Void Linux is an independent

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

that uses the X Binary Package System (XBPS)

package manager A package manager or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

, which was designed and implemented from scratch, and the

runit runit is an init and service management scheme for Unix-like Operating systems that initializes, supervises, and ends processes throughout the operating system. Runit is a reimplementation of the daemontools process supervision toolkit that ...

init system. Excluding binary kernel blobs, a base install is composed entirely of free software (but users can access an official non-free repository to install proprietary software as well).

History

Void Linux was created in 2008 by Juan Romero Pardines, a former developer of

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...

, to have a test-bed for the XBPS package manager. The ability to natively build packages from source using xbps-src is likely inspired by

pkgsrc pkgsrc (''package source'') is a package management system for Unix-like operating systems. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD. Since then it has evolved independently; in 1 ...

and other BSD ports collections. In May 2018, the project was moved to a new website and code repository by the core team after the project leader had not been heard from for several months. As of May 2024, Void is the highest rated project on DistroWatch, with a score of 9.26 out of 10.

Features

Void is a notable exception to the majority of Linux distributions because it uses runit as its init system instead of the more common

systemd systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. The main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions. Its primary component is a "system and service manage ...

used by other distributions. It is also unique among distributions in that separate software repositories and installation media using either

glibc The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the GNU Project implementation of the C standard library. It provides a wrapper around the system calls of the Linux kernel and other kernels for application use. Despite its name, it now also dir ...

musl musl is a C standard library intended for operating systems based on the Linux kernel, released under the MIT License. It was developed by Rich Felker to write a clean, efficient, and standards-conformant libc implementation. Overview musl wa ...

are available. Void was the first distribution to incorporate LibreSSL as the system cryptography library by default. In February 2021, the Void Linux team announced Void Linux would be switching back to

OpenSSL OpenSSL is a software library for applications that provide secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping, and identify the party at the other end. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTTPS web ...

on March 5, 2021. Among the reasons were the problematic process of patching software that was primarily written to work with OpenSSL, the support for some optimizations and earlier access to newer algorithms. A switch to OpenSSL began in April 2020 in the

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

issue of the void-packages repository where most of the discussion has taken place. Due to its

rolling release Rolling release, also known as rolling update or continuous delivery, is a concept in software development of frequently delivering updates to applications. This is in contrast to a ''standard'' or '' point release'' development model which uses ...

nature, a system running Void is kept up-to-date with binary updates from the repositories in contrast with a point release. Source packages are maintained on GitHub and can be compiled using the xbps-src build system. The package build process is performed in a clean environment, not tied to the current system, and most packages can be cross-compiled for foreign architectures. As of April 2017, Void Linux supports Flatpak, which allows the installation of the latest packages from upstream repositories.

Editions

Void Linux can be downloaded as a ''base'' image or as a ''flavor'' image. The base image contains little more than basic programs; users can then configure an environment for themselves. The flavor image contains a pre-configured

Xfce Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...

desktop environment.

Cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

, Enlightenment,

LXDE LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...

LXQt LXQt is a free and open-source software, free and open source lightweight desktop environment. It was formed from the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects. Like its GTK predecessor LXDE, LXQt does not ship or develop its own window manager ...

, MATE, and

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

used to be offered as pre-packaged live images, but are no longer offered "in order to decrease the overhead involved with testing." The live images contain an installer that offers a ncurses-based user interface. The default root shell is

Dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Derivatives

Void Linux for PowerPC/Power ISA (unofficial)
was a fork of Void Linux for

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

and

Power ISA Power ISA is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) currently developed by the OpenPOWER Foundation, led by IBM. It was originally developed by IBM and the now-defunct Power.org industry group. Power IS ...

, with the project ending in early 2023. It supported

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

and

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

devices,

big-endian '' Jonathan_Swift.html" ;"title="Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift">Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift, the novel from which the term was coined In computing, endianness is the order in which bytes within a word (data type), word of d ...

and

little-endian '' Jonathan_Swift.html" ;"title="Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift">Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift, the novel from which the term was coined In computing, endianness is the order in which bytes within a word (data type), word of d ...

operation, and

and

. Void-ppc maintained its own build infrastructure and package repositories, and aimed to build all of Void Linux's packages on all targets. It was a fork largely because of technical issues with Void Linux's build infrastructure. Project Trident was a

based on Void Linux, but was discontinued in March of 2022.

Reception

In February 2023, Jesse Smith, of DistroWatch, said "The Void distribution is one of the fastest, lightest, most cleanly designed Linux distributions I've had the pleasure of using. Everything is trim, efficient, and surprisingly fast." Also, "Void has a relatively small repository of software utmost of the key applications are there."

Notes

References

External links

* * {{Linux distributions ARM Linux distributions ARM operating systems Independent Linux distributions Linux distributions Linux distributions without systemd Rolling release Linux distributions