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Void Linux thread

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q66:
So I got this idea we could possibly start a thread per distro/OS and share things like a general overview, hardware support and current status and news as a part of it. That would help get things organized and provide some kind of entry point. I wasn't entirely sure which is the best section for this; but the operating system section appears to be more about porting, while I'd like to focus more on what it means for actual users, so User Zone seemed like the right place.

And of course, while at it, as a maintainer of the PowerPC support, shameless self-promotion is never a bad thing for an establishing project, so without further ado, here's a Void Linux thread. I suggest other distribution threads follow a similar layout.

Summary

- Website: https://voidlinux.org, https://voidlinux-ppc.org (PowerPC port)
- IRC: #voidlinux and #voidlinux-ppc on irc.freenode.net
- Package manager: xbps
- Packaging: binary (with ports-style source build support), >11000 packages, >7000 unique software projects
- Release: rolling
- C library: glibc or musl
- Userland: GNU
- Init system: runit
- FSF certified: no
- Linux-libre: no (ships firmware)
- Non-free software: separate repository

PowerPC support

Source support upstream; binary support provided via an unofficial staging fork (production ready)

- 64-bit little endian (glibc + musl) - POWER8+
- 64-bit big endian (glibc + musl) - 970/G5+ (AltiVec required)
- 32-bit (glibc + musl) - generic

What is Void Linux?

Void is a general purpose Linux distribution with the aim of being small, simple and minimalistic, while inheriting lots of its philosophy from the BSDs; it's also independent (not forked from anything). It's based on its own xbps package manager, is rolling release and binary based (while allowing simple custom source builds based on a similar system to a ports tree; this system also allows for cross-compilation of nearly every package to different architectures). You get a choice of two C standard library implementations (glibc and musl) and it notably uses runit instead of systemd for its init system (but is not an anti-systemd distro per se) as well as libressl instead of openssl. Officially, it's available for x86 (i686 and x86_64) and ARM (armv6l, armv7l, aarch64). Unofficially, it's available for PowerPC (ppc32, ppc64, ppc64le). Source build profiles are also available for MIPS (mips, mipsel).

PowerPC fork

Started in December 2018. Void now provides support for 6 flavors (ppc64le/ppc64/ppc glibc/musl) total, with ppc64le having the greatest support for now, but all of them growing (https://repo.voidlinux-ppc.org/stats.html). I'd consider it production ready at this point. Live images are shipped with support for everything from old Macs to most modern POWER9 machines (for both LE and BE). Installer is provided.

Modern ELFv2 ABI is used for both LE and BE (kernel and userland). 4kB page size is used for kernel (as opposed to 64kB used by most other distros), as it makes much more sense for any use case other than a single-purpose server with large amounts of RAM, which is nowhere near the primary target (it's desktop/workstation).

Most desktops and other important software are already supplied. There's at least one modern browser with JavaScript support on every target (Firefox Quantum on all 64-bit with 32-bit being WiP, webkit2gtk and qt5-webkit based ones (Epiphany, Midori, Surf...) on all, and Chromium-based qt5-webengine and browsers based on that (Falkon, qutebrowser...) on ppc64le and experimentally ppc64 - runs, but has color and likely other issues)

Build infrastructure is provided by a Talos 2 Lite, with an 18-core POWER9 CPU, 128GB RAM and a 4x1TB (2+2 mirror) SSD setup with ZFS. A VM (KVM) with half the resources of the machine handles BE and 32-bit builds (no cross-compiling for any of the packages). Both the host and guest systems run Void, of course. The final packages are hosted in Chicago, IL on a server provided by a Void and Talos community member Zach Dykstra.

There's also documentation in a handbook format and FAQ provided on the website.

Blackbird:




PowerBook G4:


Power Mac G5:

Jubadub:
Agreed on selecting the "User Zone" section, it does seem more appropriate, according to their descriptions. And this is an excellent idea! I had considered something like this, but I had zero drive to actually get it done, let alone with this level of superb quality. Nice job! This certainly serves as a perfect entry point.

If I may make a suggestion, what about an extra line in the summary to state whether or not the distro/flavor contains binary blobs, and its FSF status? This will be an important point for some, especially now that the Talos line has been officially certified with FSF's RYF. Libre software enthusiasts are certainly a considerable end-user demographic for RaptorCS. Afterall, we are talking about the most powerful computer lines of all time among those which FULLY give control back to the user.

q66:
I guess that's a good point. Though, for Talos specifically, it won't try to load any blobs by default in the first place, as they're not required (unless you add something that needs them like a GPU)

Jubadub:
Interesting, I didn't know that. But would blobs be required even for the AMD Radeon Pro WX7100 and AMD Vega 64? On the official purchase page, unlike the other 4 GPUs listed there (all NVidia), those 2 AMD ones aren't marked as "proprietary".

q66:
Obviously, as all GPUs require firmware, and specifically anything using amdgpu needs *loadable* firmware (i.e. it's not onboard anymore) in form of signed firmware blobs. The driver may not be proprietary, but the firmware always is.

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