Porting Whonix to Void Linux

[Patrick]

It’s not a decision to take lightly to say the least due to the amount of work this generates. And if that’s wrong, if that is in fact easy, then why isn’t it done… There’s two anonymity focused operating systems left, Whonix and Tails. Both based on Debian.

I am also not sure it’s even useful to spend a lot time on debating this.

It’s also too complex to resolve it through debate. A counter argument why it’s in vain, worse, etc. is always around the corner.

Therefore if you want to increase chances of this happening, please work on this wiki list Criteria for Choosing a Base Distribution which should be converted into a comparison table.

@madaidan

It’s rolling release so we get security fixes

Whonix used to be based on a “mostly” rolling distribution, Debian testing.

Security-Focused Operating System Comparison as Base for Whonix

That was difficult to maintain to say the least.

@FantasyCookie17

while Void Linux isn’t actually focused on security that much

Intuition tells that moving from one distribution that does not have security as a primary goal to switch to another distribution that does not have security as a primary goal is at high risk of wasting time and work.

@FantasyCookie17

So, what would need to be done to rebase on Void Linux? I’m going to list some things I can think of.

Please keep that someone generic and then help maintain ToDo List for Porting to another Base Distribution.

@FantasyCookie17

Current services specific to the systemd format would need to be rewritten - for example, the one that is responsible for the LKRG. This shouldn’t be too hard however, since the scripts that Runit uses for services are quite simple - most of the time it’s just something like

Looks a lot harder to me since systemd also support dependencies, before=, after=, sandboxing, drop-in config files for systemd units of other services, tmpfiles.d.

number of files matching /systemd/ in Whonix source code: 136 (a lot trivial / auto generated).

@FantasyCookie17

Rebase on a different DE.

Related:

• use Xfce with Wayland
• Enlightenment DE
• User Poll - XFCE vs KDE - KDE Deprecation Considered!

@FantasyCookie17

Plasma

“Just” finished porting away from KDE (severe performance issues) to XFCE which was great.

@FantasyCookie17

I currently see three options here

Or no desktop environment, just pick and choose.

@FantasyCookie17

staying on X would let the need for something like Xpra emerge

I would dislike to spend time on xpra until options for wayland are exhausted, see use Xfce with Wayland

@FantasyCookie17

quite controversial

Yes. The desktop environment discussion can easily lead to law of triviality / bikeshed. More convincing to see performance test results / ports.

Porting Whonix to XFCE as far as I remember back initially wasn’t debated but convincing screenshots / implementation / performance was shown as per Whonix Xfce Development.

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Needs solid technical documentation / comparison / proposal. Then should ask friendly security experts for feedback. I don’t think anyone has resources available for this currently but happy to be proven otherwise.