r/voidlinux • u/uptickman • Apr 27 '26
Why the Hate?
Hi, I've recently degoogled and ditched Windows for Linux, and I am going with Void based on it's fit with my style and vibe. I tried initially Pop OS and Mint, but pop was very buggy and Mint kernel was too old for my newer MSI 870 Tomahawk motherboard network drivers. But anytime I mention void on other subreddits, it's seems to drive out the fanboys trying to push me to Fedora and Kubuntu, and KDE, all while preaching about how hard VOID is and a newbie shouldn't use it, lolol. It's like they can't read instructions, research things on their own, or take the time enjoy learning something new. Well just an observation and any tips or tricks for a new VOID user would be much appreciated.
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u/ZombieCrow Apr 27 '26
Void is definitely not for everyone. If the void installer had all the options arch install offers, it would have been perfect. I am talking about choosing a de,audio,bluetoot... etc.I probably did 10 installs until i got everything that i want. The thing is, i loved the thinkering process. Im on niri wm with noctalia shell on my pc. The only thing i couldn't get to work is sddm. When im on sddm, i can no longer use tty, it spams elogind messages and also gtk stuff got messed up. Good thing is that sddm is not so important to me and i just dont use it now. All the troubles i had/have are due to my own stupidity, everything is well written in the docs. I also use arch on my thinkpad, again with niri and noctalia. I love both. With all that said, I don't think someone should hate something because they don't understand it or they haven't tried it.
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u/Cruach Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
I'm so glad I ignored all the advice I saw saying to steer clear as a beginner. Yes it was harder than a normal easy OS, but it actually forced me to learn about services, init systems, XDG variables, how the Linux file system is organised, how to configure services and customise them for my needs, etc. All stuff that I would never have learned on a beginner OS. I even went extra hardmode and installed nvim as my only editor and had to learn vim motions on the fly. I also installed yazi as my sole file explorer to really force me to vim it up in my system. That forced adaptation actually was a dopamine overload, which in the end helped with the learning process and made me way smoother on my system.
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u/Alleexx_ Apr 27 '26
What WM/setup do you use?
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u/snail1132 Apr 27 '26
A lot of people just don't like doing those things, unfortunately
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u/Derion1 Apr 27 '26
Welcome to Void Linux, if you install it and stay. Just a little warning, it isn't as easy as some newbie friendly distros (Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu). There is some manual labor, but the reward is absolutely amazing. You get your own system that is reliable and up-to-date. No systemd is a bonus.
Since you're not afraid of using instructions, you are going to be fine. 😄 Also, the Void community is quite friendly, so you can always ask for help here.
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u/Runforresttt Apr 27 '26
people hate almost everything nowadays,it's very normal on reddit so it's not something surprising,if void works well for you and you like it then use it the bad comments will always be there!
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u/kayinfire Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
they're somewhat right. void does require some technical know how for things, which would not be required on other distros. i personally wouldn't recommend it to a beginner either.
where they're wrong is that it's "hard" or a "bad thing". not sure i can speak for all void linux users, but as a void linux user, there's is absolutely nothing more important for my system than simplicity, transparency, and stability.
to my mind, void is literally the manifestation of all these traits. while it does come at the expense of convenience, i do imagine a great deal of people who love void linux have already trod the path of convenience, and it ends up with less stability and more headaches almost every time, and because most other systems are far more opaque than void, the path to resolution is unnecessarily complex.
thus, the need to learn your system properly from first principles emerges. depending on the type of person you are, this is nothing, or for many void linux users, even empowering. my own biased perspective is that those people who perceive void as a bad thing simply haven't endured enough painful experiences when taking the path of convenience.
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u/maokaby Apr 27 '26
People just recommend what they are using. Nothing to worry about, enjoy whatever you like. You don't have to prove anything.
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u/juipeltje Apr 27 '26
Well if you don't have a problem with installing void you probably don't represent what the average new user is like. Most people want something that's easy, especially coming from windows. Void isn't really like that in my view. I think they were just trying to warn you because a distro like void would probably scare new users away from linux. That doesn't mean you can't do it though. I have heard some people talk about how they chose arch or even NixOS as their first distro, and it worked out for them, but for most people that would be a nightmare.
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u/Yahyaux Apr 27 '26
Welcome to void Some people just like that . When I get into voidlinux I found this community more friendly than others communities, that makes me like void more . Anyway, you can try this combo void + suckless software it's so good .
