Live Images

Void Linux provides live images containing a base set of utilities as well as an installer to install a Void system on your computer. All live images and rootfs tarballs are available here.

Void provides glibc-based live images for both i686 and x86_64, as well as musl-based live images for x86_64-compatible processors.

System requirements

These are the minimum system requirements when using a live base image i.e. an image without a bundled Desktop Environment:

Architecture	CPU	RAM	Storage	Network
x86_64-glibc	EM64T	96MB	350MB	Ethernet/Wifi*
x86_64-musl	EM64T	96MB	350MB	Ethernet/Wifi*
i686-glibc	Pentium 4 (SSE2)	96MB	350MB	Ethernet/Wifi*

*Networking is required to download additional packages while using the live image as well as to perform a network-based install

Linux beginners are suggested to select from one the following flavours bundled with ready-to-try desktop environments instead.

Flavours

Additional live images with flavours (an additional desktop environment with autologin) are also available. Here's a quick overview of the main components and applications included with each flavour:

	Enlightenment	Cinnamon	LXDE	LXQT	MATE	XFCE
Window Manager	Enlightenment Window Manager	Mutter (Muffin)	Openbox	Openbox	Metacity (Marco)	xfwm4
File Manager	Enlightenment File Manager	Nemo	PCManFM	PCManFM-Qt	Caja	Thunar
Web browser	Firefox ESR	Firefox ESR	Firefox ESR	QupZilla	Firefox ESR	Firefox ESR
Terminal	Terminology	gnome-terminal	LXTerminal	QTerminal	MATE terminal	xfce4-Terminal
Document viewer	-	-	-	-	Atril (PS/PDF)	-
Plain text viewer	-	-	-	-	Pluma	Mousepad
Image viewer	-	-	GPicView	LXImage	Eye of MATE	Ristretto
Archive unpacker	-	-	-	-	Engrampa	-
Other	Mixer, EConnMan (connection manager), Elementary Test		LXTask (task manager), MIME type editor	Screen grabber	Screen grabber, file finder, MATE color picker, MATE font viewer, Disk usage analyzer, Power statistics, System monitor (task manager), Dictionary, Log file viewer	Bulk rename, Orage Globaltime, Orage Calendar, Task Manager, Parole Media Player, Audio Mixer, MIME type editor, Application finder

Please note that the system requirements for these graphical live images are higher and will vary depending on which desktop environment you choose. Also, currently some images can be problematic:

• The musl LXQt image comes with a broken web browser
• The musl Cinnamon image comes with a broken DE (forum thread)

Writing a live image to an USB drive

Please note that Void Linux ISOs are USB bootable by default, so you just need to write the image to the usb/cd/dvd drive with dd, no special tools are required.

First, identify your usb's current device name. At a plain shell prompt:

$ sudo fdisk -l

From the output, you might determine that the device name is /dev/sdc or otherwise, but for safety's sake, it will appear here as /dev/sdx.

Other utilities that could help identify the device name for your usb key include Parted(sudo parted -l may display your USB as UFD - USB flash drive), Disks (gnome-disk-utility) and lsblk.

Then, ensure that that device is unmounted. Change sdx in the following line to your usb's device name:

$ sudo umount /dev/sdx

Change to the directory where your .iso was downloaded to. For example:

$ cd /home/yourusername/Downloads

Warning: The following instruction will destroy data on whichever device is being referred to. Proceed with caution.

Change the following line to display the correct image name and correct device name. Note sdx; sdb2, sdc1, etc. would be incorrect as they refer to partitions.

$ sudo dd bs=4M if=void-live-x86_64-20170220-lxde.iso  of=/dev/sdx  && sync

From Windows onto a USB device

If you must use Windows to write the image and are looking for a GUI based app, USBWriter is proven to work on pendrives (USB sticks) and even SD cards. Most USB writers for Windows that promise to get the job done tend to mangle the data in such a way that the media isn't bootable at all.

From Linux/BSD/OS X/Windows onto a DVD/CD

Disk burning applications may be used to burn the .iso - not copy it as a single file - onto a DVD. Void Linux's base images may fit on larger CDs (image sizes are described above). Note: Response times during live sessions running from DVDs/CDs will be markedly slower than those running from a USB or hard drive.

From Linux, disk burning applications include xfburn, k3b and brasero.

Accounts

Live images include two accounts:

Username	Password
root	voidlinux
anon	voidlinux

The anon account is a member of the wheel group, which allows you to run sudo to escalate privileges in order to run administrative commands.

To start the installer, run void-installer as root or sudo void-installer as anon.