Voidlinux Install

Table of Contents

Notes on my Void Linux setup.

Update: I’m no longer using Void Linux, my desktop and laptop computers run Arch.

Recently I switched the Linux distribution I use on my desktop and laptop to Void from Arch. I had used Void before but switched away from it because there were some packages I use missing from their repositories. That point hasn’t really changed much, but I thought I’d give it another go anyway.

Note: There’s a guide on the Void Linux docs page about an installation with encrypted boot, I personally choose to leave my boot partition unencrypted because I think it’s largely useless to do it; and also because the Grub bootloader doesn’t support luks2 scheme so you’re forced to use luks1 which I’m uncomfortable with.

I use an ISO keyboard with a UK layout, I’m also a heavy vim user so a lot of of the decisions I make are personal preference, YMMV. Here’s how I set it up:

Firstly boot the live ISO image into the box you’re doing the installation on (won’t cover that since it’s fairly obvious) and login as root.

Preparation
#

Sets TERM variable (especially useful if doing this through ssh) and vim mode for the shell

root@void-live:~ # export TERM=xterm-256color

root@void-live:~ # alias v=nvim

root@void-live:~ # set -o vi

root@void-live:~ # bind -m vi-command 'Control-l: clear-screen'

root@void-live:~ # bind -m vi-insert 'Control-l: clear-screen'

Change keycode 58 = Escape to make Caps Lock key act as Escape because it’s $currentYear

root@void-live:~ # v /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/uk.map.gz

root@void-live:~ # loadkeys uk

Ping any website to check internet connection

root@void-live:~ # ping gnu.org

Check whether you’re booted into UEFI or BIOS

root@void-live:~ # ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

Partitions
#

Create 2 partitions on your drive (first one is just for /boot so I always make it 1GB, which is plenty). Encrypt the second one with LUKS

root@void-live:~ # fdisk /dev/sda

root@void-live:~ # cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda2

root@void-live:~ # cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 [NAMEOFcrypt]

LVM setup

root@void-live:~ # pvcreate /dev/mapper/[NAMEOFcrypt]

root@void-live:~ # vgcreate [NAMEOF-vg] /dev/mapper/[NAMEOFcrypt]

root@void-live:~ # lvcreate --name root -L 100G [NAMEOF-vg]

root@void-live:~ # lvcreate --name home -l 100%FREE [NAMEOF-vg]

Format the newly created partitions

root@void-live:~ # mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1

root@void-live:~ # mkfs.ext4 -L root /dev/[NAMEOF-vg]/root

root@void-live:~ # mkfs.ext4 -L home /dev/[NAMEOF-vg]/home

Mount the partitions

root@void-live:~ # mount /dev/[NAMEOF-vg]/root /mnt

root@void-live:~ # mkdir -p /mnt/{home,boot}

root@void-live:~ # mount /dev/[NAMEOF-vg]/home /mnt/home

root@void-live:~ # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Mount dev proc sys and run in bind mode in order to chroot to /mnt

root@void-live:~ # for dir in dev proc sys run; do mkdir -p /mnt/$dir; mount --rbind /$dir /mnt/$dir; mount --make-rslave /mnt/$dir; done

System bootstrap and installation
#

root@void-live:~ # xbps-install -Sy -R https://alpha.de.repo.voidlinux.org/current -r /mnt base-system base-devel cryptsetup lvm2 neovim openssh connman connman-ncurses dbus-elogind python3 openntpd grub-x86_64-efi

Chroot into /mnt and continue installation from there

root@void-live:~ # chroot /mnt bash

chroot # chown root:root /

chroot # chmod 755 /

chroot # echo [NAMEOFbox] > /etc/hostname

Modify hosts file to reflect new hostname

chroot # v /etc/hosts

Set your timezone, keyboard (I replace Caps_Lock to act as Escape again by setting keycode 58 = Escape), keymap, and locale

chroot # ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London /etc/localtime

chroot # v /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/uk.map.gz

chroot # echo "KEYMAP=uk" >> /etc/rc.conf

chroot # echo "LANG=en_GB.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

chroot # echo "en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8" >> /etc/default/libc-locales

chroot # xbps-reconfigure -f glibc-locales

Users and groups
#

chroot # useradd -m -g wheel [NAMEOFuser]

chroot # groupadd libvirt

chroot # usermod -a -G audio,video,libvirt,lp [NAMEOFuser]

chroot # chown [NAMEOFuser]:wheel -R /home/[NAMEOFuser]

chroot # chmod 700 /home/[NAMEOFuser]

chroot # passwd [NAMEOFuser]

chroot # passwd root

Create a swapfile
#

chroot # dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swapfile count=8192 bs=1MiB

chroot # chmod 600 /var/swapfile

chroot # mkswap /var/swapfile

chroot # swapon /var/swapfile

Edit your fstab
#

Use this command to add the UUID of sda1 into the fstab file

chroot # blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/sda1 >> /etc/fstab

Your fstab should look like this

/dev/[NAMEOF-vg]/root       /        ext4      defaults         0       0
/dev/[NAMEOF-vg]/home       /home    ext4      defaults         0       0
UUID=[UUIDOFsda1]           /boot    vfat      defaults         0       0
/var/swapfile               swap     swap      none             0       0

Bootloader
#

I use grub as my bootloader, feel free to use any alternatives you like here.

Use this command if running UEFI

chroot # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id="Void" /dev/sda

Use this one if running BIOS

chroot # grub-install --bootloader-id="Void" /dev/sda

Use this command to add the UUID of the encrypted partition /dev/sda2 into /etc/default/grub

chroot # blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/sda2 >> /etc/default/grub

Modify /etc/default/grub to look like the following (only need to change LINUX_DEFAULT line)

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 rd.auto=1 cryptdevice=UUID=[UUIDOFsda2]"

Update grub.cfg

chroot # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Finalising
#

chroot # rm /var/service/agetty-{tty3,tty4,tty5,tty6}

chroot # ln -fs /etc/sv/{sshd,dbus,connmand,openntpd} /var/service/

chroot # echo "%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/sudo-wheel

chroot # echo "[NAMEOFuser] hard nofile 524288" >> /etc/security/limits.conf

Exit chroot, unmount drives and reboot

chroot # exit

root@void-live:~ # umount -R /mn

root@void-live:~ # reboot

Right now you should have a fully functioning Void install, I use an Ansible playbook which sets up my entire graphical environment, dotfiles and other things; maybe I’ll publish that soon.

Preparation#

Partitions#

System bootstrap and installation#

Users and groups#

Create a swapfile#

Edit your fstab#

Bootloader#

Finalising#