Void Suck

Void Suck

Lightweight Desktop installer for Void Linux based on the suckless philosophy.

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This installer includes my own custom set of suckless tools (dwm, slstatus, dmenu, etc.) but you can easily swap this out with the original defaults or link to your own.

Void Suck was created and run on a X260 ThinkPad. Other machines may differ. Please take a look at the "Tweaks & Troubleshooting" section if you run into any minor issues.

Table of Contents

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The Purpose

I'm Bradley Taunt, a UX and frontend designer. I enjoy Linux and minimalism. Void Linux paired with the core suckless programs seemed like a perfect fit for my day-to-day needs (both personal and work).

The problem: Void Linux is hardly "noob" friendly. Newcomers are most likely turned away by the TUI-based installer, compared to that of more modern GUI Linux setups. Even if they complete the installer without issue, users still need to know what core packages they need to get things running as a proper "computer".

The solution: Create an installer that handles almost all of the heavy-lifting. Get out of the way and let the user use their machine. This is the purpose of Void Suck.

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Screenshots

What you see is what you get. (BTW - you should always have screenshots of your project)

Looks good? Then keep reading to get it on your own machine!

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Getting Started

You need to download your proper Void install image, flash the image to a USB or SD card, and then proceed to install.

The main Void installation guide is okay, but I much prefer this more detailed tutorial: How to Install Void Linux: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide. Finish that and then come back here.

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Installation

Now that you have installed Void, login in as your created user and follow the instructions below.

Created user not working?

Check out how to create a user manually in the Tweaks & Troubleshooting section.

In these next steps we will:

1. Install dependencies by running install-dependencies.sh. The script will simply read required packages from dependencies.txt and run xbps-install.
2. Compile and install suckless software by running the install.sh.

Step-by-Step

We need to install some basic packages first. This will make of lives easier.

sudo xbps-install vim bash git

sudo

If you keep getting pestered to enter your password when using sudo, you can change this by altering the file /etc/sudoers.d/wheel with the following:

%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Next we will pull down the main Void Suck repo and navigate inside it:

git clone https://git.sr.ht/~bt/void-suck
cd void-suck

Before we move on, be sure of open and edit the install.sh file. You will need to change the "username" to your own created user:

# you will need to change 'bt' to your own username
mkdir /home/bt/.suckless
cd /home/bt/.suckless

Now for the fun part - the install! Our dependencies need to be installed first:

sudo ./install-dependencies.sh

Feel free to grab a coffee. This doesn't take too long, but on some internet connections it could be slower. Once it is finished, run the next command to install and build the core suckless programs:

sudo ./install.sh

When that completes (and hopefully without any errors!) copy over the base .xinitrc and .profile files:

cp .xinitrc ~/.xinitrc # Apply .xinitrc
cp .profile ~/.profile # Apply .profile

Congrats!

Now reboot your machine, login as your main user and run:

startx

More tweaks might be needed to get things setup for your own specific needs, but Void Suck should give you a solid foundation to let you hit the ground running!

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Tweaks & Troubleshooting

Users

If you're having issues with the user you created during the Void installer, run the following:

useradd -m -s /bin/bash -U -G wheel,users,audio,video,cdrom,input,tty,network voiduser

Audio / ALSA

You might need to check /proc/asound/cards to see which sound cards are available to your system. Then, if needed, you should create a /etc/asound.conf file with the following inside (where the "1" is your desired card number):

defaults.pcm.card 1
defaults.ctl.card 1

You might also need to create a file:

/etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf

and inside place the following:

snd-pcm-oss

This will take on the next reboot of the machine.

Font Rendering

You might want to install some extra packages to help with rendering fonts across the internet and inside Firefox:

sudo xbps-install google-fonts-ttf freefont-ttf

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Contribute

Please take a look at the project on sourcehut. Patches and issue reports are always welcome!

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Made with love for open source and minimalism.
Code is available on sourcehut.