Void Linux - The Best Linux Distro

I’m going to be as brief as possible about this. When I first started using Linux several years ago, I ran them inside VirtualBox so I could try many different distros, and get an idea of what Linux was. Most of the distros I ran inside VirtualBox were just forks of Debian or Ubuntu with a slightly different desktop. Eventually I realized that most linux distros do not matter, because most of them are just reskins of Debian or Arch that pander to casuals who don’t know what a desktop environment is. Any distro can be made to look however you want with the right desktop environment. We can forget about all of the distros based on other distros (the only exceptions being Artix and Devuan, which actually improve on Arch and Debian by not using systemd) and stick to independent distros like Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, and Void Linux.

After using Linux for several years, i’ve pretty much decided that Void Linux is the best linux distro. It is both lightweight and easy to use (unlike Arch). It’s features are:

• The XBPS package manager which from my experience, is the fastest package manager i’ve ever used
• Uses runit instead of Systemd (onion)
• Supports both Glibc and musl, so users can choose which one they want.
• Is rolling release, which means packages are generally up-to-date.
• Is very lightweight. There are no restrictions, preinstalled bloat, automatic update checking, or a graphical app store.
• Free and nonfree software are in separate repositories.
• Has a live installer, or you can install the system manually as you would on Arch.
• A lot of useful packages in it’s repositories, including pipe-viewer and i3-gaps.
• Excellent documentation.

I’ve used Void Linux on my laptop for over a year now. The only problem I have with it is that the Void maintainers refuse to package forks of Firefox and Chrome (such as Ungoogled Chromium and LibreWolf). The Tor browser launcher is included but only in the glibc repositories, so if you’re using Void Linux musl, you’re pretty much stuck with Chromium, Firefox, or an obscure browser. AppImages don’t work on musl, though this isn’t much of a problem since I don’t really use them anyway. I prefer to have the packages actually installed on my system.

Void Linux website