Installation
This section includes general information about the process of installing Void. For specific guides, see the «Advanced Installation» section.
Base system requirements
Void can be installed on very minimalist hardware, though we recommend the following minimums for most installations:
| Architecture | CPU | RAM | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|
| x86_64-glibc | x86_64 | 96MB | 700MB |
| x86_64-musl | x86_64 | 96MB | 600MB |
| i686-glibc | Pentium 4 (SSE2) | 96MB | 700MB |
Note that xfce image installations require more resources.
Void is not available for the i386, i486, or i586 architectures.
Before installing musl Void, please read the «musl» section of this Handbook, so that you are aware of software incompatibilities.
It is highly recommended to have a network connection available during install to download updates, but this is not required. ISO images contain installation data on-disk and can be installed without network connectivity.
Downloading installation media
The most recent live images and rootfs tarballs can be downloaded from https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/live/current/. They can also be downloaded from other mirrors. Previous releases can be found under https://repo-default.voidlinux.org/live/, organized by date.
Verifying images
Each image release’s directory contains two files used to verify the image(s) you download. First, there is a sha256sum.txt file containing image checksums to verify the integrity of the downloaded images. Second is the sha256sum.sig file, used to verify the authenticity of the checksums.
It is necessary to verify both the image’s integrity and authenticity. It is, therefore, recommended that you download both files.
Verifying image integrity
You can verify the integrity of a downloaded file using sha256sum(1) with the sha256sum.txt file downloaded above. The following command will check the integrity of only the image(s) you have downloaded:
$ sha256sum -c --ignore-missing sha256sum.txt void-live-x86_64-musl-20170220.iso: OK This verifies that the image is not corrupt.
Verifying digital signature
Prior to using any image you’re strongly encouraged to validate the signatures on the image to ensure they haven’t been tampered with.
Current images are signed using a minisign key that is specific to the release. If you’re on Void already, you can obtain the keys from the void-release-keys package, which will be downloaded using your existing XBPS trust relationship with your mirror and package signatures. You will also need a copy of minisign(1); on Void, this is provided by the minisign package.
The minisign executable is usually provided by a package of the same name, and can also be installed on Windows, even without WSL or MinGW.
If you are not currently using Void Linux, it will also be necessary to obtain the appropriate signing key from our Git repository here.
Once you’ve obtained the key, you can verify your image with the sha256sum.sig and sha256sum.txt files. First, you need to verify the authenticity of the sha256sum.txt file.
The following example demonstrates the verification of the sha256sum.txt file for the 20230628 images with minisign :
$ minisign -V -p /usr/share/void-release-keys/void-release-20230628.pub -x sha256sum.sig -m sha256sum.txt Signature and comment signature verified Trusted comment: This key is only valid for images with date 20230628. Finally, you need to verify that the checksum for your image matches the one in the sha256sum.txt file. This can be done with the sha256(1) utility from the outils package, as demonstrated below for the 20230628 x86_64 base image:
$ sha256 -C sha256sum.txt void-live-x86_64-20230628-base.iso (SHA256) void-live-x86_64-20230628-base.iso: OK Alternatively, if the sha256 utility isn’t available to you, you can use sha256sum(1):
$ sha256sum -c sha256sum.txt --ignore-missing void-live-x86_64-20230628-base.iso: OK If neither program is available to you, you can compute the SHA256 hash of the file and compare it to the value contained in sha256sum.txt .
If the verification process does not produce the expected «OK» status, do not use it! Please alert the Void Linux team of where you got the image and how you verified it, and we will follow up on it.
Installation Guide
Once you have downloaded a Void image to install and prepared your install media, you are ready to install Void Linux.
Before you begin installation, you should determine whether your machine boots using BIOS or UEFI. This will affect how you plan partitions. See Partitioning Notes for more detail.
The following features are not supported by the installer script:
Booting
Boot your machine from the install media you created. If you have enough RAM, there is an option on the boot screen to load the entire image into ram, which will take some time but speed up the rest of the install process.
Once the live image has booted, log in as root with password voidlinux and run:
The following sections will detail each screen of the installer.
Keyboard
Select the keymap for your keyboard; standard «qwerty» keyboards will generally use the «us» keymap.
Network
Select your primary network interface. If you do not choose to use DHCP, you will be prompted to provide an IP address, gateway, and DNS servers.
If you choose a wireless network interface, you will be prompted to provide the SSID, encryption type ( wpa or wep ), and password. If void-installer fails to connect to your network, you may need to exit the installer and configure it manually using wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd before continuing.
Source
To install packages provided on the install image, select Local . Otherwise, you may select Network to download the latest packages from the Void repository.
Warning: If you are installing the desktop environment from the xfce image, you MUST choose Local for the source!
Hostname
Select a hostname for your computer (that is all lowercase, with no spaces.)
Locale
Select your default locale settings. This option is for glibc only, as musl does not currently support locales.
Timezone
Select your timezone based on standard timezone options.
Root password
Enter and confirm your root password for the new installation. The password will not be shown on screen.
User account
Choose a login (default void ) and a descriptive name for that login. Then enter and confirm the password for the new user. You will then be prompted to verify the groups for this new user. They are added to the wheel group by default and will have sudo access. Default groups and their descriptions are listed here.
Login names have some restrictions, as described in useradd(8).
Bootloader
Select the disk to install a bootloader on when Void is installed. You may select none to skip this step and install a bootloader manually after completing the installation process. If installing a bootloader, you will also be asked whether or not you want a graphical terminal for the GRUB menu.
Partition
Next, you will need to partition your disks. Void does not provide a preset partition scheme, so you will need to create your partitions manually with cfdisk(8). You will be prompted with a list of disks. Select the disk you want to partition and the installer will launch cfdisk for that disk. Remember you must write the partition table to the drive before you exit the partition editor.
If using UEFI, it is recommended you select GPT for the partition table and create a partition (typically between 200MB-1GB) of type EFI System , which will be mounted at /boot/efi .
If using BIOS, it is recommended you select MBR for the partition table. Advanced users may use GPT but will need to create a special BIOS partition for GRUB to boot.
See the Partitioning Notes for more details about partitioning your disk.
Filesystems
Create the filesystems for each partition you have created. For each partition you will be prompted to choose a filesystem type, whether you want to create a new filesystem on the partition, and a mount point, if applicable. When you are finished, select Done to return to the main menu.
If using UEFI, create a vfat filesystem and mount it at /boot/efi .
Review settings
It is a good idea to review your settings before proceeding. Use the right arrow key to select the settings button and hit . All your selections will be shown for review.
Install
Selecting Install from the menu will start the installer. The installer will create all the filesystems selected, and install the base system packages. It will then generate an initramfs and install a GRUB2 bootloader to the bootable partition.
These steps will all run automatically, and after the installation is completed successfully, you can reboot into your new Void Linux install!
Post installation
After booting into your Void installation for the first time, perform a system update.