Been using Linux fulltime since about 2014 or so. First half of my life up to then was on Windows, second was on Mac. At the start of the decade is when I noticed Apple’s increasingly closed-off computing gaining more traction, and it struck me as wrong. I had tested Ubuntu out around 2009 in a VM but still stuck to Apple, and didn’t have motivation to try anymore while in college.

First distro was Linux Mint. Used it for about 2 years, was very solid and had 0 complaints. The more I used Linux the more I wanted customization and control, so I moved to Debian w/XFCE. 3 years of that and it’s still one of my favorite distros, and halfway through I went with bspwm as my usage became increasingly terminal based.

2019 was when I wanted to try a rolling. The outdated packages in Debian (even testing especially during freezes) was irking me a bit, and I wanted to use a different init system as systemd service files were vastly too much and complicated for my use case. Hated the idea of Arch for many reasons, so tried Void in a VM.

Even though I never bothered to install X on it, it was amazing! XBPS was so fast compared to apt, the repos had even more than I wanted to use compared to Debian, and runit is so easy to manage and mess with. The Unix philosophy is very clear on Void compared to other distros, it just felt great. Used the VM on the side and perfected my dotfile install script and finally made the jump when I got my “new” Thinkpad.

I honestly have 0 criticisms of the distro itself. The docs need more work to contain all the info the old wiki had, the installer should include encryption options, but everything’s been smooth. If anyone wants a rolling release (and not bleeding edge) distro with a helpful, non-elitist community that sticks moreso to a Unix philosophy, I wouldn’t recommend anything else.