If you want a Free Software Foundation recommend distro, I would say Trisquel or PureOS (if you don't need wi-fi). Or Linux Mint. Or Debian with Mate or Cinnamon desktop environment.
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Update: Thank you all for your kind and quick responses! I installed Void and antiX and cruised around in them a little. I ended up defaulting back to Artix in the end. The hardware issues with the NIC seem to have gotten resolved. Whatever toxicity and bigotry is present among their larger demographic, I'm going to spread as much light and love as possible. That is, until I switch OS again. π€£
AntiX is "proudly antifascist," so unlikely to allow transphobia on their forums. It offers runit, sysVinit, dinit, s6-rc and s6-66 as its init systems. AntiX-core is the stripped-down system that lets you start from pretty close to scratch, so you get to mostly configure it yourself. It's based on Debian, and the sister distro of MXLinux, so it's guaranteed to work on older hardware. It's super lightweight and doesn't tax my Flex 2 (which isn't exactly powerful hardware)
Sic! I'll check it out! Thanks!
Alpine seems to tick your boxes. Or maybe AntiX?
Except if you want to experiment/develop on there too, then maybe Void, if you're fed up with Artix/Arch.
I see this question a lot. The old me would've used whatever Stallman / the FSF recommends.
My take now is just use whatever gets the job done. Ubuntu, fedora, debian, etc. I would recommend stable bleeding edge distros like fedora
Void Linux. For me, the moment you need to move away from systemd is when it's time to switch to Void.
I laughed out loud when I heard the Super Mario coin beep as the TUI was displayed. I made a live USB just in case I'm unable to revive my NIC on Artix.
Good luck to you.
And here's a discussion about void from this community a few days ago:
https://lemmy.ml/post/51274177
I've never used Artix but I saw someone bought it up recently about their toxic community. Didn't know about that, glad I do now.
I also like void quite a lot
Guix of course! (Fair warning I have never used guix)
Idk why your comment has the most upvotes. I will give an upvote to you anyways.
hey printf. just wanted to drop in and say its been really cool to follow your Linux journey. I don't have suggestions for you, but please keep it up.
can I ask: what is it about OpenRC that you like? I personally haven't tried artix yet (for personal use i'm on arch) so I'm not familiar with the differences.
Thank you so much for your kind comment! It made me smile!π Never realized that my Linux journey is being "watched", so I'm kind of blushing from unexpected self-consciousness π€£
I have no knowledge of the inner workings of OpenRC, but what I like from just having used it a few months is the fact that I understand the "architecture"? How there are system scripts and user scripts, how they belong to run levels. Also, this of course depends heavily on one's specific setup, but I have a smaller pstree on a fresh install with OpenRC than what I had with systemd.
With that said, I am going to look into "simply" switching to OpenRC on Arch down the road, since I have been on Arch for many years now.
I am most fond of Arch
But what is it that you like about Arch in the first place?
I found that Iβm more comfortable with OpenRC as init and process management.
Like, do you want to limit your options to distros that are well supported by OpenRC? Or, is this simply a preference kind of thing?
the Artix forums also seem to house at least some transphobia
Do you want to engage in distro-specific forums or was your engagement in there mostly out of necessity?
as opposed to configured by me.
Excellent, so you're a builder/tinkerer that prefers a clean slate to work from.
But what is it that you like about Arch in the first place? The ability to keep it small and customize from there. Going basically kernel + base (which includes some packages I remove afterwards anyway).
Like, do you want to limit your options to distros that are well supported by OpenRC? Or, is this simply a preference kind of thing? I'm not well versed enough in OpenRC to understand what a distro that has "bad" support for it looks like, but I did find it easy to understand it's layout/directories and the syntax of its scripts.
Do you want to engage in distro-specific forums or was your engagement in there mostly out of necessity? I was investigating whether a certain thread had been closed to the public, requiring sign-up, or not.
Excellent, so youβre a builder/tinkerer that prefers a clean slate to work from. Yes. Litterally, give me CLI and I'll take it from there. xD
Alright, excellent. Thank you for the reply!
So, IIUC, you want a clean slate. Furthermore, you want plenty of tinkerability. And, finally, OpenRC enjoys a preference.
Still, I want to limit our search (for now) to (relatively) upstream distros on which OpenRC is known to work pretty well. We have to start our search from somewhere and this seems to be the most sensible starting point at this point.
If you've dismissed Artix, that basically leaves us (in alphabetical order) with:
- Alpine
- Debian
- Devuan
- Gentoo
IIRC, most (if not all) of these offer very minimal images. So, hopefully you'll enjoy those.
Thankfully, these are meaningfully different from eachother (for the most part). So choosing between these shouldn't be too much to ask.
FWIW, Gentoo comes undoubtedly with the least amount of defaults and thus behaves the most like a blank slate.
