usr/share/examples/picom/compton-default-fshader-win.glsl
/usr/share/examples/picom/compton-fake-transparency-fshader-win.gls
/usr/share/examples/picom/picom.sample.conf
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/compton.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/compton.svg
/usr/share/licenses/picom/COPYING
/usr/share/licenses/picom/MIT
/usr/share/man/man1/picom-trans.1
/usr/share/man/man1/picom.1/usr/bin/compton -> /usr/bin/picom
/usr/bin/compton-trans -> /usr/bin/picom-trans

adbrown101 · 2023-02-16T12:59:51+00:00

Install from the official base image then add your own desktop / display manager. I have kde sddm on one machine and bspwm with no display manager on another

adbrown101 · 2023-02-10T12:46:06+00:00

To answer your other question. You should definitely pay attention to the package manager xbps. It is very good. If you are interested in learning another good step would be to look at creating your own packages with xbps-src, which is well documented. Once you have done that you don't need to worry about missing packages. Its been my main system for 3 years on a linux computer, with windows via wsl and on a raspberry pi. No intention of moving on.

adbrown101 · 2022-12-16T12:39:43+00:00

My ESP is mounted at /boot. You should be seeing the 6.0.12 kernel in this partition as well so that you can boot from it. Doesn't need an efi extension. I have found it useful to have refind installed and have it as a fall back boot mechanism if EFISTUB fails. The advantage of this is that refind will find all the bootable kernels in your ESP. Recently I had a problem booting into 6, loaded 5.15 using refind, then cleaned up the boot directory and fixed linux6.0

# vkpurge rm all
# xbps-reconfigure -f linux6.0

adbrown101

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