i actually documented something for once, so i could reference it myself later. asking for some feedback on this, but it is quite long so i get it if you don’t read it all or care. figured some newbie might stumble upon this in the future and get something out of it.

  • First of all, make sure you have the Void installation guide open. Most of this is just hand holding you through their instructions. For what it’s worth, I think it’s valuable to have another newb explain how they went about getting things done.
  1. Install latest ISO
  • Download the base image, which should look something like: void-live-x86_64-20210218.iso
  • If you’re doing this properly, ensure that the sha256sum.txt and sha256sum.sig files are authentic. The Void docs hold your hand for this step.
  1. Do the Disk Mounting Thingy
  • I use balena but you can use any other similar tool.
  1. Boot machine and change Boot Device List ranking to USB first
  • Shut computer off -> press Enter (that’s the key I spam for my ThinkPad, it might be different for your machine) -> move USB HDD up to #1
  1. Plug USB in and Boot up
  2. Select Enter on the first option: Void Linux (no RAM)
  • Or choose the RAM option if you want superspeed. It’s not really necessary and I get paranoid when doing things non-default.
  1. Configure the WIFI with wpa_supplicant

  • Create symbolic links and start the services

    sudo ln -s /etc/sv/dhcpcd /var/service

    sudo ln -s /etc/sv/wpa_supplicant /var/service

    sudo sv up dhcpcd

    sudo sv up wpa_supplicant

    ip link show

  • Configure your network now that we know the interface (for me, that’s wlp58s0)

    wpa_cli -i {wifi interface}

  • Within the wpa_cli interface, set up the network

    scan

    scan_results

    add_network
set_network 0 ssid "MYNETWORK"
set_network 0 psk "secret"

    enable_network 0
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  • Test your wifi

    ping google.com

  • Save your configuration

wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp58s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
  1. Enter the Void Installer
  • Do the thing (going to expand on this later, I actually feel like I should study this step and understand what it is I’m doing before I tell anyone to copy me).
  • For now, this video helped a ton.
void-installer
  1. Update the package manager
sudo xbps-install -u xbps
  1. Update the uhh rest of the stuff
sudo xbps-install -Su
  1. Restart the services:
xcheckrestart
  • On error, install the following dependency: xtools
    sudo xbps-install xtools
  1. Reboot to get latest kernel version after update
sudo shutdown -r now
  1. Install packages:
  • After install, I got started with: xorg, pulseaudio, i3-gaps, dmenu, alacritty, firefox, nnn, sxiv, Zathura, htop, node, rust, and ofc nvim. This will keep me going for a while.
sudo xbps-install -Su xorg pulseaudio i3-gaps dmenu alacritty firefox nnn sxiv zathura htop nodejs rustup
  1. On error, install the following dependencies:
sudo xbps-install base-devel libX11-devel libXft-devel libXinerama-devel freetype-devel fontconfig-devel
  1. Edit .xinitrc (in your home directory) to run i3-gaps on load
exec i3
  1. Update packages, just in case and reboot
  • Honestly, I just do this out of paranoia and habit. Every time I open a terminal session I just update everything.
sudo xbps-install -Syu

reboot
  • Some issues I faced dealt with audio, which I found was quite common. Ensure you have pulseaudio installed, and if that doesnt work, apparently alsamixer also works pretty well. Just make sure to change your i3 config (/.config/i3/config) to bind the alsamixer settings and not the default pulseaudio bindings.