NixOS
Iβm more comfortable with OpenRC as init and process management.
this community is dominated by the systemd fanboys and you will be punished accordingly for your heresy. lol
this community is dominated by the systemd fanboys
Hey now. There's dozens of us who had that thing force fed for us. I've been on Debian for decades, so even if I don't really like systemd it's the lesser evil than switching a distro to something without it.
I'm going to go w devuan because of the age verification pre-compliance that systemd is doing
Meh. As long as it's a local only field on /etc/passwd or whatever I don't really care. Actually I'd be for it if browsers and other internet-thingies could send rough idea of users age to the services. Not actual age, but something like child/teen/adult -scale. That would make it super simple to reputable services to block underaged users and parents could set that to their kids accounts as they see fit.
But obviously the surveillance tool "they" are building is something totally different where the age is actually verified via some online service. For that I'm strictly against and if that becomes mandatory on Debian or whatever distro I'll start my own with blackjack and hookers if nothing else is available.
Thanks for the heads-up! I have put on my war gear, which I believe is both a proportionate and sufficient respone...? π
Use the filters (including init software) to narrow your options:
Since you know Debian, Devuan is there to try it. Given how almost unavoidable systemd is nowadays I basically try all of Devuan, Artix, Void and the first one that works for the task at hand is the one I stick to :)
Thanks! If Alpine doesn't work for me and if I'm unable to fix the NIC on Artix, I'll check out Devuan! :)
I know you are asking for Linux, but if you like OpenRC, why not try one of the BSDs, specifically FreeBSD or OpenBSD.
If you still want Linux, NixOS or an immutable Linux sound fun.
Thanks! What should I expect from BSD-systems? Are they customizable from the start like an Arch based system or are they more of a done deal?
Both, in the best way. BSDs have strength in that the whole OS is in a single code tree, as opposed to the Linux kernel and GNU toolset being different orgs altogether. This makes the OS feel more tightly integrated with itself. More intentional.
You end up with a good set of sane defaults, but still the flexibility to chose what components you want to install.
FreeBSD particularly has the ports tree and good linux compatibility to extend it where needed.
Both have great documentation that will help you get acclimated to the differences between Linux and BSD.
BSD actually heavily inspired crux, arch, and gentoo. The aur and portage were inspired by BSD ports. Now of course, I do not know which BSD did the inspiration.
Alpine is great for a minimal headless system and it uses OpenRC.
Edit: and also great for a single app setup
I use Alpine Linux for my two Rasberry Pi servers and for my laptop with Sway. I enjoy it a lot. The setup scripts are quite nice to work with.
Documentation is decent but I found myself supplementing the Alpine wiki with the Gentoo and Arch wikis.
Building a system from the minimal starting point felt quite rewarding and I really enjoy tinkering with it still. Learning to script for ash has been quite the experience too.
Sweet! I'll check it out!
If youβre specifically looking for OpenRC, Iβd go with either Devuan or Gentoo, probably Devuan as Iβm a Debian-by-default sort of person.
Thanks! Yeah, I just wish I didn't have to deal with all the USE flags on Gentoo. My brain works in such ways, that I simply CANNOT "just go with the default" and I try to research them ALL, burning myself out. xD
Arch (based) - if you like to customize every detail of your OS
Nixos - if you like to customize every detail of your OS and you are tired of breaking your system constantly
PopOS - if you would like to stop customizing your system and want to get used to great defaults
Mint - you just want things to work
CachyOS or Bazzite - if you want to play games
IMO, NixOS is like arch but it forces you to declare everything up front.
Iβve seen people create advanced configs with Arch then bring them over to the locked-in world of NixOS. Iβd add that Home-Manager is crucial if you decide to do that (less so if you are building headless machines or VMβs). Ps. You can even build a super customized config then run it as a NixVM in your favorite container manager/k8s cluster.
Thanks! I'd really like to stay with an Arch based system, but the last update of Artix "breaking" my NIC in combination with the distasteful comments that I read on their forums towards transpeople made me want to quit... Would it be possible to install Arch and "simply" use OpenRC there? π€
I would not bother much about transphobia, because in every large enough forum you will find them sooner or later. I would report them and move on. I would go with Artix in your case and figure out the issue with NIC. Seems like the best option based on you requirements.
Thanks. Artix really did hit all the right spots for me. If Alpine doesn't feel the same, maybe I'll just solve that NIC issue.
Devuan and Peppermint Devuan edition are good ones. These basically are Debian but you can use OpenRC.
I don't recommend Alpine, it is a non-GNU Linux and was not developed for desktop/workstation usage, so you might encounter undocumented issues.
The closest thing to Artix is Gentoo, a DIY distro with OpenRC, but it is for the real geeks.
Linux Mint