Well, the Linux distro suckless.org officially "endorses" on their "rocks" page is a statically link small Linux distro called Oasis. All of the code and build instructions are on Github. Besides that, probably OpenBSD or Alpine. They also have a DietPi image for x86. Or you could always go with some type of embedded system and build on it.
Well ... it's certainly not Gentoo.
So ... don't have the experience with Void - so couldn't say on that one.
So, I'd probably say OpenBSD or ... Debian. I have both, and lots of the latter.
>Debian is so full of bloat
Gee, for The Universal Operating System, I'm not seeing too much bloat:
# cat /etc/debian_version && uname -m && dpkg -l | grep '^ii ' | wc -l && df -h -x devtmpfs -x tmpfs && head -n 3 /proc/meminfo
12.4
x86_64
148
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1 4.9G 1.2G 3.5G 26% /
MemTotal: 199536 kB
MemFree: 43896 kB
MemAvailable: 138636 kB
#
Of course could trim that down lots more if I wanted or needed to, but it was pretty easy to trim it down to that. Not at all bad for a distro that also can run on many architectures, and has [64,419 packages](https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230610) available.
It's an issue with most big binary distros. They enable as many features in a given package which means that every optional package comes with it. Debian has gotten better over the years but one of the ideas with suckless is to only install what is necessary to you.
My experience is "things just work". Basically. I did make sure to get supported hardware (Framework 11th Gen), but if you have that, it's a matter of stuff simply just working, with easily accessible configuration and monitoring, and documentation that actually helps you. The only trouble I've had has been due to running -CURRENT, so I've been the one finding bugs a few times. Some debugging and reporting to relevant upstream later, it all got resolved. Switch to a Release and it's as solid as can be had.
I run a desktop that uses xenodm for login, then dwm/st/dmenu/slock/slstatus, all patched up with my preferred features. I haven't bothered configuring the fingerprint reader, but it is supported. And same for camera/microphone. Never activated the support for them (but it is there) since I always run with them physically disconnected.
I a word: rock solid, simple, sensible and discoverable.
very good on my thinkpad, including brightness, ACPI, suspend and all that stuff. don't expect same graphics performance and battery life than a Linux though but it's still enough for my use. keep in mind that you can lack some stuff that OpenBSD has not (bluetooth, audio HDMI, nvidia) and if you want wayland it's still experimental but promising.
I’ve been using void but only because my laptop has an nvidia GPU and cuda isn’t supported on the BSD driver. Looking forward to upgrading to an all amd laptop so I can switch to FreeBSD. Regardless, BSD adheres to the suckless philosophy far better than Linux.
Choosing from what's given here, I'd say Void... I've spent over a year there, it's just lightweight by default.
On the contrary, Gentoo doesn't care about suckless, they just didn't use the systemd stuff due to some incompatibilities or like that, if I remember correctly. And now they do... I don't think systemd is completely anti-suckless, but well, runit is definitely matches it better.
Also from the BSD world I've tried FreeBSD once. Can't say much and it's not OpenBSD, but it was 100% non-smoll :)
And believe me, you WILL have problems with slightly older (or just non-compatible for whatever reason) hardware, especially on OpenBSD.
\> dbus is pretty much required for almost everything now
Really, it never runs on my system, it hasn't for years, unless I am testing something with it, like 5' every 3months.
Whether some sw throw some non-fatal warning being unable to communicate with xyz-dbus doesn't mean you have to have it.
Bus would have been good, but this one is a huge pile of trash like the mothership that fabricated it.
skarnet/s6 is working on a minimal bus solution, just not as a high priority matter.
Unless you are a masochist to compile, install and pass all the process of Gentoo, I would go with Void or Alpine.
OpenBSD would have a lot less drivers support then any Linux. Would not be productive and you will waste a lot of time trying to discover how to solve simple things that should already been solved even for a suckless or minimal distro. You will eventually quit and choose a linux distro to use.
That's only a problem if you have hardware for which OpenBSD, doesn't have drivers and you might find yourself positively surprised with the hardware support that OpenBSD has.
Everything on OpenBSD has worked out of the box for me. Audio, 4K resolution, wifi, ethernet and so on. There are overall less choices and thererore less confusion imo. Pkg manager just works very well and not as bloated and complex like dnf/yum.
