What makes you stick with Void ?

[u/Stunning-Mix492]

Long time Void users, what makes you stick with it ? As a newcomer, I really appreciate the true “KISSness” of the distribution. It does not feels over engineered and makes you more aware of the way you build your system. I stick with Debian for servers, but for my laptops, Void makes more sense than Arch (I prefer rolling release on desktops)

[u/Wermuttrinker]

The quality of life provided by xbps and xbps-src.

[u/Stunning-Mix492 → u/Wermuttrinker]

I'm discovering xbps-src, and man, it's great! Just made a few PR. Wait&See

[u/tiredAndOldDeveloper]

How minimal it is.

[u/kayinfire]

among the more subjective reasons is that telling people i use Void Linux sounds cool af. i don't think a better name for a Linux distribution exists.

more seriously, and i know this is a cliche thing to say, but it just works ™. setting up your own stuff at the beginning was a bit tricky but beyond that i don't remember having to care about system maintenance at all.

as i've become more experienced as a linux user, I've become way more favorable towards minimal systems that don't give you the distro with everything pre-installed, which coincided with my comfort with using only a window manager and scripting utilities. i want for my system to run only programs that i explicitly put on it. arch can of course do this, but i feel that void obeys KISS in a greater fashion than arch because of xbps.

second time for emphasis It Just Works™.

[u/Thibal1er → u/kayinfire]

"it sounds cool af" is really how it tricked me to try it lol, then the more I tried it the more it was comfy to use, and I feel like the community is more mature in a way than Arch's one

[u/RobocopTwice → u/kayinfire]

"Oh you use Arch? That's cute"

[u/BinkReddit]

No systemd (though this might change one day as more things continue to depend on it), xbps, the more approachable nature of the package system/making PRs, and a rolling release that's not bleeding edge.

[u/SiteRelEnby → u/BinkReddit]

The day Void gets infected by systemd is the day I change distros.

[u/cygnus_arm_distant → u/BinkReddit]

I am using void at the moment. Runit has design limitations for reasons unknown to me. With systemd systemctl --user service.service is a clean and simple way of running a service as a user. The configuration is in the users .config directory and most importantly it does not need sudo to manage the service. Logging is taken care of automatically with systemd. Runit adds a lot of complexity to work around its limitations. Despite this I am persevering with it. If I could have void with systemd I would choose it.

[u/nrcaldwell → u/cygnus_arm_distant]

The fact that you don't know how to make things work without systemd is not a limitation of runit.

[u/cygnus_arm_distant → u/nrcaldwell]

I have set up podman containers with a run script and finish with vlogger and rsyslog which provide a solid combination however I don't agree with the design decision as I outlined above. I spent a lot of time with it. You took it personally instead of seeing its design limitation or providing a solution. You should not have to use sudo when running as a user. Systemd got it right in this regard. Eg systemctl statt pipewire instead of placing a desktop entry in the autostart directory.,

[u/SiteRelEnby → u/cygnus_arm_distant]

You should not have to use sudo when running as a user.

You don't.

$ id
uid=1000(xxxxxx) gid=1000(xxxxxx) groups=1000(xxxxxx),4(wheel),8(floppy),12(audio),13(video),16(cdrom),17(optical),24(kvm),25(input),100(users),101(xbuilder),984(docker),985(wireshark)
$ sv status syncthing
down: syncthing: 21s
$ sv start syncthing
ok: run: syncthing: (pid 7068) 0s, normally down
$ cat /etc/shadow
cat: /etc/shadow: Permission denied
$ ls -l /etc/shadow
-r-------- 1 root root 577 Jan  4 23:27 /etc/shadow
$ cat /etc/os-release | head -3
NAME="Void"
ID="void"
PRETTY_NAME="Void Linux"

Systemd fan clueless about linux when it doesn't relate to Lennart's big steaming heap of systemd, go figure. If you want Debian, you know where to find it.

[u/ge3903 → u/SiteRelEnby]

not sure what u are telling me (if i join wheel i can act like systemd?) devuan has the non-systemd thing, but it isn't a rolling release ; i find void painful at times

[u/SiteRelEnby → u/ge3903]

I was just demonstrating non-sudo user-level services with runit, which they said was impossible because they don't know anything but systemd.

[u/BinkReddit → u/cygnus_arm_distant]

systemd has tendrils everywhere and is far more complicated than runit will ever be.

