Reconsidering QV

QV, also known as "Quantum Vis", is a radical new Linux distribution. I worked on it very intensely from early April to mid-November 2024, then it lapsed; went back to working on EasyOS. The project on github has an introductory readme file:

https://github.com/bkauler/woof-quantum-vis

Also, my blog posts are here:

https://bkhome.org/news/tag_quirky.html

So, what caused QV to lapse?

Various issues were accumulating, so decided to put it on the back-burner.

It uses btrfs filesystem. No aufs or overlayfs layers, no SFS files, just a "frugal full" installation. Problems with btrfs:

1. Supports zstd compression, but nowhere near as compressed as squashfs files. Like, almost twice the size.
2. No native encryption. In EasyOS we have the native fscrypt feature of ext4.
3. A filesystem failure/corruption is very difficult to repair. It could mean the death of an installation and all snapshots.
   

QV is built with Void linux packages. Very nice, designed for usr-merge, very up-to-date packages, rolling-release. Problems:

1. The XBPS package manager cannot handle updating an installation if packages are "too old".
2. Rolling release, a package update not adequately tested, may cause breakage.
   

The rolling-release model, there is no "stable" repository, just the relentless rolling forward of package versions in one repository.

If I was to create a "stable" repository and host it somewhere; which would probably require paying for the hosting. But it would rapidly become old, and if build QV from it, may run into point-1. Unless I keep updating the stable repo.

Alternatives to Void

Decided to have another look around, at alternatves to the Void package repository...

Considered Gentoo. This is a source-based distro. On the surface, seems good because you can choose to disable some features, like for example if you want to compile without bluetooth support, or you want x11 not wayland.

Last time I looked at gentoo was ages ago, about 2002 I think, and recall got into a mess.

Same thing this time, found some packages failed to compile. Decided enough, will stick with pre-compiled package repositories.

Considered Alpine. Love it, except that is is based on musl. Package versions tend to be older. Has not yet moved to usr-merge.

Coming in QV

So, decided to stay with Void. I reckon, with some lateral thinking, can create a brute-force method of updating an installation with "too old" packages. That will be a challenge.

Plan to change to bcachefs, drop btrfs. This will bring native encryption. Apparently, bcachefs has sophisticated self-repair and a corrupted filesystem can be more readily fixed.

Good news is that Gparted in January 2025 supports 'bcachefs-tools'.

Next up, will study how to use 'bcachefs-tools', to create, resize, etc., a bcachefs partition.

Another thing need to work on; many improvements in woofQ (EasyOS) can also be applied to woofQV (QV). There's no simple way to sync, ideally would like a script that cherry-picks improvements/fixes one to the other. Or do it very slowly manually.

I went through the exercise, downloaded woofQV from github, ran the build scripts, wrote the .img file to a USB SSD. Booted it, works real nice. It really is a nice concept; deserves more attention.

Have put 'bcachefs' utility into the initrd. Want to exit the the commandline in the initrd and test it. Ah, but first need a kernel with bcachefs driver builtin. As bcachefs is rapidly evolving, intend to wait utill kernel 6.15.1 is released then compile it, and use in QV.

All very interesting!    

Tags: quirky