What are Advantages / Disadvantages to Quirky Void?

[tammi806]

Hello forum,

I've used Puppy Linux and I'm using Easy OS and I'm curious about "Quirky Void".

What makes it different and is there advantages to the "Quirky Void".

I know it receives snap shots.

Is it an immutable Linux dstro.

I've read the links I've found related to it but a lot of it I just don't understand.

Is there a way to explain it and it's advantages in a layman's terms as I'm no guru.

It seems to run pretty well on a USB flash drive although the preferred seems to be on a HDD or SSD which if I'm understanding what I'm reading is due to the btrfs file system it uses.

Thanks in advance and my apologies for needing it explained in simpler terms.

[CF-DKS]

Thanks in advance and my apologies for needing it explained in simpler terms.

I'm not very technical either and often find a lot of what is discussed on the forum goes right over my head. Simpler terms would be most welcome! I also find there is quite often an assumption that anyone on here is familiar with the basics but sometimes the solution to a problem starts with assuming that the person asking knows how to do what is suggested. I haven't done any command line work since the days of DOS, and never with Linux. The last time I edited code was with Edlin! I am a refugee from Windows who is just so grateful to Barry for EasyOs!

[williwaw]

Hello forum,

I've used Puppy Linux and I'm using Easy OS and I'm curious about "Quirky Void".

What makes it different and is there advantages to the "Quirky Void".

I know it receives snap shots.

Is it an immutable Linux dstro.

I've read the links I've found related to it but a lot of it I just don't understand.

Is there a way to explain it and it's advantages in a layman's terms as I'm no guru.

It seems to run pretty well on a USB flash drive although the preferred seems to be on a HDD or SSD which if I'm understanding what I'm reading is due to the btrfs file system it uses.

Thanks in advance and my apologies for needing it explained in simpler terms.

advantages/disadvantages......not sure one can say it does anything better,
it different and experimental. perhaps btrfs snapshots have a size advantage over the EasyOs snapshots., but you need to use brtfs tools to truly back up with.
Using void repos seems to work well, but presents ongoing challenges for updating.
I guess brtfs is its strong point for me.

[tammi806]

@CF-DKS
Glad I'm not alone in the no understanding.
I do understand some of what I read but sometimes the more I read the more confussed I become.

@williwaw
I guess I'm gonna do some more checking into and see what I can learn.

I'm gonna dig through my stash and see if I can get a hard drive to install it on and see what happens.
It looks like a neat distro and it ran pretty good on a thumb drive.

Okay Thanks for the replies.

Have a good evening.

[nnriyer]

You can install in internal hardisk such as SSD etc. I have installled in my HP Laptop and working fine now

[tammi806]

@nnriyer

Yeah I'd like to get an SSD however on a fixed incomeso not in my budget.
I do have quite a few mechanical hard drives on hand in my parts stash.

Thanks for the reply.

[Federico]

Quirky Void is basically Void Linux with the same window manager and UI of EasyOS. Void Linux is a very configurable Linux distro based on the xbps package format. It adopts a rolling release model. That means: there are no updates and no versions: simply every time all packages of the distro are updated through the package manager, the distro will be up to date.
Interesting on Quirky Void, if I remember well, is also that it is possible to install both .deb and .xbps package types.
However, there is no option to save the session when the system is powered off (and also no containers - if I remember well -). The update procedure of the system was still being worked on the last time I tried it.
I apologize in advance if I told anything which is not correct (or not correct any more).

[tammi806]

@Federico

I've been over on the Void Linux websites and read pretty much the same about Void Linux.

Advantages is its speed and small footprint and it seems to have a lot of available packages.

Almost sounds like an immutable Linux distro since it seems to only receive snap shots every so often.

No containers Hmm I kinda like the idea of containers and being able to isolate my HDD(s) and running from ram only mode.

Well I'm going to keep searching and see what I find and will most likely slap a HDD in my desktop and give it a run.

Thanks for the reply.

[williwaw]

@nnriyer

Yeah I'd like to get an SSD however on a fixed incomeso not in my budget.
I do have quite a few mechanical hard drives on hand in my parts stash.

Thanks for the reply. :)

Tammi,
It doesnt need a drive of its own but does need a btrfs partition if you can carve one out on your existing internal drive. it doesnt need the entire partition but can be installed frugally to a folder on the brtfs partition. that said, I do not know of any other frugally installable OSs that need a btrfs partition which it could share space with. but there could well be one as I havent looked. Maybe more of interest could be lockdown

The ability of QV to install into a folder inside a partition is important; it is possible to lock the user inside that folder, unable to see outside. Hence Lockdown can be achieved.

when setting up new drives, I have come to prefer gpt over mbr/msdosfs as it is not limited to four partitions which seems to work nicer when playing with multiple OS's plus a swap partition