Void Linux Alpha Image Available
Project Trident is pleased to announce a new Alpha-quality image of the new version based on Void Linux is now available on the download page.
What does this image provide?
- A full “ZFS-on-root” installation of Void Linux
- A full walk-through of the installation procedure in an easy-to-use fashion. No experience with disk formatting or partioning is required.
- Hybrid EFI and BIOS-boot capabilities. Both for the ISO and for the system post-install.
- Encrypted SWAP on ZFS (if swap space is selected)
- Support for both “glibc” and “musl” versions of Void packages in a single installer.
- Support for detecting and connecting to Wireless networks in an easy-to-use series of prompts (DHCP only). These settings get transferred over to the new installation for out-of-box network support.
- Due to the constant flow of updates to the Void Linux package repositories, this image is a complete “net-install” implementation. This means that all installed packages are always the current version from the repository, and result in a system which is fully up to date after the install is completed.
What does this image NOT provide?
- Boot Environments.
- While the ZFS layout is prepared for boot environments, we are still experimenting with various BE support systems to figure out which packages and/or utilities to use.
- User accounts.
- Only the root acount is setup initially.
- Graphical Desktop Setup.
- We install the current lumina desktop package from Void by default, but none of the Trident utilities are ported or installed yet.
- Quick Hint: After logging in via the terminal, just run
start-lumina-desktop
to launch a graphical desktop session. The current Lumina package for Void is very “un-configured”, so you will need to manually setup application shortcuts and change the theme settings around to make it more visually appealing.
- Partition support or multi-boot capabilities.
- This installer expects that a single, dedicated hard disk will be provided for the installation. And the installer will wipe and re-provision that entire disk - losing any previous data on that disk.
Important notes
- Due to how ZFS is packaged on Linux, a dynamic kernel module is automatically compiled for your specific system during the package installation. This may take a little while to complete, depending on your system hardware capabilities.
- From our initial testing, the average time to perform the installation is about 30 minutes. This will vary depending on download speeds and compilation time of the DKMS module(s).
- The default shell for Void Linux is “dash” and is the “/bin/sh” of the system.
- It may be very helpful to run
chsh
after login to change the default login shell, since dash is very limited.
- In shell scripts, make sure to use “#!/bin/bash” instead of “#!/bin/sh”, otherwise you may experience odd script failures due to using “dash” instead of the traditional “Bourne shell”.
Looking ahead
With the ALPHA now ready, we are moving into preparing a BETA release next. This stage involves porting over our existing tools and utilities, creating user management subsystems, and integrating the boot-to-graphics systems.