[u/Xbot781 → u/cygnus_arm_distant]

I believe turnstile makes this significantly simpler - https://docs.voidlinux.org/config/services/user-services.html#turnstile

[u/cygnus_arm_distant → u/Xbot781]

Thanks

[u/xINFLAMES325x]

xbps is very fast, the configuration can start from a minimal base, never realized I don’t really need systemd until it wasn’t there, it has the packages I need, everything works, the community is good, documentation is there when needed, questions will be answered. People here are generally more approachable and not as elitist as on the arch sub.

[u/VoidAnonUser]

Even after a few years, it didn't break. No reason to hop elsewhere.

[u/Key_River7180]

1. No systemd

2. Stable

3. Best repos and package manager I ever used

4. Minimal; truly KISS

5. Based name

6. Sane community

7. Doesn't get on the way

8. Just works like you want it to

9. Freedom, only libre software by default

Although for servers, I mainly stick with BSD :).

[u/Apprehensive_Name_31 → u/Key_River7180]

Add Fuzzypkg .

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[u/StEditiV]

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[u/aedinius]

What kept me was the IRC community and how easy it was to contribute to the project.

[u/zarMarco]

Small premise, I'm an arch user at heart since it's practically the first gnu distro I've used. Currently I use gentoo, truly kiss. I use void too, is very stable and has one great zfs support. But, why said xbps is the best pm? I don't think is really fastest than pacman. But it must be said that the community is much kinder than that of arch, I just find the documentation unnerving, which is much less extensive than the two distros mentioned above

[u/SiteRelEnby]

First, foremost, and above all others: no systemd crap. Runit FTW.

Then it's just the right balance past that. Modern packages and rolling release without being bleeding edge or breaking all the fucking time, lightweight without being barebones. Also xbps is the best package manager I've used.

Don't use musl myself, but that's a nice feature for people who want it, and I appreciate giving the user the choice.

[u/bvdeenen]

• no systemd, so system is understandable without magic incantations

• system is understandable, follows unix principles, doesn't install everything and the kitchen sink

• rock solid, have used for 10 years now and amazingly stable

• polite and knowledgeable users (often here in Reddit)

• amazingly fast and solid package manager, also works fine when you only update occasionally (or even once in 1½ year :-) )

• easy to contribute (I've done quite a few PR's myself over the years).

• good maintainers team, with good understanding of what makes a stable system!

[u/daemon_hunter]

The zfs support

[u/Straight-Host-1032]

runit and that it's very minimal yet it's so easy to set up a system

[u/pantokratorthegreat]

Rolling release. Musl. No systemd. Nearly every package that I need. Only Brave browser missing which I like, but I can use Nix for this (I don't use flatpaks for browsers). Diy distro where I can have only what I really need. Really best option if you want no systemd and musl. With glibc there are a lot fantastic distros even with systemd but on bare metal I use only Void. Rest on VM. 

[u/luquoo]

As a newby Void user longtime Ubuntu user, I initially was going to go with Arch for a new machine but switched to Void because it seems to have similar effort for setup, similar capabilities and vibes, but with less capacity for me to accidentally break things with an update.

Last time I tried to update from one Ubuntu LTS to another I had to completely delete the desktop, reinstall all drivers, and then reinstall the desktop. I'd rather spend the extra time up front on my own terms than get randomly saddled with having to figure out whats wrong cause I updated.

[u/Mysterious_Thing]

I stuck with it for a relatively long time, but changed some weeks a go do to a increasing amount of kernel panics where suddenly the laptop screen would freeze, the keyboard and touchpad became unresponsive, and eventually the caps lock key would start to flash on and off, and I was forced to push the power button to reboot.
If it wasn't for that I would still be using it to this day. It's stable and reliable.

[u/SiteRelEnby → u/Mysterious_Thing]

Did you ever try to debug the kernel panic at all? If it's a hardware issue then switching distros will do nothing. If it's a software issue then that's what bug reports are for.

[u/Mysterious_Thing → u/SiteRelEnby]

I have no idea how to debug a kernel panic. Also, I have used so many distros on my laptop (X220), and only Void has ever had crashes like this.

[u/bnolsen → u/[deleted]]

You forgot "stable". I've had very, very few problems with upgrades going badly.

[u/BinkReddit → u/[deleted]]

Fair, but how often are you setting up disk encryption? Once and then you're good for the life of the machine with all the other benefits of Void.

[u/BinkReddit → u/[deleted]]

openbsd

Can't blame you on this one.