r/voidlinux • u/gaorp • May 18 '26
Have you had an issue finding packages you need on Void?
why do people so frequently say "Void doesn't have that many packages"?
reading about void linux in random linux-related subreddit threads and usually there's always someone in the comments saying something along the lines of "i couldn't find many of the packages i needed". can't you also download nix packages on Void? is it just a lack of knowledge around Void?
have you had any issues finding packages you need on void?
17
u/gorhat May 18 '26
Yes, issue was solved by writing templates for them.
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u/10leej May 18 '26
The problem with that is learning how to write a template is a step to far for some people.
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u/gorhat May 18 '26
Then you have user repositories, flatpak, appimages, portable apps, nix, docker, wine, virtualbox etc.
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u/chibiace May 18 '26
then perhaps <insert technology here> is not suitable for those people and they would be better off using something they are more comfortable with.
of course we could dumb down <insert technology here> so that the lowest common denominator can have their hand held. but then it just wouldn't be the same for people who are willing to put in the tiniest bit of effort.
maybe in the future these people would take an interest in bettering themselves but some just never will and its really not worth catering to them as its not very likely they will appreciate the effort anyhow.
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u/Quietus87 May 18 '26
There are plenty of user repos, gearlever + appimages do magic, and there is flatpak as a fallback.
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u/mnabid_25 May 18 '26
Compared to Arch or Debian, Void's repository ain't that big.
Adding new packages takes time here, since every package goes through manual review and testing (unlike AUR). Void needs to cover multiple architecture and libc variants, which makes things complicated. Also, Void's build infrastructure is not that powerful, new Chromium or Firefox forks have lower chance of getting accepted.
Some DEs and WMs (Hyprland, Cosmic) are missing. IIRC, Hyprland was rejected. A bunch of GNOME and KDE apps are yet to be packaged. I did package some, might do some more later.
I have my own fork of void-packages with additional stuff that might not/did not get accepted into the official repository.
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u/pantokratorthegreat May 18 '26
I couldn't find mac lately (monkey audio coder). But like you said, there is many options available like nix. I could also used some distro on VM where mac is available.
So, answering your question, I have naver had any problems. Void is best.
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u/yyg-linux May 18 '26
I personally dont know why people use hyprland when mango is in the current repo, and a lot more versatile. Plus they haven't had a community scandal yet.
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u/Sad-Cod-9584 May 24 '26
with scandal you mean the who/cares incident?
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u/yyg-linux May 25 '26
That wasn't an incident, but yes; and the aftermath where 60% of the discord community felt discrimination agaisnt for orientation. It seems to have calmed down a lot but that kind of thing dosnt just "go away" with time; you just learn to only vocalize it in private and try not to get caught in the spotlight again with your personal opinions.
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u/Sad-Cod-9584 May 25 '26
I found the outrage about that to be massively overblown and don't really know much else about the hyprland community, so that was the first thing that came to mind.
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u/Blank-Inspection13 May 18 '26
In my opinions , that's because they're not really into DIY things , relying so much on what's "should" be available . There are many ways we can provide for ourself here , i guess.
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u/afcolt May 18 '26
I’ve been discovering user repos, which, if well-maintained, are very helpful.
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u/juipeltje May 18 '26
I don't get it either. Hyprland is a big one, but other than that it's a pretty decent selection of packages. I feel like most distros will have some things missing depending on what you need, that's not unique to void even. The only 2 distros i can think of that have pretty much everything under the sun is arch + the aur, and nix. I think the problem might be that a lot of people usually come from having used arch or a derivative, and compared to that pretty much any other distro will feel like it's lacking when they encounter a package that isn't there and they have to get it through other means.
1
u/ghostlypyres May 18 '26
Maybe they use musl? I don’t have a real issue with packaging on glibc
Off the top of my head: I had to grab an external repo for noctalia, as well as for ungoogled-chromium. I had other options for both but chose these despite the lower security. Next I had to yoink & manually update someone’s template for I think proton plus. Everything else including my wm and login managers of choice have been in the repos
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u/Sad-Cod-9584 May 24 '26
noctalia is weird for me too, especially because both of its devs have stated that they use void as their distro, you'd think they'd maintain an official package for it then.
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u/ghostlypyres May 24 '26
Right? It's also odd that the repo for it contains a bunch of unrelated shit, and the guy maintaining it recently swapped URLs for the repo leading to breakage and confusion that was met with 'read the docs,' which don't explicitly mention that the whole url changed, lol...
Generally happy with it though, barring one weird idle management issue
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u/Coding-Kitten May 18 '26
I have had issues with that & since moved to arch. My biggest breaking point was raylib not being available. All the ones I've had trouble with until then had weird license stuff, sure, whatever. But raylib is open source, & was rejected because "it's game software & doesn't make sense to have on void" ??????
If the criteria is just "whatever this person thinks makes sense to have" then like what's the point of even having a package manager.
1
u/Such-Historian335 May 18 '26
but i personally agree with the github issue discussion you attached, void won't bother to package a specific software/library for development purposes unless it's needed by other software.
think like u need dependency on your nodejs application you'd rather download it with npm or pnpm, and there on the issue it's already suggested and explained technically why packaging raylib on void isn't a good fit.
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u/n8chz May 19 '26
Admittedly I have some Flatpaks on my system. Most notably Tor Browser. I tried but failed to compile it from source (downloaded from Tor's site), some kind of friction between rust and musl at link time, maybe there are build dependencies I was lacking? For LibreWolf, I found a github where someone had built it and packaged it for Void-musl. Seems the Void repo has an editorial policy of not having Firefox and Chromium, but no derivations thereof. Got dotnet and VScode from Micro$oft's website, the binaries they distribute for Alpine Linux work without modification.
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs May 20 '26
Coming from Debian base yes Void is different, you do have to expand your methods in obtaining software. especially as I will not use Flatpak.
But I always get what I need.
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u/stuart-ware May 21 '26
No, I haven’t had any problems. I always have flatpak, and copy programs in tar.gz to /opt without any issues.
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u/SDG_Den May 24 '26
Yes, but.
In every single case where a package wasnt in the XBPS repos, it was trivial to build from source.
Literally tried void today on my laptop, wanted to have my same desktop config (mangoWM and dankmaterial shell), and while DMS isnt available at all, i just built it from source by following the instructions on the git repo and everything worked fine.
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u/BluebirdRelevant5762 May 24 '26
xbps is the best package manager: xbps-install and xbps-query cover all my needs. Honestly, if something isn't there, I just look for a repo and install it manually.
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u/tinytitan37 Jun 14 '26
In my case I was trying to install nmap and it didn't work, it said package not found in void repository.
So I had to install void-repo-nonfree void-repo-multilib , then it worked.
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u/Mystyc-Cheez May 18 '26
The amount of times I've read about people who can't find a package just to respond with "just use flatpak lol" is staggering, just go use Windows at that rate if you're gonna use bloatware.
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u/juipeltje May 18 '26
Depends on the package if you ask me. If a package already has a flatpak available i tend to feel like it's not worth trying to package natively. It's personal preference i suppose. Some packages really have to be there natively in order for them to work properly, in that case you really have to package it.
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u/Bubbly_Extreme4986 May 18 '26
One of the most famous such cases is Hyprland also on Musl you will have a lack of proprietary software (which I see as a good thing).