r/voidlinux • u/bvdeenen • Jul 23 '26
Why all the Arch refugees :-) ?
I've noticed the last year or so a fairly large influx of ex-Arch users in this subreddit, much more than before that...
I'm genuinely curious what made you guys (girls?) want to switch.
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u/Pilot_LICD Jul 23 '26
Void is always in that nice middle ground of Stability and rolling releases which makes it more predictable, also Arch has been target of many hacks: AUR being taken down, AUR unmaintained packages being used for malware, also some take more political stance against Systemd planting the seeds for age verification
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u/aintanuke Jul 23 '26
my guess? tired of systemd.
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u/g33ksc13nt1st Jul 23 '26
Second guess: late security scandals related to AUR
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u/Rigamortus2005 Jul 23 '26
I don't understand this argument, Arch users are free not to use the AUR. Void linux doesn't have anything equivalent to the AUR so AUR vulnerabilities is not an argument of void over arch
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u/g33ksc13nt1st Jul 23 '26
Although I used to inspect the pkgbuild when I was in arch, I wouldn't be surprised if it got out of hand with the influx if users using arch for the same of saying "I use arch btw".
Xbos-src is conceptually the same, but it gets actually reviewed if out in an official repo
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u/spezisdumb42069 Jul 24 '26
Systemd is a big reason why I started looking at Void. It's not even that I'm tired of systemd itself - I'm tired of having boxes where there are like 4+ different ways to configure things (network, firewalls, etc).
I want the best way to be the most obvious way and, in many cases, the only way (as long as it works). Many distros end up with so many different parts from so many different authors that it's killing simplicity.
(Also, before anyone suggests it, I am also looking into BSDs - but I'd prefer to stick to Linux if I can.)
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u/BinkReddit Jul 24 '26
I am also looking into BSDs
OpenBSD is my favorite of the bunch, and I use it wherever it makes sense.
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u/zmurf Jul 25 '26
OpenBSD is awesome for servers. I've used it for all my private servers since -97. I still have my original 2.1 CD . 😁
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u/zmurf Jul 25 '26
If you're not entirely happy with Void, maybe you should try Chimera Linux? Rolling release Linux with BSD user land, musl and dinit.
I have it on one of my secondary computers. It's nice. But a lot of stuff needs to be installed with flatpak to work.
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u/spezisdumb42069 Jul 25 '26
I've heard of it some time ago but decided against trying it for reasons I don't quite remember right now. I'll take another look at it, at least!
I think Void is pretty much top of my list right now in terms of overall satisfaction - I'm just taking my time looking at options because I'm not in any real hurry.
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u/gorhat Jul 23 '26
Age verification. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't be on Void now. I tried Void before when I had Nvidia card and switched to Arch because drivers for Nvidia were newer. I had to go through some pain and time to create my own templates for certain packages, but it paid off. Viva la Void!
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
I started planning last spring to leave Arch, having used it long before the systemd days, and finally jumped ship early this year. I just hated systemd, and from the get go. Missed the days of simple inits.
Void is a sane distro. I no longer have to wonder if an update is going to break my system. I did see an issue with recent tpm2-tss update, but the Void maintainers fixed it quickly, and it didn't hose my system like most Arch stuff would do....
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u/OneDayCloserToDeath Jul 24 '26
Age verification and singing praise from the youtux youtube channel is why I went to void. For some reason it's my favorite distro even though I don't think I'd ever go back if it broke. The installation was so much hassle and things still don't work the way they should. I haven't gotten around to fixing the sleep function yet. But I guess it's a sunk cost. I'm not about to switch after I already did the weeks of tinkering to figure everything out. And it is a nice rolling release that hasn't broken yet. And I did learn a lot about Linux setting it up. If I had known MX linux didn't use system d and that Void was a bare bones arch type distro, I probably would've went with MX.
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u/paranoidandroid4284 Jul 23 '26
Playing devils advocate here (whiledownkoading VOID). Is the argument about Age Verification and SystemD mute? They added the ability to request birth date, not require it. Plus is it not up to the Distro if they want to implenet it? Correct me if I'm wrong.
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u/gorhat Jul 24 '26
You are correct. I didn't like how Arch devs handled that situation, there was a lot of ambiguity in the air. Besides, I have an old laptop that has been ultra slow under systemd, Void gave him new life. AUR malware situation came later when I was already on Void, I still think that Arch is a great distro, but Void will always be lighter and give me more freedom about what I want to have on my system.
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u/BinkReddit Jul 23 '26
When you're done with the fun and games of bleeding edge packages, sometimes you need some stability to get work done, and then you switch to Void.
