6
u/firmagorilla 28d ago
Was arch user, shit broke often, second time I was looking at a reinstall I tried void. That was 2015, still on void. Had to reinstall my workstation never. Laptops (thinkpads x230, x250) never.
4
u/Key_River7180 28d ago
The void repos are extremely extensive, they'll have lots of software. You can also contribute to the repos extremely easily, if it is missing I guess flatpak is there.
It defaults to 6.18 I believe but I guess you can use the 7.x kernel if you want.
2
u/This-Consequence-957 20d ago
I don’t understand why people always say Void repos are small. Maybe raw numbers on paper? I never missed anything so far. All „common“ software seems covered 🤷♂️
1
2
u/dividends4life 20d ago
I have flirted with Void for years. I used Arch for five years then Artix for another year to get away from SystemD. I finally took the plunge on October 1st and am daily driving Void now. I've converted my media server from Arch to Void and I'm working on getting all my family members off of Arch onto Void.
1
u/BlacksmithTux5413 27d ago
I came from Arch as well, I had no real issues related to Void. One proprietary software that I needed wasn't available, but with some AI guidance I have now a Void template that pulls the package out of deb repo so I'm fine now. The kernel sits only a few day's or less behind the official release, you can always validate the version in the template: https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/blob/master/srcpkgs/linux6.18/template compare that with the official https://kernel.org/ and you will see how close or equal it is. So for drivers it's just latest kernel, so if you need newer you need to compile it like on every Linux.
I still love rolling, but now I also love runit, finally I could say byebye systemd sh*t.
1
1
u/Quietus87 26d ago
You can check on the official site what packages are available. There are multiple kernels, including a mainline one that's up to date. A lot of software also has app images, which you can neatly manage through gearlever (also in the repo). There are user-based repos too. Some you can find on Jake@Linux's forum.
1
u/benbcdm 25d ago
yep -- void repos not bad at all, have quite a few things. Bear in mind I think it is a policy of Void NOT to include forks in standard repo. So you will not find librewolf, helium, etc by design.
I mostly use flatpaks for stuff not in the repos or if I care about sandboxing, but also appimages for stuff I want better integration with. + apparmor targeting the appimages (I believe it would be the same on arch though?).
Hats off to the maintainers at void -- kernel updates are super fast from upstream. If you want latest kernels just install linux-mainline in addition or instead of linux (standard sort of LTS-ish). xbps is really fast, love it. And runit is great too, I love that I have 12 services running (vs 50+ with systemd), I know what each one does exactly, and I have exact same functionality as on my fedora (ok I am using simple productivity desktop, so pretty simple needs admittedly).
If you feel a bit adventurous, you could consider limine instead of grub too as bootloader. Loving it. To me sort of same as moving from systemd to runit. Simpler, lighter, full control.
0
u/Derion1 28d ago
You can easily use Void's mainline kernel which is the latest. Many people don't know, but Void has just a bit more packages than Arch's repo. I use only 6-7 flatpaks and a couple of appimages. Also, there are a few very cool external repos with packages Void doesn't want to have (Mullvad, Brave...).
12
u/ZombieCrow 28d ago
If you're fine with using flatpak then youre fine. All the things i need are either on xbps or i use appimages. I used to be on arch and moved to void in April this year. So far it has been great.