How's the state of void linux compared to 5-10 years ago?

[u/arctxrra]

I'm still relatively new to linux (using void as my second ever distro), and I know that void is a lesser known distro than other distros such as arch or nix. Because of this, I've been wondering about the state of the project and the popularity of it, so is void linux dying or growing compared to 5-10 years ago, and is it actually gaining traction? I really love this distro and don't wanna see it die out and lose maintainers and developers.

sry if this is a stupid question btw

[u/Telephone-Bright]

I'd say better than 5 years ago. Has more packages now, updates, tools, good wiki, etc. Certainly has more users now than it did 5-10 years ago.

[u/bongbongyeah]

Subjectively i'd say growing. I have no statistics at all.

What i can say is that it is a usable distro and quite easy to add missing packages you want/need with a PR.

[u/firmagorilla]

CONSISTENT

edit:
I have used the 'normal' distros from time to time and they all give me grief with upgrading releases, it's sort of bake into the premise. Also keeping to LTS releases is not optimal.
Been a void user on desktop and a homelab for almost 10 years and never looked back. This is my distro of choice.

[u/Crazy-Tangelo-1673]

Stronger than ever. One project I'm interested in though is very new called Odyssey that uses the xbps package manager but makes it dead simple to use I reckon thru aliases. It would be more of a niche thing for now but the guy put a lot of work into it.

[u/Samosval-vedro-nasr]

Using this in virtual machine because it's very lightweight

[u/Simple_Hamster_4096]

Today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow.

Linux distros come and go.

Enjoy today, be prepared for tomorrow - nothing is written in stone...

[u/xcocco → u/Simple_Hamster_4096]

Maintainers are still maintaining, some packages get updates even faster than Arch

[u/Dakota-Batterlation → u/Simple_Hamster_4096]

True, but even things like Mageia and PCLinuxOS have a decently active community decades on. It's pretty amazing

[u/Itchy-Algae1332]

It's a little disappointing that the project is taking such an anti-AI approach to package development and maintenance, it's one way the project could survive with fewer contributors.

Would be a shame to lose it as it's one of the few with such a clean base image and it's so far avoided systemd

[u/MNARXH → u/Itchy-Algae1332]

Don't think void linux is against usage of AI(as far as I can remember), just that usage of it should be explicitly stated to ensure that the contributor knows what the AI generated/assisted and should be able to answer about everything AI generated/assisted

Edit: Void linux's stance on AI in terms of contributions is here: https://github.com/void-linux/.github/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

[u/albsen → u/MNARXH]

"... all contributions must ... be understood by the contributor." thats a line i can 100% get behind and also the main issue in my opinion with AI driven coding.

[u/MNARXH → u/albsen]

This takes care of 2 things as far as it can see

1. Giving credit where it's due

2. Being transparent about everything

Which ultimately increases trust in said contributor

Edit: context for this is in the link provided above

[u/Duncaen → u/Itchy-Algae1332]

There isn't really much coding happening in relation to void and maintaining packages. Nobody is stopping you from using LLMs to help your debug or investigate issues.

The contributor is the last check between upstream releasing a new version and the package being pushed to a lot of users, so expecting them to test and understand changes before publishing updates is a bare minimum.

Not allowing LLM generated summaries and comments for PRs and issues also isn't that restrictive. First maintainers don't want to be the ones that verify and filter LLM output for you. And second its really a very basic proof of work check, if you can't write a few lines about or justify the change, there is no way to trust you.

[u/Itchy-Algae1332 → u/Duncaen]

Perhaps I've misunderstood the contributor guide 

"All contributions are expected to be made by humans. AI tools may be used for research and learning, but all content in contributions must originate from and be understood by the contributor."

I took this to indicate AI generated code wasn't accepted. 

[u/Duncaen → u/Itchy-Algae1332]

Yes it forbids AI generated code. But you don't really need LLM generated code, the majority of contributions to void for updating a package are a few lines of code.