I’m not trying to bait. I’ve been playing with Void for a while, but didn’t get what makes it special. I guess I’m missing something about it.

  • Hxrmit@thelemmy.club
    0·
    4 months ago

    Fair point, Alpine offers even more customizability by having more init systems, using openrc and busybox instead of GNU core utils. It has a way better built in installer and is also pretty lightweight.

    However it was involved in some controversies where the dev team showed themselves biased and it’s also quite inconvenient to use if you have been using GNU tools for a while.

    Both distros are neat but I like void cuz its green and alpine is cyan

      • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        4 months ago

        I too would like to know more about this controversies. Some quick web search found me some articles about xlibre rejection as well as preparation for systemd compatibility, none of which should be a big deal.

        As for myself, I avoid running Alpine for a full-featured desktop system simply for the fact they’re designed for embedded systems.

        I have in fact tried setting it up for desktop use. What made me end up abandoning it was that I ended up having to get rid of the stuff that make the distro special (i.e. busybox and musl) since even the lightest distro requires udev and all.

        • confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          0·
          4 months ago

          I use Alpine as my desktop daily driver. The setup-desktop [link] and setup-devd [link] scripts that come with Alpine are convenient for setting up a desktop environment.

          There still is some extra work to get things working but the wiki has a good tutorial page which is a good start for setting up a desktop environment on Alpine.

          I do think Alpine is quite flexible beyond embedded systems. That’s a lot of effort to include desktop environments in their OS or even in major version release notes.

          • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            4 months ago

            While I’m aware that it’s completely feasible and even practical to setup desktop on alpine, what drove me away was the fact we’d be ditching musl & busybox for more full-featured solutions anyway.

            • TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 months ago

              Musl is the real reason why one would choose Void over Alpine. Glibc allocator is faster and the glibc just has better software compatibility.