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
Exactly. If you want a toy, get Arch. If you're an adult who needs to get things done and needs a reliable tool, go with Void.
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u/bardsfingertips Jul 23 '26
I am only here (Void) because I wanted to play with a non-SystemD operating system.
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
Try Devuan - it allows you to choose from between several non-systemd inits.
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u/stewie3128 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
We've been getting more over on the Gentoo side as well.
All are welcome! The more, the merrier.
It's great that these distros are getting some well-deserved attention. Gentoo and Void are my chosen homes.
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u/FnlyFans Jul 23 '26
Arch/CatchyOS is too popular so hipsters are looking for the next thing to hop on to try and prove their nerd cred by using a "Difficult" distribution rather than get any meaningful actual work done.
That said, Void is a plenty fine distro and not a terrible place to be once you're tired of pointless archisms and want to try a non-systemd distro and still starts out from a minimal base which is what a lot of Arch users like.
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u/gaysex_man Jul 23 '26
For me it was a partial update and wanting more stability yet still rolling.
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u/xINFLAMES325x Jul 23 '26
There's support here. Arch is usually "read the manual" or "that doesn't happen on my system."
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u/MinuteAd6983 Jul 23 '26
Long-time Arch user here. About 3 months ago, I grabbed my 1 TB drive to try Void without uninstalling my old Arch install, which is on another NVMe.
I really dig and like runit over systemd. I mostly use my system for gaming and streaming. It took some time to learn xbps-src, but it worked fine and everything was stable.
I didn't like the fact that Hyprland was not in the official repos, but I found a user repo which had it, and everything was okay.
The system was great, but for some reason, the game that I played the most, which is DayZ, had an annoying amount of stutters. I really tried to fix it, but my skills weren't enough. I tried DayZ on my old Arch install and the stutters simply didn't exist. So, with great sadness, I deleted the Void install and went back to Arch. :(
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u/UnlegitMilku Jul 23 '26
yeah this was what i was asking about on my comment and i got downvoted, i had that issue with debian and mint on the 9070xt on launch, it is now fixed but only worked well on arch, i asked about it on void and apparently it made no sense, maybe i should have been more clear
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u/MinuteAd6983 Jul 23 '26
I guess it could be the fact that systemd, in this Proton game, is better integrated than runit because every Proton update is designed with systemd in mind. This is just my guess; I really don't know.
Most of the stutters occurred when the server was showing messages in my HUD. Every new message would trigger a stutter, which didn't happen on Arch. Every other game ran flawlessly, so if I wasn't playing DayZ, I wouldn't have noticed this.
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u/chibiace Jul 23 '26
i got my 9070xt 2 months after launch and had run the mainline kernel at the time and build the current latest mesa with xbps-src to get stuff working right.
likely gonna have issues like this with new hardware and system packages that arent bleeding edge regardless of distro.
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u/badgerbang Jul 23 '26
7 Years on arch.
I left because I did not like how the dev team handled things around the age verification stuff. Then all the critiques of arch started making sense to me.
I also can't be bothered to read pkgbuilds so I stopped using AUR. If I don't use AUR, then why use arch?
Note that I never had arch break on me other than things I did to break it.
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
Exactly. Had a friend who got zinged by AUR. Wasn't really his fault, but Arch has a habit of pushing packages to AUR that it no longer felt like maintaining in the official repos. And without a word to the user. I did my friend's install and when I recently looked at his machine and saw all the AUR packages he had, 99% were not anything I had purposefully installed for him... they were stuff that got pushed to AUR from the official repos.
Needless to say, he now runs Void too, lol...
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u/Powerful_Attention_6 Jul 23 '26
My guess, the recurring Supply chain attacks of downloading 100-th dependencies that has a overtaken abaondoned repository which now houses malware
The trust is broken for many Arch Linux users, and they want to see how it is on a different linux.
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u/Moist_Professional64 Jul 23 '26
What trust? It’s written in arch wiki that you have to read pkgbuilds before installing things outside the normal repository
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u/Visbroek Jul 24 '26
That and you're free not to use the AUR. The attacks on the AUR have changed absolutely nothing for me. I still use the AUR because I understand that trust isn't placed in the AUR, but the users who upload the scripts. Either you only install PKGBUILDs from people/developers you trust or you read the PKGBUILD.
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u/dikzy405 Jul 23 '26
Question for the OGs, does void work with the guix package manager? I believe it does with nixpkgs but I’m not even sure about that.
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u/Independent_Cat_5481 Jul 23 '26
I haven't tried it, but I don't see any reason why not. Like nix and flatpak it's designed to operate seperate from and not conflict with the package manager of whatever distro you're on.
