Void

Reader supplied reviews for Void Average rating 9.1 from 263 review(s) Please select a rating in the range of 1-10. Please write at least a few sentences about the distribution while limiting your review to 4080 characters. What are your thoughts on Void? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- current202502022024031420230628202210012021093020191109201811112017100720150221 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: current Rating: 10 Date: 2026-02-14 Country: United States Votes: 10 I used the Void XFCE flavor on an old Asus Chromebook for years until the Chromebook finally bit the bullet. I got a brand new Asus Zenbook OLED last year, and for a brief few months the HW was too new for me to get Void onto it. I tried Mint/Cinnamon, but the CPU temps and fan speed were ridiculous (along with the bloated software). I moved to Ubuntu/Cinnamon, and had the same temperature issue. I moved to Kubuntu and the temperature issue went away, and I liked the interface....so as soon as I could get back onto Void, I installed Base, added specific Intel drivers for my HW, then installed KDE. It took less than an hour to install, update, and configure it to be exactly what I want, including sound, WiFi, laptop power management, and printing. While I've use Linux for a long time, I've always preferred to USE it, not work on it; I'm a long way from being a "power user". However, if you can read the Handbook, you, too, can install and build Void to your exact liking. Boot time is just crazy. From power-on to functional desktop takes less than 30 seconds. Daily performance can best be described as "snappy"....nothing ever lags, hiccups, or even blinks funny. Updates are typically measured in dozens of seconds. I did install octoxbps and its notifier, and I run updates any time the notifier tells me that an update is available; usually once daily. Unlike some other versions I've played with, I never have to cross my fingers (or spend 45 minutes in a README) before running Void updates. They just work. The only software I've personally needed from Flatpaks is Only Office. It was a cakewalk to install, and it's been fine so far. A long time ago I was a staunch FreeBSD advocate; I liked the top-to-bottom level of detail/consistency that FreeBSD offered. But I grew tired of the limited software availability and moved to Linux. I was never able to find a Linux distro that gave me that "this is the perfect distro" vibe until I found Void. The tidy filesystem, simple init system, stability (while being a rolling release, no less!), developer responsiveness, and community support, have completely converted me. Long Live Void!! Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 20250202 Rating: 10 Date: 2026-02-08 Country: Brazil Votes: 18 Void Linux has been my daily driver for over a year now, after a long stretch of hopping between Arch, Fedora, and even Debian Stable, and what still surprises me is how it manages to feel like a rolling release without the constant tension. It's current, but calm. You notice the difference right at boot. Runit brings the system up in seconds, services are just small scripts in /etc/sv, and enabling one is a simple symlink. No giant service managers, no opaque logging layers, just straightforward Unix logic. It's the first init system I've used that actually feels pleasant instead of something you fight against. XBPS is another highlight. Updates are extremely fast, and the shared library tracking means upgrades rarely break anything. When I want custom software, xbps-src builds everything in a clean chroot and lets me install or even host my own packages without polluting the system. It gives you AUR or ports-level flexibility, but in a much cleaner, more controlled way. I also tested the musl edition on another machine and was surprised by how light and tidy it felt. Most of my daily software works out of the box, and when something doesn't, the community is quick to patch and upstream fixes. The whole ecosystem feels small but sharp. What really makes Void stand out is that it's built from scratch: its own package manager, build system, and init, all designed to stay minimal and transparent. Tools like xtools add a lot of power without adding bloat. After getting used to that simplicity, many other distros started to feel overly complicated. Void didn't just replace my previous system, it made Linux fun again. If you like speed, control, and a distro that stays out of your way while still staying up to date, it's hard not to appreciate what it does. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 20250202 Rating: 10 Date: 2026-02-05 Votes: 15 I'd been using Arch for the past 3 years until I decided to give Fedora a shot a few months ago. People always say Fedora ships new tech quickly but is more stable than Arch and breaks less. After actually living with it for a while, I'm not sure I agree. I ran into way more issues than I expected. So after that short stint, I took a deeper look at Void. I liked the whole minimalist, independent philosophy behind it, and a lot of people praise its stability, so I figured I'd try it. After a month of daily use, I honestly couldn't be happier. Running dwm + Xorg it uses a ridiculous 200–220 MB of RAM. In 2026 that's kind of wild. Even after hours of use the resource usage barely drifts, and if I close everything and go back to an idle state, it settles very close to the original footprint. It feels extremely consistent. The system is smooth, no bottlenecks, no stuttering feeling, even with several programs open pushing CPU and GPU. I also haven't had any tearing issues, which I sometimes dealt with on Arch even with a compositor. The repos have a solid package selection, I've barely needed Flatpaks, and when I did, they worked perfectly fine here. I really feel like I finally found a distro I can stick with for a long time. I'm enjoying it a lot so far, and it's absolutely worth trying if you're curious. No regrets for me. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 263 reader reviews of Void...