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’m tempering the systemd thing as I do feel it is somewhat getting blown out of proportion. Though I did try some non systemd distros in a VM over the last week.
A bigger issue for me is this push to embrace AI. It seems all the American tech companies are jumping on board and Red Hat is no exception.
I want to love Fedora but this is the last straw for me.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/31/red_hat_ai_dev/
Essentially any distro with funding primarily from US tech companies is going to go to shit. It’s only a matter of time.
I do run EndeavourOS on my main PC and it’s pretty great. I have not seen any statement regarding their position on the age attestation crap. I’ll jump ship if they come out in favour of it. I just hope they do not.
Wouldn’t the same logic apply to systemd that’s controlled by RedHat?
They merged the PR regardless of many contributors being against it, silenced discussions about it and immediately closed another PR submitted for reverting the change.
That’s corporate behavior, not community.
That’s the main reason that made me distrust them and jump ship, way more than the field itself.
I’m less twitchy on the AI thing. CEO’s gonna CEO, and I think this whole AI thing is going to quietly die down. It’s just… not as useful as the people pushing it says it is. You can’t just mass-delusion people into thinking something does what it doesn’t do. It writes bad code. It is insecure. It makes people insane. These are facts. The tech is not improving.
Not to mention, I find the Register quite often to be a bit too-cute-by-half in its “reporting”. We’ll see.