I do believe I forgot to talk about my experience with Void Linux in a separate post. I know I just talked about it in the "OS I want to use" section of the second to last post from this, but I feel there's more to discuss. (BTW, I'm writing this partly in VR)
Official site, you can get an ISO of choice here
The VM I used was VMWare Workstation 15 Pro because a kind soul on Github had provided free access to their own, and at the time I was tinkering with VM-based Hackintoshing. To combine this experiment with setting up i3 for the first time, I chose a release without a desktop environment, since I would set i3 up myself. Setup from the TTY was quite smooth for being limited to text, and IIRC there was a text-mode mouse driver in use as well. When the install completed, I was pleased to see that it worked out the gate. I signed in and began post-install preps.
XBPS is Void Linux's chief package manager, similar to apt in functionality, but generally faster, which is great for bigger packages and package sets like the XFCE or KDE suites. However, it doesn't have the same range as Debian, so if you need something that's on Debian or Ubuntu and isn't on Void, you'll have to download the package and dependencies and convert it with an installable terminal program. Do note that because Void does not use SystemD, anything that relies on it will run into trouble unless you know of a SystemD to runit translation layer. When you're all set, or if you chose a DE-included installer (no pun intended), you're all set for desktop use.
Once I set up my i3 environment, gave it some simple customization, and changed transparency settings in compiz, I was sitting at around 140MB of RAM, which, for a modern minimal Linux install, is pretty light. Of course this will jump when you choose to use a DE like XFCE, LXQT or KDE, but it's a hot start to the test. I only used the minimal installer myself, so mileage can easily vary. Another aspect that I liked was the ease of making and handling services. Due to this, it's easy to make a combined service startup and app startup list. Of course, if you're used to startup settings on DEs and Window Managers, you can use runit and your desktop's settings separately. You can learn more about that on the site.
Easy setup, even from TTY
Lightweight and fast stock install
Fast program installs through XBPS
Limited amount of default repo packages, can constrain you depending on needs
Programs that need SystemD can trip pretty easily. Sometimes you can make runit equivalents
No enterprise level security (what Red Hat types are looking for)
A great distro that seeks to do better than its peers, understandably held back by some of the team's decisions which I respect. If they keep this up, they can compete with at least Debian.