I want to start feeling out future distros for me once the age attestation makes its way into systemd. I am currently using Fedora on two computers, one I use for gaming (all AMD) and one I use for getting work done (thinkpad x13). I am pretty bummed about this because I feel quite settled in with Fedora, but with all the talk of age attestation happening I will be withdrawing my consent from using distros that intend to comply with these laws.
I have targeted three distros, Artix, Void Linux, and endeavorOS. The first two do not use systemd at all and the third has stated they will not implement age attestation methods.
I am thinking endeavorOS might be a good move, I appreciate an out of the box solution. I can and have installed Arch manually several times, but I prefer to spend my time using my computer, not necessarily going into the “rice” rabbit hole. I will probably use a desktop environment like KDE, GNOME, or XFCE.
I guess the point of this post is: anyone who has experience with systemd-free distros like Void or Artix, what are your thoughts using as a general purpose operating system? how is the learning curve coming from systemd? Can someone who is technologically competent but not particularly interested in deep customization (I am a sysadmin, but I just like my shit to work) thrive in this type of environment? I use Fedora because it’s a good mix of being generally unassuming but having sensible defaults and being extraordinarily well supported.
Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. Feel free to give me any thoughts you may have on the subject of age attestation or even suggest distros I might not be aware of.
I’ve recently spent a lot of time doing bare metal installs of a large number of non-systemd operating systems.
GhostBSD - Its BSD, so its stable and avoids the problems of Linux but supports less hardware especially 3D GPU’s.
FreeBSD - as above but more effort to install & configure initially because its server oriented but makes a fine workstation nevertheless.
Alpine - Highly performant Linux oriented to container hosting but can be made into a workstation with effort. Forget using nvidia except in nouveau driver.
Void - highly performant. more packages than Alpine. can be made into a workstation with effort. Forget using anything but newest nvidia GPU’s and even then strange unsolvable glitches.
Artix - look this is Arch with a non-systemd init (your choice of 3). Being Arch it inherits the repo’s of bleeding edge packages but also inherits the heavy maintenance burden of Arch (if you know, you know). I’m just too bloody busy to baby sit an Arch install with all its nonsense.
Endeavour et al - wait for other OS’s to implement work arounds to systemd’s cancerous kowtowing to corporate America imposed surveillance laws.
Devuan - a drop in replacement for Debian. Inherits Debian’s stability and ease of maintenance but with proven mature implementation of OpenRC init system.
The is the one I use for a calm happy life. To save time you can get a distro called ‘Vendefoul Wolf Linux’ which is Spanish in origin. Its a spin of Devuan but with a choice of GUI desktops and a GUI Calamares installer (the Devuan text mode TUI installer is fine, but whatever).
My daily driver is Vendefoul Wolf (Spanish for ‘vengenance’) LxQT desktop. Light, fast simple, stable. tip: download the ‘weekly’ iso’s not the old 2025 ones.
honestly, It takes 10 minutes to have a fully working Void Linux install with plasma, pipewire, any GPU you want and most of common packages ( repos are indeed lacking compared to arch, but nothing unsolvable).
And yeah… Runs like a dream.
That has not been my experience. I wonder what magical source of information you possess to accomplish all that in ten minutes lol
Void documentation.I must admit it took me 3-4 tries to get it right,but last one was with btrfs subvolumes,so that one took a bit longer.
In any case, if you stick to the official documentation and don’t lose yourself in multi case scenarios, you’ll be fine.
WhatvI did was:
Fully working system.
Edit: I feel like I’m missing something but my memory’s not that good as it used to be.
Edit2: oh yeah, don’t forget to “ln -s /etc/sv/{service} /var/service” for dbus,seatd, sddm if you so wish, Bluetooth,etc.
Did you ask an LLM to write a comment full of cliches?