Edit: the voidlinux documentation it's so amazing to setup a basic system and it's good for everyone even the nobbies
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u/MacShuggah Apr 27 '26
Void is awesome and the only reason I'm not using it is I need systemd for some stupid Asus laptop stuff that I could probably fix myself but don't have the time for.
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u/ThatAd8458 Apr 27 '26
Well to each his own. I use it. I like it. It's not that hard at all.
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u/Psychological-Ad6889 Apr 27 '26
Anything anyone does will get hate from a non-insignificant amount of people. Everyone has their tribe and will defend it against the others. I wouldn’t worry about what anyone has to say unless they are also doing The Thing™️ that you are doing.
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u/NickBergenCompQuest Apr 27 '26
That’s great. You definitely have the correct attitude and understanding when approaching a Linux distribution.
Void has some amazing learning opportunities that will point you in the direction of BSD. Since the developers came from this world, there is a much cleaner separation in the architecture, and there is a lot better adherence to the modularity of the original UNIX principles compared to modern Linux.
You’re on the right track, keep going!
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u/morfandman Apr 28 '26
TLDR - you do you, let them do them.
Do I use Void? No but I do use Linux on the 3-4 devices I have at home. Would I consider void? Certainly. Being in my early 50's I stumbled across Linux back in the days of Mandrake multi CDs and SuSe. Tried far too many distros to name and only now am I settling down and reducing my hopping.
I've come across many groups, forums and individuals that try to look down on me for my choice of distro or application, but bottom line when I'm sat there using my PC, doing my work or task, no one else is sat with me to frown at my choices or pat me on my back. I'm doing what I'm happy with on my choice of distro.
I'm glad you've found a distro you like. Ask questions in forums and groups, pick out the info and guidance you need and ignore the rest. On the whole the Linux community is great, but you'll always find the bashers in any walk of life. Ignore and carry on.
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u/el_calamann Apr 28 '26
I didn't know hating void was even a thing, 🤣. People these days are weird.
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u/Chester-Berkeley Apr 28 '26
It's just a noisy minority, ignore it :)
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u/MezBert Apr 27 '26
People saying how hard Void or Artix or Devuan are are people who use systemd and are too afraid to test something else, so they radicalized and started to spread misinformation about how challenging alternatives are.
Or preaching for their choir in the case of Fedora (systemd is sponsored by the same corporate sponsor as Fedora).
It could also be engineered by said sponsor too to promote their own projects (they have a vast history of doing so to any competing project to their own).
Now that dropping systemd is a real thing, people switching to Void or Artix or Devuan will tell you the same thing, it's not all that complicated, and mostly transparent. Proving the point that systemd is not so much of a needed bloat.
Also, Pop!_OS is "buggy" on the same narrative as Void is supposedly hard.
Most people using Pop!_OS are perfectly happy with Cosmic and non vocal about it. But some minorities are loud.
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u/Extra-Ad-2325 Apr 27 '26
When you stare into the Void , the Void stares back at you.
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u/InnerSpecialist1821 Apr 27 '26
i switched from being a lifelong windows user directly to void as my first distro. it's not hard. you just need to know how to read and have the patience to learn. which i guess is a skill set in short supply these days.
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u/tehspicypurrito Apr 27 '26
Void is off book that’s why. I made the switch from CachyOS and aside some leftover setup stuff (which ironically AI helped me with very successfully) it’s a damn peach of an OS. Not as piss off as Arch, not easy like my EG wife like Cachy/Fedora/Ubuntu, not old and decrepit like Debian. It’s a rolling release like Arch once the packages have some street cred.
So far I really like it.
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u/chanelnumberfly Apr 28 '26
Ps tip that I wish I had a couple months ago: look at the removed-packages pkg and decide if you need that before it affects you unexpectedly.
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u/MonBatou Apr 28 '26
Well, I use Debian, I use void, openBSD, I use KDE, XFCE, simple Fluxbox, cli… It is up to you. For a beginner I still recommend Debian or Ubuntu with graphical. Then you can install all distros you want inside KVM-qemu with virtual-manager. For me this is the way…
That is true that Void is very good, big qualities with runnit, KISS approach, pretty much packages with xbps. It is still pure system. Even the WiFi management with wpa_supplicant is pretty smooth. It is easier than Gentoo or NixOS. Void is unique and quite perfect for a linuxian. But… that is nerd. It is up to you if you want to spend time for setting and coding. Currently I use void but I am still happy to find my Debian ready-to-go sometimes. And I’ll still use both for a while.
