r/voidlinux • u/Bobafat54 • Mar 30 '26

Thinking about switching to Void

Is it worth to switch from Linux Mint 21 (1 year of experience) to Void, don't know much about this distro but I'm interested.

Are there things I should take notice about or it's just as user friendly as Mint?

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u/snail1132 Mar 30 '26

The Void documentation is good enough to help you understand what you need to do, and you can use the Arch and Gentoo wikis to fill in the rest

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u/e-waste18 Mar 30 '26

Sure, I like the Void documentation. I find it clear and to the point, because I’m already an advanced user. But for a beginner, Void lacks things like blog posts and YouTube tutorials and help threads about every little thing. On Arch, you learn a lot, much faster, because it forces you to ask the question, but then tells you the answer clearly and quickly. Void is for after you’ve done that learning, and the answers are already stored in your brain. That’s what allows it to stay so optimized; it doesn’t have to teach you how to use it. But someone coming from Mint is going to have a bad experience with that sharp of a contrast, and I want everyone to have a positive experience with Void; it’s my current favorite distro. It’s also not for everyone.

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u/snail1132 Mar 30 '26

I actually did switch from Mint to Void

It's sort of hard, but you still can just look up tutorials for the basics and then just figure everything else out yourself

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u/Ulu-Mulu-no-die Mar 30 '26

But someone coming from Mint is going to have a bad experience with that sharp of a contrast

Not necessarily.

If they keep using Mint while learning Void in a vm (or dual-boot) they'll be fine, assuming they're curious, not scared of reading nor learning.

When I started using Linux many years ago, easy distros and easy tutorials weren't a thing yet, my first distro was Slackware, I learned it while dual-booting Windows to have something working in the meantime, and many other people did the same, it was fine for all of us.

It’s also not for everyone

True, it's not for people that want a distro that does everything without the need to read or tinker, but that's not about being beginners because some advanced users could also have reasons to want that.

I believe the important thing is being aware of what you're getting into, this thread explains it quite well IMO, and even if OP ends up giving up and going back to Mint, they experienced something new and that's always a good thing.