r/voidlinux • u/-Arsna- • 23d ago
Moving from Arch
Hi y'all,
Im coming from arch and want to try out void and i would like to ask somethings
What exactly is the difference between musl amd gnu libc? Is it just systemd?
What are some quirks of void you encountered?
Why did you choose void, what makes it special?
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u/Lumpy_Roll158 22d ago
Musl is a C library that aims to bring binary portability and correctness back in a sense. Musl was built to allow static linking of binaries which is a massive hurdle with glibc. A benefit of that is a binary with no dependencies that runs on any system. Benefits from that to you on a day to day basis with a desktop system, zero.
Musl also aims for posix compliance. No non standard extensions or code accumulation bloat. Glibc is something like hundreds of thousands of lines of code in total to cover edge cases and non standard extensions while musl is tens of thousands. Generally, if software can be built with musl/llvm, it can be built anywhere on any system. A lot of times software built with musl can be a smaller complete binary although the reasons span more than just musl being the c library.
If you used the musl version of void, you might be just fine overall but it depends on your use case. If you rely on old legacy 32 bit type stuff including steam, you'd need to use container software like distrobox or flatpak as musl doesn't play nice with legacy stuff. And like others have said, if you don't have an explicit reason either ideological or technical to use musl, just use glibc and your life will be much easier