this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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Void users, what do you especially like about your distro? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago by pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm not trying to bait. I've been playing with Void for a while, but didn't get what makes it special. I guess I'm missing something about it.

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[–] juipeltje@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

I'm not really using it anymore aside from it still being on my server (i simply haven't switched it to my new distro yet), but what made me switch to it is xbps. It's lightning fast but seems more solid than pacman, and can easily update a system that hasn't been updated in years.

I also ended up liking the simplicity of runit, and it made me realize i just don't like using systemd all that much. Because of that i now tend to look out for other non-systemd distros as well. A few months ago i switched my desktop and laptop over to guix.

[–] fozid@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

It is just a very simple clean stable unopinionated rolling release distro. It doesn't try to be bleeding edge, or force you down any particular path. Its not a derivative of another distro. It uses runit for its init process, no systemd and is just really nice and clean to use. I've been on it about 12 months after swapping from arch which I had used for about 15 years. No plans to move any time soon.

[–] talkingpumpkin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Might be that you are at the end of your distro-hopping journey, which isn't when you have found the perfect distro, but when they all start to look the same

[–] pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

You're both right and not exactly. I use Fedora as my main OS and enjoy it, but I never even try installing it on a secondary cheap laptop. Same but vice versa with Debian. I love Alpine but I never touch it unless I need a container. I could continue forever. I'm still distrohopping, exploring, with the only "but" that I'm not changing my daily main platform.

[–] Hxrmit@thelemmy.club 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Non-systemD, Lightweight, Convenient to use, Standalone (not based on any distro), No controversies involved, I like the logo, Isn't restrictive compared to certain distros, Ideal for power users and servers

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

what do you find restrictive about other distros?

[–] pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Why not Alpine after all?

[–] Hxrmit@thelemmy.club 9 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Fair point, Alpine offers even more customizability by having more init systems, using openrc and busybox instead of GNU core utils. It has a way better built in installer and is also pretty lightweight.

However it was involved in some controversies where the dev team showed themselves biased and it's also quite inconvenient to use if you have been using GNU tools for a while.

Both distros are neat but I like void cuz its green and alpine is cyan

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

However it was involved in some controversies where the dev team showed themselves biased

This is meaningless without specifying what bias what bias.

[–] 404@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

They won't package Hyprland and some niche browsers. Not a big deal since you can easily get build templates from the community, but a gripe for some.

[–] cockmushroom@reddthat.com 5 points 1 day ago

tbf, iirc, Void also doesn't package hyprland for reasons that tend to concern reactionaries.

[–] pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Any articles about this controversy? Just curious.

I like void cuz its green and alpine is cyan

Gigachad. /srs

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I too would like to know more about this controversies. Some quick web search found me some articles about xlibre rejection as well as preparation for systemd compatibility, none of which should be a big deal.

As for myself, I avoid running Alpine for a full-featured desktop system simply for the fact they're designed for embedded systems.

I have in fact tried setting it up for desktop use. What made me end up abandoning it was that I ended up having to get rid of the stuff that make the distro special (i.e. busybox and musl) since even the lightest distro requires udev and all.

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

preparation for systemd compatibility

To be clear, they're not switching to systemd; they're just reportedly (I can't find primary sources on this, only secondary) working on compatibility with programs that expect systemd to be there.

[–] confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use Alpine as my desktop daily driver. The setup-desktop [link] and setup-devd [link] scripts that come with Alpine are convenient for setting up a desktop environment.

There still is some extra work to get things working but the wiki has a good tutorial page which is a good start for setting up a desktop environment on Alpine.

I do think Alpine is quite flexible beyond embedded systems. That's a lot of effort to include desktop environments in their OS or even in major version release notes.

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While I'm aware that it's completely feasible and even practical to setup desktop on alpine, what drove me away was the fact we'd be ditching musl & busybox for more full-featured solutions anyway.

[–] confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

I often see claims that Alpine linux is just for embedded systems. I wanted to highlight to other people that there is far more to Alpine than embedded systems or being used for containers.

It's mininal like void but still very flexible and capable if people are willing to work with Musl, BusyBox or OpenRC. It's a nice option for anyone who has issues with SystemD or may want to depend less on GNU tools.

