Musl Distros - GNU/Linux

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Pieces Of Quiet
Members
(15-06-2017, 06:22 AM)z3bra Wrote: Quick update! I'm finally running my distro in a chroot, with all packs compiled from within this chroot (including gcc and binutils!). A few packs are still resisting the compilation process (m4 and diffutils for example) but overall, it works quite well!

I will hopefully boot it from real hardware soon, so I can start working on a better init and service management programs!

Nice to see more progress being made on this, great work z3bra
jkl
Long time nixers
2018 update on-topic:

I (yes, I) have spent the past three months with Void-musl and I can't really recommend it. Not because Void would suck - no, Void is actually lovely which frightens me since it partially destroys my hatred towards Linux. It is the musl library itself which has adaption issues: Most things work flawlessly, but most large packages (including Chromium and its descendants, e.g. qutebrowser) refuse to work on the musl spin. Other software (like Android Studio) which is partially "closed" is not even available on this version.

For hardware reasons, I still can't switch to BSD yet, but I'll need to replace this Void soon. Since my experiences with musl were not quite good, I should probably reevaluate my options - one of Void's killer features is out for me.

edit: typo

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<mort> choosing a terrible license just to be spiteful towards others is possibly the most tux0r thing I've ever seen
z3bra
Grey Hair Nixers
I've been running void-musl on my own notebook as well. My needs are most likely different from yours as I only use this while travelling, and all I do on this box is connecting over ssh/serial to equipments, and read docs/emails on the internet.

For this purpose, it works quite well. I had troubles getting surf-webkit2 to work correctly, but firefox works like a charm (putting aside the fact I have only 1g RAM...)
Using runit gave me some frustration moment though, as it's quite different from the others init systems I know, but once you get used to it, eveyrthing just works.

Having tried to build up a musl-only distro, I feel your frustration though, and can confirm that many software are not ready to support it. I was prepared to that though, and was suprised by the amount of software working with musl! I didn't expect there would be that much!
I also use alpine on my servers, and I've yet to find a software that doesn't work with musl, or doesn't have a working musl equivalent!

Also, welcome on the linux boat jkl :P
evbo
Members
jkl on Linux? Say it isn't so!

I definitely had issues running void-musl for the same reasons: missing packages that only work on glibc. Void is pretty awesome though, it's by far the best Linux distro I've ever used.
jkl
Long time nixers
(07-02-2018, 11:38 AM)z3bra Wrote: I've yet to find a software that doesn't work with musl, or doesn't have a working musl equivalent!

WebKit. (Except you patch it manually - and it's a moving target.)

(07-02-2018, 11:38 AM)z3bra Wrote: Also, welcome on the linux boat jkl :P

You wish!

(07-02-2018, 01:24 PM)evbo Wrote: Void is pretty awesome though, it's by far the best Linux distro I've ever used.

I agree up to a certain point.

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<mort> choosing a terrible license just to be spiteful towards others is possibly the most tux0r thing I've ever seen
z3bra
Grey Hair Nixers
Webkit is a nightmare anyway. surf(1) is now based on webkit2, and it took me over a month to get it compilrd and working again on crux (not even speaking of musl..)

As for void, I wouldn't say it's the best distro though. Some thing are even plain stupid IMO. Ever tried to install imagemagick?
I took me more than 5 minutes, just to figure out that the package name has a capital 'M' in the middle!
jkl
Long time nixers
That's because it's ImageMagick, not imagemagick, so Void is actually right here.

(I am purging Void as we speak.)

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<mort> choosing a terrible license just to be spiteful towards others is possibly the most tux0r thing I've ever seen
evbo
Members
Quote:As for void, I wouldn't say it's the best distro though. Some thing are even plain stupid IMO. Ever tried to install imagemagick?
I took me more than 5 minutes, just to figure out that the package name has a capital 'M' in the middle!

Packages in Void are properly capitalized. I must admit that at first that caused me great consternation trying to find -devel files. libXft-devel was one that threw me for a loop :)

Quote:(I am purging Void as we speak.)

Since you can't use a BSD at the moment, what are you purging for?
z3bra
Grey Hair Nixers
It might be the correct capitalization, but it is still a pain to deal with on a day to day basis.
jkl
Long time nixers
(07-02-2018, 08:24 PM)evbo Wrote: Since you can't use a BSD at the moment, what are you purging for?

Gentoo! (Just to restore my deep hatred for Linux. (Also, this is the first time I try that.))

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<mort> choosing a terrible license just to be spiteful towards others is possibly the most tux0r thing I've ever seen