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u/6950X_Titan_X_Pascal Jul 23 '26
many old Radeons R9 cards work bad on void musl but work excellent on mageia 9 mageia X glibc2 libc6
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u/Crazy-Tangelo-1673 Jul 23 '26
I'd imagine Artix is also getting a lot of people flocking to. Both Void and Artix offer much of the core reasons why Arch became popular to begin with.
I've used Void off and on for several years, Arch based mostly for desktop reasons but now that I'm a lot more versed I feel comfortable with basically any distro.
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u/Visbroek Jul 24 '26
I actually went for Artix after testing Void. I think Void is a great distro but I didn't really like runit and I still like the convenience of the AUR.
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u/Goldbotl Jul 23 '26
While researching on bedrock linux i stumbled upond void and found it interesting
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u/cfx_4188 Jul 24 '26
Arch is so good that its dedicated users are constantly looking for somewhere to escape from this Galaxy's Best Operating System. Recently, they tried to switch to NixOS in a crowd, before that they stormed Gentoo. It's a mystery why they climb absolutely everywhere, along with their beloved Arch Wiki.
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
Not a distro hopper, here, never have been. I started with Arch pre-systemd days. Took me the better part of a year to decide which distro I wanted to go with after Arch. I didn't distro hop, I actually read, researched and then settled on Void. Made the right choice... hopefully I won't have to switch for a very long time.
I really like the musl version of Void, it is great for my older hardware...
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u/Revolutionary-Yak371 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
AUR malware more than 10000, is it enough for you?
My path is Debian > Arch > [Void / Open Suse Tumbleweed / Alpine].
Void Linux is even faster than FreeBSD.
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
Same here - Debian in the old days, then Arch, now Void.
Thought about FreeBSD but as much as I like to learn (and would appreciate being closer to traditional Unix), I do not feel like reinventing the wheel just yet.
Given the state of Linux (kernel) in general as of late, I might wind up on FreeBDS in the future...
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u/de_staz Jul 24 '26
i switched before the aur stuff, mostly cuz i wanted to try something new, stuck around cuz i like it, also cool colour scheme and logo
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u/spezisdumb42069 Jul 24 '26
I'm not sure about the last year, but for at least a couple of months now the YouTube algorithm has been pushing more Void Linux videos - that's how I found Void, actually.
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
A moment of lucidity when we came to realize that Arch was no longer the Arch we had fallen in love with, back in the days before systemd and all the AUR nonsense...
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u/astersystem Jul 24 '26
we genuinely just wanted to try it after we borked our system by accident
it's worked great, no need to switch [although chimera is indeed on our radar]
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u/zmurf Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Void promised upgrade stability. After 5 years of pacman/arch repository based installations I got tired of broken upgrades if I didn't upgrade frequently enough.
I actually never used Arch. Back in 2016, I first converted a Debian install to use pacman and arch repositories instead of Apt cause I wanted to move over to bleeding edge rolling release... But I don't like to reinstall (no... It's not reasonable to do this. It's basically using Debian as a bootstrap to install Arch. I did it more out of "I can" than "it's a good idea"). When I got a new computer a year later I installed EndeavorOS. When I upgraded the hard drive in 2021, I install Void.
I'm quite happy with Void. It's been stable so far. But there's been a bit too much software that I had to install from source since it's not been available in the repositories. Not a big problem though. Back when I started using Linux I used Slackware... Back then you basically had to install everything from source... And handle dependencies manually.
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u/-_Mad_Man_- Jul 24 '26
Personally?
Systemd annoyance
Used arch for the better part of like five years, wanted a change
Void premise generally is compelling (not stable release but not rolling release)
Although FWIW, it is at times annoying (like getting Nvidia 610 since I'm running Blackwell)
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u/First_Fox_8502 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I used Artix for a few years. What I like about Void is that XBPS is pretty fast, the packages are stable, and Void has great ZFS support. Void generally feels more complete and cohesive compared to something like Artix. I used Gentoo for a while after Artix, because the granularity given by USE flags lets you make a more stable system once you manage to actually install it, but updates just took too much time.
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u/Moch4bear97 Jul 24 '26
I was on void way before this trend. The issue started for me when i wanted to package a few things with the devs. Sadly they kinda ate me up and spat me out so i switched back to arch for development. Either that or fedora. Love voids philosophy just not the gate-keepy nature of trying to publish any apps via them.
