Post by ylee on Aug 20, 2020 18:41:42 GMT
This thread is going to be my review and experiences with Void Linux.
First of all void Linux clearly believes in choice, they offer Cinnamon, Enlightenment, LXDE, MATE, or Xfce Desktops as well as a base install which boots to a command prompt. They have ISOs for aarch64, armv6, armv7, i686, and x86_64. You also get to choose between Glibc or Musl. Clearly I am going to go with Enlightenment considering Bodhi's roots. But I tested several ISOs/DEs.
This review is, however, on the void-live-x86_64-20191109-enlightenment.iso, installed for now on a virtual-box VM (VB version 6.1). This is a 64 bit install using Glibc and my host operating system is naturally Bodhi linux 5.1. The ISO installs e23.1 and efl 1.23.1 but after you do system updates you have e24.1 with efl 1.24.3. Rather up to date unsurprisingly as Void is a Rolling release. For the record, the DM is LXDM which Bodhi also used in the early days.
Unlike most modern Linux distros, Void does not use systemd. Instead, it uses runit. I am going to avoid the whole systemd controversy. Void also has its own package manager, the X Binary Package System (XBPS) package manager and fairly comprehensive documentation.
Overall installation went pretty smooth, altho Void uses a ncursers installer and naturally you have to start in a terminal. Like Bodhi, Void is fairly minimalist and only installs a bare minimum of software/libraries. In the case of the enlightenment ISO this was basically terminology and firefox with econnman as the network manager. So it is more minimalist than Bodhi. No text editor at all not even nano. Unlike Bodhi/Ubuntu Void sets up a root user. But sudo comes installed. After installation I had 364 packages installed and after I updated I had 382. That is 382 after I fixed my first issue.
The issue: After my first system update, Enlightenment's file manager could not mount/unmount or eject cds and presumably anything else as a regular user. It all worked fine as root. One probably should not run Enlightenment as root tho. Installing elogind fixes this issue. Don't ask how I figured that out. Took me a while. I am unsure why e24 seems to need elogind, I talked to Raster some about it but he did not know, theorized it may be a permission problem.
Overall I have found the void community pretty friendly, this is the IRC channel on freenode. Lots of users there and some activity.
For the record enlightenment and efl are both compiled with wayland support and wayland is installed (version 1.18.1 after updating). But LXDM does not support wayland sessions, so to log into an e24 wayland session you need to either install another DM or not use a DM. More on that latter.
That is about all for now. I will post more about void as I go alone in exploring it. If you wish to try it by all means do (but stick with Bodhi
).
Anyway, this and the documentation should be enough to get someone who knows their way around Linux up and running with e24 on Void.
First of all void Linux clearly believes in choice, they offer Cinnamon, Enlightenment, LXDE, MATE, or Xfce Desktops as well as a base install which boots to a command prompt. They have ISOs for aarch64, armv6, armv7, i686, and x86_64. You also get to choose between Glibc or Musl. Clearly I am going to go with Enlightenment considering Bodhi's roots. But I tested several ISOs/DEs.
This review is, however, on the void-live-x86_64-20191109-enlightenment.iso, installed for now on a virtual-box VM (VB version 6.1). This is a 64 bit install using Glibc and my host operating system is naturally Bodhi linux 5.1. The ISO installs e23.1 and efl 1.23.1 but after you do system updates you have e24.1 with efl 1.24.3. Rather up to date unsurprisingly as Void is a Rolling release. For the record, the DM is LXDM which Bodhi also used in the early days.
Unlike most modern Linux distros, Void does not use systemd. Instead, it uses runit. I am going to avoid the whole systemd controversy. Void also has its own package manager, the X Binary Package System (XBPS) package manager and fairly comprehensive documentation.
Overall installation went pretty smooth, altho Void uses a ncursers installer and naturally you have to start in a terminal. Like Bodhi, Void is fairly minimalist and only installs a bare minimum of software/libraries. In the case of the enlightenment ISO this was basically terminology and firefox with econnman as the network manager. So it is more minimalist than Bodhi. No text editor at all not even nano. Unlike Bodhi/Ubuntu Void sets up a root user. But sudo comes installed. After installation I had 364 packages installed and after I updated I had 382. That is 382 after I fixed my first issue.
The issue: After my first system update, Enlightenment's file manager could not mount/unmount or eject cds and presumably anything else as a regular user. It all worked fine as root. One probably should not run Enlightenment as root tho. Installing elogind fixes this issue. Don't ask how I figured that out. Took me a while. I am unsure why e24 seems to need elogind, I talked to Raster some about it but he did not know, theorized it may be a permission problem.
Overall I have found the void community pretty friendly, this is the IRC channel on freenode. Lots of users there and some activity.
For the record enlightenment and efl are both compiled with wayland support and wayland is installed (version 1.18.1 after updating). But LXDM does not support wayland sessions, so to log into an e24 wayland session you need to either install another DM or not use a DM. More on that latter.
That is about all for now. I will post more about void as I go alone in exploring it. If you wish to try it by all means do (but stick with Bodhi
). Anyway, this and the documentation should be enough to get someone who knows their way around Linux up and running with e24 on Void.
