XBPS troubles
TL;DR: Don't preemptively delete your package cache after updating.
Two days ago I decided to update my packages. Update process was seemingly flawless, so I routinely cleared my package cache because of my small root partition. Some time passes, and I begin to notice something very odd: almost all of my Qt based applications don't start. Thinking it's an issue with updated libraries, I restart the computer... and that's where things begin to unravel.
I am ominously greeted with a tty login window. "What shit the bed now" I think, staring at an error message about SDDM not starting due to some cryptic error. I log in anyway and try to start SDDM again, only to be greeted with the same error. Fortunately, somehow NetworkManager still worked, so I quickly installed lightDM just to have a display manager. Start the service, select LXQT, and try to login only to get booted back to the login screen. "What?" Selected Openbox, logged in, and decided to search the error online to no avail. Finally decide to message the #voidlinux IRC channel just to check if anyone has the same issue, and sure enough I get a few responses.
Turns out the server that builds binaries for Void Linux had a massive fuckup and didn't compile all the various Qt libraries in the correct order. Check the Void Linux Github page, and soon stumble upon the open issue regarding the current disaster of Qt-based applications not functioning. Thinking that I'm about to finally have a fix for my problem, I get hit with gut punch that since the build server was currently compiling Chromium, it would take three days until the problem would be fixed on their end. But worry not, for the workaround was to do a simple downgrade for core Qt libraries. Ran the downgrade command in my shell, logged out, selected LXQT, type in my password, and yet again get booted back to my login screen. Only then, I remember that I cleared my XBPS cache.
Well, shit. Can't downgrade, because there's nothing to downgrade to! End up installing XFCE as a desktop environment, but for some odd reason it kept conflicting with my LXQT configs for some bizarre reason. I then decide to install GNOME of all things, because despite its increasing ties to systemD and terrible reputation, I do like GNOME's novel take on a desktop environment and I'll admit that I have a biannual interesting in GNOME where I try to use it until I get fed up with various GNOME-isms (iffy performance, subpar software, obnoxiously sized header bars, no desktop icons, etc.). Hopefully by tomorrow the fixed Qt packages will be available, GNOME 48 is an improvement from when I tried it early this year but for some mind-boggling reason I cannot change the timezone, even after changing the clock via UFEI and doing a whole host of other things..
