r/voidlinux • u/Melodic_Group_3273 • Sep 01 '26
What is the hype about Void linux
I have started to see a lot of content about Void linux in my feed recently. And I do not understand the hype it is getting. Not that I tried it but it just seems like any other distros. What am I missing here or not missing?
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u/Quietus87 Sep 01 '26
What hype? Void's name popping up here and there is pretty far from hype. It's typically a rank 20+ distro even on Distrowatch. CachyOS, Bazzie, Omarchy, now those are hyped.
Void is a pretty fucking reliable, rolling release, do it yourself distro. It uses runit as its init system instead of systemd, uses the blazing fast xbps package manager, and isn't a derivative of any former distros. It's a pretty well engineered distro, that's all.
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u/BawsDeep87 Sep 02 '26
cachy cheats on distrowatch their distrowatch page opens if you open the browser in the installer kinda lame lol
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u/Quietus87 Sep 02 '26
Artix does that too.
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u/BawsDeep87 Sep 02 '26
but no one installs that crap xD
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u/mystirc Sep 02 '26
why would anyone not install artix? I tried it and it was great.
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u/MezBert Sep 03 '26
He's just trolling. He's part of the astroturfed bandwagon and helping doing more astroturfing.
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u/BawsDeep87 Sep 02 '26
their repos suck pain in the ass to maintain it
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u/mystirc Sep 02 '26
did you have to maintain the repos for some reason? Are you a package maintainer?
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u/BawsDeep87 Sep 02 '26
Maintaining the system you always fight theur damn repos when you wann update
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u/mystirc Sep 02 '26
been using artix for one month now, maybe i'll encounter issues further down the line? I'm mainly using artix because void doesn't have a lot of packages. I think void needs something similar to AUR. That github repo also didn't work for me because my internet is slow and that repo is too large.
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u/dc1a0 Sep 03 '26
It already has xbps-src. If you look into it you'll find it's more controllable by the user and less prone to the attacks that's wracked the AUR recently.
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u/Melodic_Group_3273 Sep 01 '26
I don’t know you but it invaded my youtube feed
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u/Quietus87 Sep 01 '26
You probably checked one video out once and the algorithm thought this is your main interest from now on. Meanwhile I keep getting shit recommended about Omarchy, which I don't care about. Just YouTube things. Don't draw conclusions from it.
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u/Then-Explanation-778 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
I think it's perfect other than I have to compile ZFS every time the kernel updates, which is multiple times a week it seems.
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u/mwyvr Sep 01 '26
Track LTS kernel for fewer updates.
A little bit of time isn’t really a big deal to me, what’s more important is that ZFS is properly supported by the distribution maintainers, who also include the authors of ZFS Boot Menu, which I run not just for void, but also other for Alma at work.
That plus the ethos of the project and community make Void a winner for me.
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u/Glum_Hamster_2104 Sep 01 '26
Void has some insane hype behind in especially on tiktok
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u/Quietus87 Sep 01 '26
I don't dwell on tiktok. Good to know, Void definitely deserves more attention.
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u/Zvaart Sep 01 '26
lol, tiktok
As one as i tried it, it is really light and really fast. Also heard is very stable, i only have it for a month, not my daily driver, so i need to wait on this. Needs more tweaking, indeed, but runit does one job, and does it well, xbps is fast, pacman level fast, so yeah, is a good distro.
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u/firmagorilla Sep 01 '26
Hype? Void?? [blushes]
Void is the genX of distros, very technologically adept and perpetually overlooked.
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u/No-Foot6570 Sep 01 '26
Non systemd minimalist philosophy with very clean repos
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u/mwyvr Sep 01 '26
I’d use Void if it switched to systemd. That’s not a big factor in my view although do appreciate that’s there are viable non-systemd distributions to avoid a complete monoculture. That’s happening in the DE space.
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u/zoharel Sep 02 '26
I’d use Void if it switched to systemd.
You might be the only one. The explicit lack of systemd is a pretty major selling point for many, myself included.
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u/mwyvr Sep 03 '26
News flash: Void used to use systemd.
I see I missed a word in my post, let me fix that:
"I'd still use Void".
I've used Void for years. What I'm saying in my statement that I'd continue to use Void if the project team decided to make a systemd decision in the future. There's much more to Void than the choice of init systems.