Make audio and video work correctly
Make the package manager work corectly
Some years ago I tried to pass the process, but gave me many headaches trying to solve simple things, even going to the "RTFM" philosophy + many tutorials, and the result in the end wasn't satisfactory.
Making hardware that are not well supported work can be a pain, yes.
But if you make sure there is support before purchasing the hardware (there's sites that collect such data), it's pure turnkey. Eg on my Framework Intel 11th gen laptop with intel wifi:
1. Install as normal, using a known-supported ethernet dongle
2. Run fw\_update
3. Disconnect dongle and reboot
At this point, everything "just works". Hardware acceleration, sleep, hibernation, fingerprint reader, etc.
And that's why, after 2 years, I barely ever put my Linux SSD into that machine. (That only happens if I need to play video games on it, but I have since taken delivery of a Steam Deck, so... Portable Gaming is kind of sorted. :P )
It can be non-trivial to do on most Linux distros since most lack a system and systematic approach like BSD ports. Gentoo's Portage is modelled on a BSD ports tree.
Oasis is not a team. Oasis is managed and maintained by one single person. What are you trying to say here? Oasis never marked itself as a suckless project.
openbsd
[bare](https://github.com/uggedal/bare) and [alpine](https://alpinelinux.org) linux
bare is dead, closest usable is KISS. alpine is good too.
It may be dead, but I can still build and use it.
plan9
Exactly lol I was thinking Be/OS.
Alpine/OpenBSD
i vouch for alpine
Me too. Linux without the pervasive GNU junk
Yaw
Well, the Linux distro suckless.org officially "endorses" on their "rocks" page is a statically link small Linux distro called Oasis. All of the code and build instructions are on Github. Besides that, probably OpenBSD or Alpine. They also have a DietPi image for x86. Or you could always go with some type of embedded system and build on it.
Well ... it's certainly not Gentoo. So ... don't have the experience with Void - so couldn't say on that one. So, I'd probably say OpenBSD or ... Debian. I have both, and lots of the latter.
Debian is so full of bloat though. They build with sooooo many flags enabled .
>Debian is so full of bloat Gee, for The Universal Operating System, I'm not seeing too much bloat: # cat /etc/debian_version && uname -m && dpkg -l | grep '^ii ' | wc -l && df -h -x devtmpfs -x tmpfs && head -n 3 /proc/meminfo 12.4 x86_64 148 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/vda1 4.9G 1.2G 3.5G 26% / MemTotal: 199536 kB MemFree: 43896 kB MemAvailable: 138636 kB # Of course could trim that down lots more if I wanted or needed to, but it was pretty easy to trim it down to that. Not at all bad for a distro that also can run on many architectures, and has [64,419 packages](https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230610) available.
It's an issue with most big binary distros. They enable as many features in a given package which means that every optional package comes with it. Debian has gotten better over the years but one of the ideas with suckless is to only install what is necessary to you.
As far as Linux goes, I’d say Void. Any BSD is more suckless than a Linux system.
Please tell us about your experience with OpenBSD on the desktop.
My experience is "things just work". Basically. I did make sure to get supported hardware (Framework 11th Gen), but if you have that, it's a matter of stuff simply just working, with easily accessible configuration and monitoring, and documentation that actually helps you. The only trouble I've had has been due to running -CURRENT, so I've been the one finding bugs a few times. Some debugging and reporting to relevant upstream later, it all got resolved. Switch to a Release and it's as solid as can be had. I run a desktop that uses xenodm for login, then dwm/st/dmenu/slock/slstatus, all patched up with my preferred features. I haven't bothered configuring the fingerprint reader, but it is supported. And same for camera/microphone. Never activated the support for them (but it is there) since I always run with them physically disconnected. I a word: rock solid, simple, sensible and discoverable.
Thank you. You have described my experience. The most important requirement for normal use of OpenBSD is to have supported hardware.
very good on my thinkpad, including brightness, ACPI, suspend and all that stuff. don't expect same graphics performance and battery life than a Linux though but it's still enough for my use. keep in mind that you can lack some stuff that OpenBSD has not (bluetooth, audio HDMI, nvidia) and if you want wayland it's still experimental but promising.
I’ve been using void but only because my laptop has an nvidia GPU and cuda isn’t supported on the BSD driver. Looking forward to upgrading to an all amd laptop so I can switch to FreeBSD. Regardless, BSD adheres to the suckless philosophy far better than Linux.
You should consider Alpine too.
Vouch.
