Since Void Linux uses a rolling release model, there’s not much to report on in the form of new releases and major new features, so I’m taking the release of version 0.60 of XBPS, Void Linux’ package manager, to cheat my way into talking about this excellent Linux distribution. I always think of Void as the “BSD of Linux distributions”, which should give you some vague hint as to what it’s going for.
XBPS 0.60 doesn’t come packed with major new features either, and mostly fixes a ton of bugs, addresses few memory leaks, and changes the way held dependencies and directory removal/creation works when reinstalling a packages, just to name a few. There’s also some performance improvements, as there were apparently some problems in that department due to the increasing number of virtual packages in the Void repository.
If you’re looking for a more traditional, hands-on Linux distribution, Void is an excellent choice. It’s my back-up for if (let’s face it: when) Fedora messes something up.
Void is love, Void is life. I’m an OS junkie (that’s…why I’m here), I’ve tried every Linux distro, BSD OS, and nearly every modern alternative OS for x86 and ARM. Yet I keep coming back to Void for my daily driver, and I also like it for Raspberry Pis and laptops. Even ancient and slow hardware like my Lenovo X131E laptop and HP T620 thin clients run better with Void than any other OS. I might run FreeBSD or OpenBSD or Haiku for a while on a spare machine just to keep up with things (I currently have OpenBSD on one and Haiku on another), but Void *just works* and it’s like a well-worn but sturdy pair of gloves. I can’t imagine getting things done without it.
Normally when I Linux, it was Ubuntu, or when Ubuntu got crazy, Linux Mint. I’ve heard good things about Void, but also that it’s not for competent casuals – people who’s hobbies are on the computer and not the computer itself. (though I’ve heard it’s not Arch-Linux levels of toxic RTFM culture, to Void’s credit.)
Who would you recommend Void for, who wouldn’t you recommend Void for? I’m thinking of maybe moving to Linux to escape Copilot, though I will likely put up with it until EOL for Win11.
Honestly it’s not that difficult to set up. The installer is text-based but it’s very straightforward, the hardest part for most would be the manual partitioning but it offers cfdisk for that which is easy enough for most folks. If you follow the handbook(1) you should have no issues with it. I highly recommend starting with the Xfce install image so you get a graphical environment both in the live and installed states. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the system, you can continue using Xfce if you wish or you can install any DE or WM you prefer. I use KDE Plasma these days and it’s great on Void. Do note that Void is similar to Slackware and Debian in one regard: It rarely customizes anything from upstream, so you get the default Xfce or Plasma or whatever software you install, no branding changes or workarounds. This is a departure from what you may be used to with Mint, Ubuntu, MX Linux, etc.
Another “Void thing” is that there is no graphical app store or anything like that. You can manage packages at the command line with XBPS, the subject of Thom’s article, and you can optionally install and use fuzzypkg from the command line or OctoXBPS for a GUI (Qt) interface. Both of those options use XBPS on the back end.
In short, other than the text based installation, once you’ve got Void installed it’s very much in the background and you can just get stuff done without worrying about having to tinker with the OS itself. Like Arch, the potential is there to mold and shape it into whatever you want, but if you just want to get stuff done and let the OS live in the background, it’s perfect for that as well.
(1) https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/live-images/partitions.html
I really like runit, so void is my main distro of choise. I also like the lack of other poetteringware in general.
The design and direction of Systemd concerns me and my distro of choice does not use it. That said, I am a very happy with Pipewire and use Avahi often. So, I cannot slam everything that Lennart Poettering has done.
PulseAudio is also Lennart Poettering and Pipewire is objectively better.
I came to Void too late. When I first tried Void, it was after years of Arch and the repositories felt too small. As I added Distrobox to my workflow, that matters less now.
Void really impressed me. It seemed very fast and memory efficient. As somebody with a lot of old hardware, that really matters. Putting Void on a daily driver was on my todo list and, had I done it sooner, I would probably be a Void user now.
Instead, one of the Void devs started Chimera Linux and I ended up there. Chimera was started as a project to improve XBPS source which grew into the Chimera cports build system. Cports then continued on to become a full distro which, interestingly, uses Alpine Package Keeper v3 (apk) instead of XBPS for binary packages.
Chimera is awesome and very fast as well but not quite as memory efficient. I may yet install Void on a system to really compare the two systems head-to-head. Who knows, I could be a Void user yet. It is hard to imagine giving up cports/apk though. They have changed Linux for me.
You can really feel the Void influence in Chimera Linux, even on the website and in the handbook. I guess a lot of that influence ultimately came to Void from BSD.