Long time voidlinux user here on a laptop, and have also used extensibly: archlinux, gentoo, openbsd (it hosts and smtp, and web server public on the internet), freebsd, alpine and slackware-current. From void you should expect many things to be different:
* No launchd or systemd mess. Runit takes care of the init process.
* xbps: a fast and simple package management software, that also resolves dependencies.
* Clean but scarse documentation, if you have used other distributions you should be fine.
* No automatic configuration of programs, you have to explicitly define what you want for sshd, nginx, etc.
I started GNU/Linux distribution hopping after archlinux's maintainers decided to migrate to systemd, back then I had been using it without problems and for experimentation purposes followed the migration; after a couple of updates I had an unbootable system were systemd wasn't able to run logind, diagnosis showed all files where in place, but run out of time and didn't want to discover what was wrong with it.
I use voidlinux on a T410s mainly for developing, learning programming languages and experiment from time to time with KVM and libvirt (which is another mess), hope to change completely to openbsd in a couple of months.
Looking into VoidLinux very much for the reasons you listed. So far, from my playing with void on a VM, it feels like the "OpenBSD" of the Linux world.
I love OpenBSD (using it for pf Firewall, DNS and DHCP at work) but I seriously doubt how it'd work in a laptop. My concerns are power consumption, and drivers. Even VoidLinux with the latest linux kernel gives me trouble to enable audio. I really want my laptop to have audio, Wifi, Sleep/resume, web browser working properly. You think OpenBSD might be up to it?
Recommend restic for backups. Great new software that's under active development.
Recommend Debian for the distro. It does a lot of things for you, and correctly, but it is also infinitely configurable. It can be the "just works" distro you need, as well as the hacker's tinkerable distro you want. And it has staying power and consistent security updates. Mix stable with testing/unstable and get stability where you need it and recency where you need that. Plus the community and documentation are very good.
* No launchd or systemd mess. Runit takes care of the init process.
* xbps: a fast and simple package management software, that also resolves dependencies.
* Clean but scarse documentation, if you have used other distributions you should be fine.
* No automatic configuration of programs, you have to explicitly define what you want for sshd, nginx, etc.
I started GNU/Linux distribution hopping after archlinux's maintainers decided to migrate to systemd, back then I had been using it without problems and for experimentation purposes followed the migration; after a couple of updates I had an unbootable system were systemd wasn't able to run logind, diagnosis showed all files where in place, but run out of time and didn't want to discover what was wrong with it.
I use voidlinux on a T410s mainly for developing, learning programming languages and experiment from time to time with KVM and libvirt (which is another mess), hope to change completely to openbsd in a couple of months.