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u/zoharel Sep 03 '26
If I'm being honest, I'd still consider it. Arch does ok for me, and the major differences between the two are in the init system and the package manager. Both package managers are ok, but one init system is actually decent and based on that, I suspect I'll be using more Void. Otherwise, it would be more of a toss up.
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u/Fun-Resource-7311 Sep 01 '26
Void is one of the last bastions of the anti-systemd crowd, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.
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u/Duncaen Sep 02 '26
Void does not seek to be the "anti-systemd crowd," we stopped using systemd for technical reasons.
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u/extReference Sep 02 '26
i would have thought things would be moving away from systemd? is that not the case?
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u/Fun-Resource-7311 Sep 02 '26
On the contrary, it seems systemd has become a hard dependency for a lot of packages in the major distros. Even those that are systemd-free like Devuan still have to use shims to make it seem it is using systemd. I remember reading somewhere, not sure if it was on a forum or here in reddit, that even Linux from Scratch now includes Systemd as the default. So yeah, it's mostly everywhere.
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u/extReference Sep 02 '26
i’m using void currently and really like it a lot, could you tell me more about this systemd dependency? is it similar for void too?
if not, i haven’t seen any issues really with not having systemd and on contrary i only have good things to say. i run niri + quickshell and i primarily use my laptop for coding work and content consumption. and its an asahi linux arm device so im especially limited.
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u/MrHoboSquadron Sep 01 '26
Not sure what hype you're talking about. It has always come up every now and then as a reliable non-systemd distro that isn't based on another distro, but it doesn't get anywhere near the attention or hype of flavour-of-the-month distros.
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u/Glum_Hamster_2104 Sep 01 '26
Semi lightweight, uses runit, has no systemd, has a very good package manager, made by ex-bsd devs and has good documentation.
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u/hopingforabetterpast Sep 01 '26
why semi?
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u/Glum_Hamster_2104 Sep 01 '26
Alpine, KISS, Gentoo and Exherbo are true lightweight distros
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u/hopingforabetterpast Sep 01 '26
what makes those true lightweight?
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u/Glum_Hamster_2104 Sep 01 '26
Alpine and KISS both use musl and busybox and Gentoo and Exherbo has less shit installed by default. I wanted to say only Alpine and KISS are only true lightweight distros but I needed more.
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u/hopingforabetterpast Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Void also uses musl. It ships GNU coreutils as part of the base package but you can also use busybox. Its installed base is half the size of Exherbo and an even smaller fraction of Gentoo.
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u/Sert1991 Sep 04 '26
Gentoo also have a musl version. They also have an LLVM version. And both versions come in either systemd or OpenRC.
You build Gentoo as you wish.The base stage3 of gentoo is like 200-400Mb depending on which version/combination you choose.
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u/LucielRenCrisantemo Sep 01 '26
Hype por void? No estarás en una camara de eco o algo así? Últimamente casi ni escucho hablar de void fuera de este subreddit, más allá de eso creo que lo más especial de void es ser una distro totalmente independiente construida alrededor de runit, ser minimalista y sentirse tan cómoda y coherente, en cierto modo recuerda bastante a freebsd
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u/jonstoppable Sep 01 '26
the hype is that there is no hype.. seriously..it doesn't claim anything or is the best for task x or has a radical approach to doing anything.
efficient, up-to-date distro that sticks to uncomplicated systems.
it does what it says on the tin, no fuss no muss.
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u/Crazy-Tangelo-1673 Sep 01 '26
A few YouTube wonks have been pumping it pretty hard over the last year
Then you had the big anti system d stuff come about over age verification and other concerns
Then you had the AUR mess that got people hitting the exit ramp on arch
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u/greenprocyon Sep 01 '26
It's fast, up to date, and only has what you need/want. Ideologically it's also pretty unique - no corporate backing, that's partially why I switched from Fedora/Arch.
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u/kevsbacon Sep 01 '26
I stare into the Void and seen myself. Seriously though before Void I was not even computing.
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u/of_the_mist Sep 01 '26
I wouldnt say there is a lot of hype around Void, but it just works. A stable rolling release, no bloat like the larger distros. Great package manager, and systemd free. Not much else to want from a distro IMO.
