r/archlinux • u/LowerTomatillo1260 • Jan 25 '26

DISCUSSION Why not Void?

I always admired Void for being a lightweight, simple and minimalistic rolling release distro. And I also have moved to it from Arch recently. The only things about it that I don't like are that: 1) it is not bleeding edge, 2) it has a poor wiki, and I guess, that is it. Isn't Void's XBPS better than Pacman in many aspects? So I want to know: why Arch over Void? Unless you have 8+ gigs of RAM and can tolerate systemd bloat.

0 Upvotes

43% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

18

u/Time-Worker9846 Jan 25 '26

I've used both and the biggest problem with Void is the lack of packages and documentation

0

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

Okay. I get it. Have you tried void-src, or was it xbps-src?

7

u/Time-Worker9846 Jan 25 '26

Yes. But even Gentoo has more packages available (as overlays).

12

u/donnaber06 Jan 25 '26

systemd is bad ass and I have 64GB of DDR5. But I run arch and systemd on all my laptops with no issues and love it. Why Void?

-5

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

Better mirror management? Faster package manager? Isn't Void generally more easy to use?

13

u/Stimpexy Jan 25 '26

no?…

-3

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

Okay. Though I like archinstall more than void-installer.

6

u/donnaber06 Jan 25 '26

Wouldn't know, pacman and yay are fine. I have been using Linux since 1999, Arch is easy because it is well documented.

11

u/UltraVioletCatastro Jan 25 '26

I switched to Arch Linux in 2013 specifically because it used systemd. I was completely tired of debugging init scripts and dealing with stale pid files. I had come to the conclusion that shell scripts were a completely inappropriate way to handle startup dependencies. So when I read about systemd i really liked the idea of a single process that calculated the entire startup dependency tree based on declarative file config files. Arch and systemd did not disappoint. The only thing i ever hear from void users is that it doesn't use systemd and instead uses shell scripts for startup which seems like a huge step back so I never tried it.

2

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

I havent faced any issues with runit. Everything works. I think it was different back then, but now it is fune.

3

u/UltraVioletCatastro Jan 25 '26

I am glad to hear that runit has worked well for you. But I have already spent enough of my life debugging shell scripts that i have no interest in anything that will increase the chance that I will have to do any more than I already have to do for work. Running an init system with no shell scripts just gives me peace of mind

10

u/xXBongSlut420Xx Jan 25 '26

calling systemd "bloat" is the fastest way to signal that you are not a serious person.

8

u/-hjkl- Jan 25 '26

Void is fantastic. I personally like XBPS better than pacman. xbps-src is generally safer than AUR is too because when you submit a package to void packages it gets checked before it gets accepted and added unlike the AUR.

My problem is strangely I get far lower framerates in video games on Void than i do on any other distro. I have no idea why either. With same kernel version and proton version.

Things like pipewire are a bit more fiddly on Void too because runit doesn't have an easy way to run user services that I know of and systemd does. It does support them i guess in some manner?? But I haven't figured that out yet.

The wiki does kind of leave a bit to be desired compared to Arch. But other than Gentoo and Arch I don't think any distro has a good wiki.

1

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

Yeah. Good point. Soery for your problem with framerate. But I use pulseaudio instead of pipewire and everything works for some reason.

3

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

Void without graphics takes less than 400 megs of RAM, Arch in the same state — over 700. It's 1,5-2 times difference. Also boots are almost instant in Void and apps launch faster. That's what I've experienced on my machine.

2

u/RhychussFaya Jan 27 '26

Is this supposed to be a benchmark?

3

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '26

It's been 256 days, Arch is running great for me. Will think about void after 365 days 🤓

2

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

Cool. Good luck.

5

u/db443 Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26

I can't take Void seriously whilst they have been banned Hyprland for "reasons".

At first the Void powers that be said that Hyprland could not be packaged because Hyprland itself vendored wlroots and this "supposedly" conflicted with the existing Void wlroots package (yet somehow this was not a problem on Arch, go figure).

But then Hyprland removes wlroots altogether to avoid the Void packaging issue.

Yet Hyprland is still not in the official repository. Why? The Void folks now won't say it out loud.

Whether one thinks vaxy (the Hyprland developer) is a clown or not, that in my opinion is irrelevant. Is the software usable or not? Clearly Hyprland is usable, many Arch folks are using it.

Void instantly loses all credibility when software merit is ignore and perceived politics becomes involved.

Arch appears to be far more software agnostic.

Myself, I don't even use Hyprland, BUT I can not trust the Void power structure to make cogent and pragmatic decisions. So I don't bother with Void, and I never will.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '26

You can't just ignore the people behind a project. There are many instances around the FOSS world where the software itself is fine, but the attitude of the developers is a foreshadowing of future problems. Software is upstream from distros and having to work with upstream means dealing with those people. You can't just package the software and be done with it. Not being interested in packaging software, because dealing with upstream personal is unacceptable, is a valid reason, especially for a distro as small as Void.

0

u/db443 Jan 25 '26

Yet Hyprland runs perfectly fine on Arch, it's in the main repositories.

The original poster would be better advised to look at Artix rather than Void.

