Linux newbie with a tendency to break everything throwing in my recommendation for Endeavour
I was warned by a bunch of people that an Arch based system is no place for a new comer but it’s surprising been WAY more stable than my time with Pop!_OS.
Huh? Installed arch as a complete Linux newbie and have had no problem to this point, except some minor stuff that I can’t be bothered to set up, should I be worried?
@HouseWolf
No arch is a pain to install it requires you to understand your whole system and can break from the slightest tap.
endeavour is based on arch but a lot of work has been done to ensure that noobs can use it for everyday things. so you are basically using someone elses system.
there is a steep learning curve to have a functioning system. if you spend some time on other distros you can transfer the knowledge you gained over to arch @Ozn
As a newbie I couldn’t do Arch because I couldn’t setup a workflow with any Vanilla desktop, thats why I definetly needed something like Pop_OS and Manjaro Gnome with their heavy desktop tweaks, to know and learn what I want. The system was no different, I needed to learn how everything acted to know what to DIY in Arch Vanilla.
Exact same experience 3 years ago. The mistake I did was switching to Manjaro. Actually no. Manjaro is great for learning Arch and to gain the skill doing Arch Vanilla. But maybe its better to instantly go to EndavourOS (no experience with it, but should be similar to pure Arch)
@neurodivergentAF Go with EndeavourOS. I used Manjaro for 1.5 years and a little more. Just switched to EndeavourOS. I'm not listing here all the stuff that Manjaro did wrong, but rather point out a specific problem. Manjaro holding packages is a problem, if you ever use the AUR. Because the packages on the AUR normally expect the newest versions from Archlinux. So the mixture of hold back packages from Manjaro and the newest one from AUR can cause problems. And you can wait weeks before Manjaro updates the packages. And also I personally encountered 2 bugs with the pamac tool (which is recommended over pacman and handles the AUR as well), which one of them I reported and it got fixed.
I switched to EndeavourOS since half a year and don't have any of these AUR concerns. The distro maintainer aren't doing any obvious stupid stuff as well. It's closer to real Archlinux and overall feels great.
I’ve been on Manjaro for about 1.5 years now too. I switched over to the Unstable branch a while back, which fixed this issue for me. This branch seems to be getting all packages at the same speed as regular Arch. Plus, I still get the Manjaro-specific kernels, access to their repos, integrated pamac, etc. For now, I’m sticking with Manjaro this way.
i've been using manjaro on an olderl desktop at the office, and in a vm at home, for a couple years now. i've never had an issue with it on either. i've used it enough to prefer onlyoffice now, over the other free msoffice alternatives.
i have tried both endeavour is much more stable try manjaro for a few years am using endeavour os for almost a year its much better and gives less issues
Endeavour is as close as you can get to pure Arch with a GUI installer + pretty neat QOL features OOTB (reflector to update mirrors, the AUR’s already installed and ready to go, etc). 90% of what applies to vanilla Arch applies to Endeavour when it comes to fixes, and the community is super helpful and friendly in my experience. It’s kinda light on stuff when compared to other ready to go Linux Distros, but hey, that just means less pre-installed apps you either never use or have to uninstall
Manjaro is an Arch based distro that kinda sucks at being an Arch based distro (essentially, the updates are held back by a couple of weeks for better and worse, WIP packages sometimes slip through to the repos and can cause problems to your system, and you can forget about using the AUR–or well, you can, but the AUR and Manjaro are nortorious for not playing nice with one another). Troubleshooting the thing tested my patience personally, because like someone else here said: it basically found a unique way to break itself every time I updated the system and I just got…tired, eventually. Manjaro also comes with basically everything you could possibly need pre-installed and then some, so that’s neat if you’re not in the mood to hunt down all your apps.
If you’re cool with using the terminal to update, install stuff (or you could also install pamac or Octopi, nothing’s stopping you, and it works) and troubleshoot, try Endeavour. You can make it exactly like Manjaro without the defects with a bit of work if you want
If you don’t mind being extra careful with what you install (really that’s standard practice, but hey, I’ve never found a WIP package anywhere other than Manjaro, so make of that what you will), are willing to tolerate constant mild to severe breakage, and just using Flatpaks and appimages over the AUR, go with Manjaro
EndeavourOS is basically Arch with a nice installer and a few extra QoL packages while Manjaro manages their own repositories and adds things like mhwd that change system management to be a little different than Arch.