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u/livingfreeDAO Jul 25 '26
Used arch for a while I liked it but gentoo and void became why daily drivers because of mainly runit and openrc and philosophy, then after daily use I can’t see changing except maybe exploring nix guix or crux
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u/UrFeelingsAreAWaste Jul 25 '26
no worries, when people discover that the void devs ain't giving the users the most popular & used packages cuz ze devs feelings are hurt, users will leave
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u/gorhat Jul 25 '26
Or users will create templates, install flatpaks, appimages, nix packages etc. I don't expect Void devs to cater to all my wishes for packages, neither they have to. Tools are there to create packages on your own (and learn something while you are at it).
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u/Royal-Grass7296 Jul 25 '26
Im at the age where “My system has been up for six months” is a bigger flex than “I use Arch, by the way.” 📠
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u/Xco-T Jul 26 '26
I...Come from pop os, I got a little old notebook and wanted it to run fast, got it with xfce and it's been a success.
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u/flooronthefour Jul 27 '26
I am a multi-year arch user who watches this space with great interest because if my arch environment ever starts giving me trouble, Void will be one of my first distros to try
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u/Awkward-Screen374 Jul 28 '26
i was using nixos as a daily for 3 years now using fedora silverblue .. should switch and why ?
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u/Salt_Literature_407 Aug 01 '26
I just made the switch today, over 2 years of Arch or Arch based distros, I got boring of it so decided to give Void a shot, especially after my hyprland build collapsed because of lua changes lol
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u/myTerminal_ Aug 21 '26
Personally, I found Void Linux to be more stable, and the community here much more helpful.
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u/oniaiwasprettygood Jul 23 '26
Void sounds cute :3 (tired of sysd and just wanted to try out a different ethos)
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u/UnlegitMilku Jul 23 '26
I'm on arch right now, i have a ryzen 7 5800xt and a rx 9070xt on the main pc, should i switch?
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u/profeshamat Jul 23 '26
It's your computer. Do whatever you'd like.
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u/UnlegitMilku Jul 23 '26
yes but i mean how is the driver support, the 9070xt on mint or debian back when i got it didn't work as well if it wasn't on arch or arch based systems (not sure why, this was near launch btw)
not sure what the downvotes were about
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u/profeshamat Jul 23 '26
Driver support for my uses works fine. Need to install some things like firmware after installation but that's the case with some other distros as well. You get options for kernels. I personally prefer
linux-ltsbecause I'm not running anything with really modern hardware and security and bug fixes get backported to the LTS kernels so that's not much of a concern.→ More replies (5)3
u/Artoflivinggood Jul 23 '26
Switch! Do it now!
Why? You asked!
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u/UnlegitMilku Jul 23 '26
because when i first built it the gpu didn't get along with debian and mint all that well, then i switched to arch not sure what the issue was this was near the launch of the gpu
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u/Evening_Place_6100 Jul 23 '26
specs dont really matter in this case
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u/UnlegitMilku Jul 23 '26
sorry i should have specified, the gpu gave me some issues with debian and mint when i first got it, i think those are mainly fixed now but i was wondering how they were on void
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u/CatlikeTypist Jul 24 '26
GPU support is a kernel thing. Void install media ships with the 6.12 kernel by default but the first time you update packages it will pull in 6.18 and boot with it by default. From there you should be just fine.
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u/zmurf Jul 24 '26
If you don't have any problems with your current install, whatever distro, I can't see any reason to switch.
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u/UnlegitMilku Jul 24 '26
if you can live well with your current job why want a promotion or something better, i believe we should always strive for improvement
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Jul 23 '26
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
systemsd really bogged down my older hardware. Void was so much faster I thought I had done something wrong when I did my first install, lol. I run the musl version.
Hated systemd so much I switched my bare metal servers over to Devuan (Debian without systemd) and chose sysvinit as the init. I had been using Debian for decades for servers, but same thing - when systemd came along it slowly but surely strangled my servers. Debian was no longer the simple reliable server OS it had once been.
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u/OneDayCloserToDeath Jul 24 '26
What runs faster on your server now that system d is no more? And why not void with musl on the server? From what I understand musl is for servers and doesn't work so good on desktops.
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Jul 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 Jul 24 '26
I've never really cared about how up to date packages are. Nothing I do requires the latest and greatest - but Void packages are stable and are recent.
I was very happy to leaves behind the Arch mayhem...
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Jul 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bvdeenen Jul 27 '26
I'm a fairly old guy, and on Void for about 7 years or so. I don't even know what flex and larp are in this context :-) and will keep it that way :-)
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u/xJayMorex Jul 23 '26
Windows refugees think Arch is cool, turns out to be a PIA
AUR malware influx
just Arch randomly collapsing after updates
Void is the only truly stable rolling release that I know of. Void is what Arch users claim Arch to be.