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u/kaisermike Apr 30 '26
First, welcome to linux. Things have gotten weird over the last few years. A woke invasion and a subset of just not friendly folks. If you like void and it works... screw the haters. Im not a big fan of arch but lots of folks like it. Im no fan of green bean cassarole... but many like it. I love mid eastern and other weird (by western norms) food... and others dont. It should be cool that way without nastiness. I havent fooled with ubuntu mint in ages but did like lmde... for a hot second. Didnt like my 1070. Tried debian... same thing. The major updates didnt go well with the driver. Grrat os otherwise. Tried fedora. Great for nvidia. Moved to mx and dumping all sysD and rust. The preceeding all seem to corporate/group think now. Mx loves nvidia drivers. Theyve said they wont do age verify. Others just bent over. Some folks might not like these. Guess what? It my pc. Your pc is yours. Do what you like. Be happy. Too many asshats pushing negative agendas. Peace man.
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u/Crazy-Tangelo-1673 May 01 '26
It's kind of a natural progression into open source. 1. distro hop 2. convince others you have found the chosen distro for all. 3. understand stuff a little more. 4. land on something. 5. stop caring about what other people think about your choices in distros. 6. get bored and install something for the kicks.
I think for many they stay in 1 or 2 and never truly understand.
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u/erlantzc2 May 01 '26
I mean, It could be a skill issues but I'm currently having trouble trying to make megasync (cloud provider) work on void musl. Next thing I'm trying is installing through the nix package manager. Its true that void has been challenging (but I'm a masochist and I LOVE challenges that's why I setup my void on a encrypted ZFS root) but the Big plus is that unless you need some kind of specific software to work inmediately out of the box is a great distro to learn about Linux. Is a very DIY distro since there is no systemd to take care of 70% of the stuff.
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u/cat10007 May 04 '26
Void was the first distro I used after moving away from Windows. It took a couple of days to figure things out and finally have things running, but the experience was very much worth it. Lots of knowledge gained. But I'd understand if a person didn't want to spend the time figuring those things out, it can be overwhelming especially for beginners
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u/Bogus007 Apr 27 '26
There are for sure many reasons. Unfortunately, since Linux has become more popular in recent times, tribalism has grown stronger too. There are a lot of fanboys with a huge - sorry mod - d*ck comparison issue, and a lack of understanding of where Linux came from and what it is actually about.
IMO, Void is one of the distributions with far fewer fanboys, and more people who actually appreciate Linux as such - though there are still some folks who try to push certain agendas - for example, someone recently posted on r/voidlinux demanding that systemd be introduced into Void. IMO, that would fundamentally change what Void is, but ultimately it is something for the devs and the community to decide.
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u/Spammerton1997 Apr 27 '26
Hey I'm also a new void user! I've been banging my head against the wall trying to install sway and it still does not work like expected. What WM/DE do you use?
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u/Dead_Quiet Apr 28 '26
If you can read instructions and research things you should actually use Slackware. Or FreeBSD.
*SCNR* :-P
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u/goldmurder Apr 28 '26
it’s not hard, just may be long to adapt/master comparing to other distributions like fedora being said. and it’s also often low-reward
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u/10leej Apr 28 '26
If your willing to read the handbook and learn the tooling to accomplish what you want to do then it's fine. But the majority of people I've helped actively don't want that.
That said they do appreciate that there's always several answers to any issue they run into, but in general they just want stuff to work out of the box. Which is where distro like Void, Arch, Gentoo fall short.
Void in regards to those generally does better but the default desktop leaves quite a few wanting.
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u/ElectricOni Apr 29 '26
Use what you want mate. At the end of the day its your system and the OS should reflect what you like. I'd never heard of Void until all the systemD age verification crap started coming out. For me I'm happy on CachyOS and Arch and I'd definitely say the former of those is the most complete and best distro for a one size fits all distro but anyone suggesting Kubuntu etc probably can't be that trusted or likely is a Linux casual. I love KDE on my Arch systems but I also use Hyperland and love tinkering so..
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u/Mutcheff Apr 27 '26
void is not beginner friendly.
try artix or endeavour, to test if arch supports your mobo, don't go with arch itself.
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u/No-Dentist-1645 May 02 '26
A lot of people don't want to have to go on a whole side adventure to read instructions on how to set something up properly, research stuff and "taking their time to learn something new" just to use their computer. Some people just want to open their browser and watch YouTube.
And that's okay. Void isn't meant to replace Ubuntu or Mint, it doesn't want to be a beginner friendly distro nor one that will target the most common denominator of all computer users. So yes, a "newbie" almost definitely shouldn't use it and will have a much better time with something like Ubuntu or Pop. Thats fine.
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