I much prefer Endeavour since I already do everything from the command line anyway. Also, while most info about Arch applies to Manjaro it doesn’t always and I found that very annoying when trying to troubleshoot.
I’ve also installed Arch a few times and it went fine, but the Endeavour installer is a much nicer experience.
Nobody has mentioned the guided installer that now ships with the vanilla Arch iso: archinstall
I’ve done the Arch installation from scratch a few times to add some inches to my e-peen, but the CLI installer does everything so nicely that I haven’t bothered with a manual install for a while now.
I generally choose gnome (wayland), and add pamac-nosnap from the AUR, and it’s a super user friendly experience. Especially if you choose to use BTRFS during the install and then setup timeshift and add the timeshift-autosnap package once you are in the DE. For the handful of times I’ve ever had an issue with a package update, I just roll back to a previous snapshot and I’m back in action.
As someone who tried both, I think Endevour is better. 1.It’s more bleeding edge. 2. It’s as close to vanilla Arch as you can get with a gui installer. 3. The dev team seems to be more compitent then the Manjaro team (i.e: shit doesn’t break because someone pushed a WIP package). 4. Better community support (I mean, it’s literally just Arch with a fancy installer).
They’re both fairly easy to install. And it’s fairly easy to switch between the two.
It's really not that hard to follow the wiki to install Arch. I feel like there's a lot of maintaining to do when using Arch, so you might as well get used to the terminal. It wasn't really an issue when I was using it daily, but has become a chore now that I boot up my laptop once or twice a month.
Funnily enough, I'm always on my Steam Deck now and that is based on Arch, too.
@slampisko Also with the next big update of SteamOS to 3.5 they will even integrate Nix package system officially! That means you can install packages in a persistent manner (not just Flatpaks).
There’s a years old Debian-based version available for download, but the version that ships on Steam Deck is significantly different and based on Arch.
Yeah, I’ve used Linux in some capacity since the late nineties and know my way around. I can’t be bothered to fiddle with an Arch install, I’ve moved on, I got better things to do. So I decided to try out EOS on my new laptop. A few clicks and it was running with proprietary NV drivers by default, which are updated as needed by yay. I was playing games within 20 min from my Steam Library preserved on another ssd.
Only thing I had to do was install btrfs-assistant, plasma-Wayland and whatever apps I need.
The most laborious bit was configuring various apps to use Wayland but that didn’t have to happen immediately.
I’ve tried and used both. They are both arch, and they both have their uses.
Endeavour is an excellent “arch with GUI” as another user pointed out. However its missing GUI elements which I personally expect from a modern OS like a Package Manager. There are work arounds like Buah, but I found them to not be as polished as having a distro shipped with it.
Manjaro on the other end is also Arch, but with a heavy emphasis on User Experience. The depth and detail their GUI is, means you don’t need a terminal if you don’t want to use one. Kernel, Systemd, and more has a GUI interface baked in to areas you’d expect them, like in setting.
But their packages being behind means that installing from the AUR can cause issues when the AUR package expects a newer package that manjaro is still evaluating.
For me, I am using Manjaro since I just want a work station that works. And not having to deal with a terminal to fix most problems is something I desire in an operating system.
With that said when I got EndeavourOS to a point where its mostly usable with GUI, there was no noticeable difference in day to day use. I just found it tiring when something broke.
People who use Arch and just want GUI is asking for troubles sooner or later. It’s Arch so you will have to deal with the Terminal somewhere along the line.
EndeavourOS has a welcome page that list all the common operations you need and you just need to click it.
I’ve used Linux since the mid 90s, but I switched to Linux as my desktop daily driver just 2 years ago and I went with Manjaro. I was prepared to switch to a pure Arch setup, but I’m still vary happy with Manjaro. I use AUR, but only very few packages.
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