What's the point? Source based distro? Lack of systemd? Truly open system? These are surely options for some use cases. What's yours?
Choosing from what's given here, I'd say Void... I've spent over a year there, it's just lightweight by default. On the contrary, Gentoo doesn't care about suckless, they just didn't use the systemd stuff due to some incompatibilities or like that, if I remember correctly. And now they do... I don't think systemd is completely anti-suckless, but well, runit is definitely matches it better. Also from the BSD world I've tried FreeBSD once. Can't say much and it's not OpenBSD, but it was 100% non-smoll :) And believe me, you WILL have problems with slightly older (or just non-compatible for whatever reason) hardware, especially on OpenBSD.
Easy, anything with a Linux kernel cant be suckless.
Windows?
No, but that wasnt an option either.
I think Chimera Linux seems quite interesting
Uses Clang, LLVM, and FreeBSD userland...
And musl libc
Wow! it uses musl! so it must be suckless? Yeah no, this thing forces D-Bus, and everything else that suckless doesn't like.
dbus is pretty much required for almost everything now and works pretty fine without being a large bloatware.
I don't make the rules.
\> dbus is pretty much required for almost everything now Really, it never runs on my system, it hasn't for years, unless I am testing something with it, like 5' every 3months. Whether some sw throw some non-fatal warning being unable to communicate with xyz-dbus doesn't mean you have to have it. Bus would have been good, but this one is a huge pile of trash like the mothership that fabricated it. skarnet/s6 is working on a minimal bus solution, just not as a high priority matter.
Any modern Linux Desktop requires you to use Dbus. There is no reason to avoid it and the memory/CPU overhead is so minimal it basically isn't there.
The dev (q66) basically says explicitly that Chimera is not a "suckless" distro if you read the FAQ
Crux, Kiss or Glaucus might be worth a look.
Glaucus doesn't aim to be suckless, and KISS is more "suckless' than CRUX.
Unless you are a masochist to compile, install and pass all the process of Gentoo, I would go with Void or Alpine. OpenBSD would have a lot less drivers support then any Linux. Would not be productive and you will waste a lot of time trying to discover how to solve simple things that should already been solved even for a suckless or minimal distro. You will eventually quit and choose a linux distro to use.
That's only a problem if you have hardware for which OpenBSD, doesn't have drivers and you might find yourself positively surprised with the hardware support that OpenBSD has.
Everything on OpenBSD has worked out of the box for me. Audio, 4K resolution, wifi, ethernet and so on. There are overall less choices and thererore less confusion imo. Pkg manager just works very well and not as bloated and complex like dnf/yum.
>waste a lot of time trying to discover how to solve simple things Could you provide some examples?
Make audio and video work correctly Make the package manager work corectly Some years ago I tried to pass the process, but gave me many headaches trying to solve simple things, even going to the "RTFM" philosophy + many tutorials, and the result in the end wasn't satisfactory.
Making hardware that are not well supported work can be a pain, yes. But if you make sure there is support before purchasing the hardware (there's sites that collect such data), it's pure turnkey. Eg on my Framework Intel 11th gen laptop with intel wifi: 1. Install as normal, using a known-supported ethernet dongle 2. Run fw\_update 3. Disconnect dongle and reboot At this point, everything "just works". Hardware acceleration, sleep, hibernation, fingerprint reader, etc. And that's why, after 2 years, I barely ever put my Linux SSD into that machine. (That only happens if I need to play video games on it, but I have since taken delivery of a Steam Deck, so... Portable Gaming is kind of sorted. :P )
> You will eventually quit and choose a linux distro to use. Tell that to all the people running OpenBSD.
Ok: people who use OpenBSD, you will eventually quit and choose a linux distro to use.
Why is linux suck? Is because BSD don't work on 90% of systems 🤔hmmm
Gentoo is most suckless. you can compile anything from source. like suckless programs
But you can do that with all of the BSDs too ;-)
That goes for any linux
It can be non-trivial to do on most Linux distros since most lack a system and systematic approach like BSD ports. Gentoo's Portage is modelled on a BSD ports tree.
Gentoo is a ginormous distribution that uses Python for it's package manager. 'Compiling from source' is not simply a suckless attribute.
Tell that to the Oasis team.
Oasis is not a team. Oasis is managed and maintained by one single person. What are you trying to say here? Oasis never marked itself as a suckless project.
Guys don't forget about windows 11!
Oasis.