Like any distribution, it doesn't fill everyone's wants or needs but it seems to have grown more than serving just embedded systems.

[–] helix@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

preparation for systemd compatibility, none of which should be a big deal.

I mean there are systemd haters questioning anyone's sanity who is daring enough to do that...

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

AFAIK, they're not switching to systemd in the first place, at least for its base system. PostmarketOS is tho, and I can see why they'd want to facilitate that.

[–] pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Why? And what was the point about them rejecting XLibre?

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Xlibre is an explicitly right-wing projevf developed by alt-right developers. They have been rejected by other distros as well on those grounds in favor of Wayback, a non-right wing alternative.

[–] pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

First of all, it wasn't rejected. Several noticeable distros included it to their repos or began testing. And the reason Void Linux yet hasn't, is that the team isn't sure about Xlibre's longevity.

I see no reason in cancelling XLibre due to developer's political views. It's free and open source, that's it. Enrico Weigelt gets nothing for working on it. Furthermore, it is good that he's making XLibre. He's doing something safe and useful. He could've become a political bloger or activist and influence minds instead of coding. Now ask yourself, if this would be better than maintaining an obscure fork of a deprecated piece of software, which is hardly going to ever be adopted in security-sensitive environments (because they are on distros with Wayland already).

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

The systemd units are easier to create and maintain compared to the init scripts. The systemd itself can also be used as a one stop solution for cron, hostname, ntp client, dns resolver, tmpfile manager, even bootloader, and many more.

Don't get me wrong, I'd use OpenRC where I can, but I totally see why systemd is popular.

As for the XLibre, I've never used it myself since I'd be upgrading to Wayland instead. My legacy systems remain on X11. I've read it's quige buggy tho. At the same time, there are a lot of fanatics who are making this a big deal out of proportion.

[–] jcr@jlai.lu 3 points 1 day ago

I agree : I ran Void with joy for 2 years, very stable and usable, makes you learn how the init/daemon system works in a very sensitive and easy way (runit).

However, if you try to find GNU packages or Gpl packages, it just does not exist (Exim, Mailutils, and some others).

So dumped it and back to Devuan/Debian

[–] iusemybrain@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

i've used both void and alpine before switching back to arch. Alpine is great, but it doesn't support glibc and that compatibility gave me issues installing applications on my laptop. Sure I could setup chroot or a contanarized environment but void offered both options glibc and musl.

[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago

It's a lightweight, independent distro for power users. It's also currently one of the very few distros still offering an official 32 bit version out of the box.

I use it on my oldest and lowest power machines. It's snappy and stable. Plus, the name is badass, for whatever that's worth lol.

[–] verdare@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago

Been a while since I used it, but I thought XBPS was pretty neat. I contributed a couple packages to the repos, and the recipe system did most of the lifting for me.

[–] Tundra@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Isnt Void rolling release debian aswell? the point release is the only negative thing about debian for me

[–] somegeek@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No it is its own distro

[–] Tundra@sh.itjust.works 2 points 13 hours ago

ah gotcha -I was thinking of spiral linux

[–] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's Arch Linux done right.

[–] antrosapien@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have moved from Arch to Artix after systemd contro, and want to switch to Void. Do you think it's a good choice to run Podman(docker is fine too but would prefer podman) without much hassle?

[–] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Sorry, no idea about Podman but docker is fine.

[–] quantumvoid0@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

i like gentoo and I like arch...I see void as better part of both combined

xbps is as gud as pacman and is rly fast for binary. xbps-src gives me control like portage

arch is light by design, but uses systemd which slows my boot, gentoo is slightly heavier than arch (but u can make it smaller) , gentoo boots faster with openrc compared to arch with systemd.....now combine the gud stuff ...void, runit boots faster , void is lighter than both out of the box

Only part I can point out where void lacks compared to gentoo is profiles and security options, other than that its perfect

And overall i like the minimalism, flexibility and control

I have even tried LFS , sure it was gud in every aspect and was perfect for my needs built by me, except package manager, I'm not rly looking forward to writing a package manager better than xbps.

P.S when I say gentoo is heavier than arch I meant out of the box right after installation

[–] pixeldaemon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Have you tried Artix?

[–] quantumvoid0@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

yes , it lacks source install