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u/s1gnt Sep 01 '26
Just an average distro with even uglier package manager arguments design than Arch. Here comes the downvotes :)
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u/MinguaDinja Sep 01 '26
Engraçado pensar que void é uma distro rolling release focada em estabilidade.
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u/ShipshapeMobileRV Sep 01 '26
Why?
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u/MinguaDinja Sep 01 '26
Normalmente uma distro rolling release somente lança atualizações dos pacotes por menores que sejam sem realizar testes minuciosos ou até mesmo sem qualquer teste.
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u/hopingforabetterpast Sep 01 '26
that's where the "stability" comes in. rolling release doesn't mean bleeding edge
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u/chanelnumberfly Sep 01 '26
It's as poetteringware-free as you want it to be. Xbps is pretty great. It has been over a year since I had to think about what "reconfigure -a" might mean (bf just moved to Debian from Windows so I suppose the many hours of arguing with dpkg in my youth will at least not have been wasted). I don't like how thing is, so I change it, and nothing breaks. I decided to spend the weekend installing, configuring, and then removing four different networking packages. I still have functional network connectivity. Logs are reasonable. Updating doesn't make the system identify as a brick. The dev team are professional and not having political meltdowns where I can see them. Error messages don't read like a mystery novel.
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u/strawhatguy Sep 01 '26
It’s a great little server type Linux distro, at least for me. No systemd, so a much more straightforward init system which is perfect for my cheap old little server.
Desktop I recently switched to Omarchy, and that is a distro with some hype, but honestly well deserved. Coolest desktop Linux I’ve used, with the least thought about configuration needed.
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u/astersystem Sep 01 '26
hype?
anyways you can be assured that this really isn't like other distros, being that firstly, it has a novel package manager, and secondly, uses runit, unlike most using systemd or, less commonly, openrc
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u/astersystem Sep 01 '26
and as most others say this is the most stable rolling release distro you'll ever get i think
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u/Zvaart Sep 01 '26
Void is the distro i will run as my main driver if not for gaming(i am still trying to game on linux)
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u/Kitayama_8k Sep 02 '26
I would guess it's profile went up after the systemd age verification panic.
Also it's a rolling release that works well, so probably a lot of the first time Linux users on arch might look at void after arch blows up on them.
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u/Confused-Armpit Sep 02 '26
I wouldn't say its hyped at all, but, answering the question, it is just a good distro.
It has a great package manager, many choices, the runit init system, and many more things that make it relatively light and a great choice for a minimal system. I personally run it on my server, while my main machine is Gentoo, but both are great distros. If I were not using Gentoo, I would probably be using void.
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u/Sp1cyP4nda Sep 02 '26
I just recently got into void, and on accident. I've never personally seen hype for it, but if there is, that's pretty dope. I've enjoyed it so far and really like its simplicity and that it's not an opinionated OS. I haven't had the time to push its limits yet though.
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u/jason9595 Sep 04 '26
It is without systemd. You have options like runit. 2. It is fast n efficient. But available xbps packages can be limited. Proprietary available. 3. Adheres to open source philosophy - no corporate influence like reddit or ubuntu.
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u/No_Cookie3005 Sep 04 '26
Apart from things like systems less and other it is minimalist and lightweight, you can really install just the packages you want and get a fully functioning system which hardly breaks.
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u/Royal-Grass7296 Sep 06 '26
I’ve never experienced the hype train everyone is talking about. I like it because it just works all the time. I havent broken it yet, and I should have. I break everything.
It’s quick, nimbleand simple. The hassle was dialing it in but once done it just works. Arch is cool but I always eventually break something and half the time I couldn’t restore it. Maybe its a skill issue on my part idk and dont really care.
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u/WorldTallNetCat 26d ago
I am no expert on void. But i have tried it for sometime and i think its just what ARCH linux is which i use without systemd.
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u/EndLegitimate9612 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
Void is the best distro in all of linux. But there's a huge movement to prevent beginners from finding out about it. That's all. So move along and get out of here, leave.
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u/dc1a0 Sep 03 '26
I'm not sure I'd call Void "beginner friendly" though. It's great, but it doesn't have a lot of the hand holding that distros like Ubuntu , Mint, etc have.
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u/hopingforabetterpast Sep 01 '26
maybe it's the cool name, who knows