MX, antiX and Gentoo are the only distros that support a non systemd init system without making a big deal about it like its normal to have a different choice as a linux user
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Artix too.
Alpine too.
Voidlinux too
Super up! Q
Slackware too.
That's what I always loved about Gentoo. Users are interested to have a system with systemd: Gentoo supports it and got you covered. Users are interested to have a system with OpenRC: Gentoo supports it and got you covered. There's even a couple of people who want to use runit or s6 (and maybe others I've missed) and they're there in the official repos, but depending on your needs you'll have to do some work on top of that. Similar story with device managers, tempfile managers etc.
Lmao, they call it bonsai form for being cut down in size.
I just realized now that there is antiX and Artix. I thought they were the same thing.
I miss fluxbox/blackbox.
You should try labwc, it's like fluxbox/blackbox but for wayland. (Or just use fluxbox or blackbox)
I think I had used fluxbox once. I see that it was a fork of Blackbox originally. Is fluxbox more feature rich now than Blackbox? (I am assuming former would be more popular than it's original fork now ).
Its still an option with CachyOS
Good read. Although I recently moved to void Linux as I prefer rolling release instead of a major upgrade every few years.
I also am on Void since past couple of years. Paired it with LxQt DE for sometime. I didn't have much opinion (or even cared) about systemd (which Void eschews in favor of runit) when I chose it in my distro hopping days. It's lean and clean though package repos slightly smaller than competing ones.
I had a very good ride with Void for 3 years, a polished distro which taught me to play with init.
But a lot of GNU packages are not packaged, and lastly I saw a news regarding the distro being split between pro and free version so ...
I used Antix after that, but AntiX can really get behind on package and kernel version, so I stumbled back on Devuan, and voilà ! With backport, Devuan is really like Debian without the hassle of never knowing if your system us really shut down when you close your laptop (systemd ! 🫵)
There isn't a pro version, that was the April fools joke of last year
Again, April fools joke. Check the date and also, if you go to the link of "enterprised images" provided, the images are the normal ones
Ah ha ! Well it was a stupid joke then 😅 my first grievance is still about not packaging GNU software though (exim, mailutils, just on top of my head but etc.)
cool, i use sway / wayland. really happy with how it all runs, although only been on it a couple of weeks after over a decade on arch.
You still get "major releases" with rolling distros. They're just smaller. Updating to new plasma/gnome versions, new glibc, etc.
i should have been clearer, there is no distro major release. packages have major release sure, but no large distro upgrade.
After years of running a rolling distro (gentoo) I had come to realize that it was a bit of a distinction without a difference. Major updates simply felt less planned than a 'traditional' distro.
Used it once on a laptop whose fan had died and which I in retrospect shouldn't have used no matter how little I tax the CPU, but, it worked. antiX at least let me boot up, save my data and then discard the laptop.