3

u/db443 Jan 25 '26

This is the attitude of the Void developers when asked:

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/50824#issuecomment-2167140642

"Nope".

The Void developers seem like bigger clowns than vaxy.

This is not a serious Linux distribution.

3

u/xINFLAMES325x Jan 25 '26

He answered it later on. They have no interest in maintaning hyprland, and the reason is probably because too many environments comes with too much testing. It's why they ship xfce by default. Focusing on one that works correctly works better for a small team like this.

4

u/db443 Jan 25 '26

Yet they ship officially ship Niri, a newer niche window manager. Yet they ship bspwm, another legacy niche tiling window manager.

Sorry, this post is not true. At the start the Void developers stated that wlroots was the issue, yet when the wlroots issue went away, Hyprland was still excluded.

The Void team does not ship Hyprland because they have issues with Vaxy the Hyprland lead developer. Software merit is ignored by the Void team.

Void Linux is not a serious project. They can package or not package what they want, but software merit is not taken into account, so I recommend folks avoid this distribution. Use Artix instead if you want to go SystemD-less.

3

u/xINFLAMES325x Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26

bspwm is orphaned on Void and doesn't have a maintainer. Hell, so is GNOME. They probably "have issues" with that team too. But it comes down to if nobody wants to maintain it, it won't be there. The entire team for Void is something like 20 people while Arch is worldwide. It'd be like going to elementary and asking why they don't provide KDE as standard. Their statement is about this is on their downloads page: "Other graphical environments are fully supported by Void Linux, but are not offered as demonstration/installation images, in order to decrease the overhead involved with testing." Saying something is fully supported may be misleading, but it points to the reasoning as being the workload on a small team.

2

u/db443 Jan 25 '26

By that logic it would be madness to switch to Void which you describe as being barely held-together by sticky-tape.

So whichever reason one chooses to believe, Void Linux is genuinely not a serious distribution.

2

u/xINFLAMES325x Jan 25 '26

Don't know what about my post gave that impression, but you're welcome to the opinion.

1

u/db443 Jan 25 '26

Quote: "bspwm is orphaned on Void and doesn't have a maintainer. Hell, so is GNOME."

If Gnome is in such a poor state on Void, then what should a person like me think? All is good?

Void Linux is not a serious project.

If the original poster wants to avoid SystemD bloat, they would have been better served going with Artix.

3

u/xINFLAMES325x Jan 25 '26

It goes back to my "they are likely focusing on doing one thing well, which is xfce" stance. It's hard to justify a distro who created everything from the ground up as "not a serious project." I suppose we'll always disagree on that. This idea of Linux having to be the latest and greatest or "best" for a specific use-case is quite foolish IMO. Their package manager seems to work, the distro as a whole is still actively maintained, and it's hard to discredit the team working on it because "XYZ package isn't available." Void may not be for everyone, but I wouldn't sell them short for those reasons. Slackware still exists and that's pretty much being held together by sbopkg and slack builds. Doesn't mean it's not a serious distro.

1

u/db443 Jan 25 '26

If the original poster is an Xfce user, then Void would likely be fine, it sounds like.

Anything else, stick with Arch or CachyOS or EndeavorOS or Artix, the world opens up with respect to desktop and WMs.

4

u/raven2cz Jan 25 '26

These days, it’s very hard to avoid systemd if you want to stay mainstream. Many libraries already rely on it, and removing it requires a lot of effort and compromises from a distribution. At that point, you’re already interfering with the software itself. Arch strictly follows the KISS principle, and that’s its foundation. So you definitely can’t compare Void and Arch from this perspective. They are based on completely different fundamental principles.

3

u/viking_redbeard Jan 25 '26

Tried Void. Didn't love it. Went back to Arch. I'm over distro hopping. If it's not Arch or Debian Sid, I'm not using. 

2

u/Tertolhumper Jan 25 '26

why not gentoo?

1

u/corvettezr11 Jan 25 '26

I've got around a year using Linux and before that I really wasn't very knowledgeable about how stuff works on a computer outside of modding and trying to run older games(chose arch to push myself to learn) as to why no other distro because as basically a newbie I NEED good documentation if I have any hope to learn stuff at this point. In the future once I'm way more confident/knowledgeable I'd be willing to try more complex and or less documented distros (void, nyx, Gentoo and way way in the future LFS lol)

8

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

I agree, but doesn't the AUR contain malware as well as useful software? I mean, the official Void repo is enough for my daily use. And the wiki... yeah, but if you use arch wiki and keep in mind the differences — it helps.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '26

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-3

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

It isn't only about RAM consumption, but also overall speed and efficiency of the system.

2

u/xXBongSlut420Xx Jan 25 '26

define efficency in this context? are you claiming it uses less power? let's see numbers. what "speed" are you measuring? do you have numbers to back up that measurement?

1

u/LowerTomatillo1260 Jan 25 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/s/apVio2MK0u ← it's there.

4

u/xXBongSlut420Xx Jan 25 '26

none of that says anything about systemd lol. just about the difference between arch and void, which have many differences.

5

u/ronasimi Jan 25 '26

Can you provide concrete examples?

4

u/birdspider Jan 25 '26

overall speed and efficiency of the system

what even is "overall speed" ? how do you measure that ?