I made a post a few days ago asking your opinion on Manjaro and it was very mixed, with a slightly negative overall opinion. I heard some recommend EndeavourOS instead and did some online research and it seems to be pretty solid and not have the repository problem that Manjaro has.
Just for context I am a Linux noob and have only used Mint for about the past six months. While I don’t have any major complaints, I am looking to explore more distros and the Arch repository with its rolling releases. I am not a huge fan of how certain packages on apt are a few years old and outdated. However, I also don’t have the time to be always configuring my OS and just want something that works well out of the box.
Is EndeavourOS a solid choice?
It’s literally Arch Linux but with an easy bundled installer and a couple of small tools you’ll forget about.
I am using it until the
archinstallscript gets easier for dual-boot, encrypted BTRFS configs.I kinda wished the EndeavourOS team made efforts to improve
archinstalland simply bundled their couple extra tools as that, extra tools for easier Arch Linux usage, instead of branding it all like a new distro.I made an install script for encrypted Btrfs Arch Linux, systemd-boot and KDE Plasma in case you want to have a look. gitlab.com/dataprolet/arch
Does not work for dualbooting, right?
Why would it not? I think maybe a few times in 20 years I’ve come across an installer that didn’t let you do custom partitioning.
Read the README.md.
Where? I don’t know who’s project your referencing?
Actually, I don’t care enough. I didn’t realize I responded to your follow up to someone posting their custom install scripts. I meant generally that’s not an issue I’ve ever come across. Then again, I don’t tend to install distro’s that simply add a couple custom wallpapers and welcome app. I’ll stick with base install from the source.
Endeavouros uses calamares. They just make it possible to install arch very easily and with a gui. What’s the advantage of archinstall over it? Eos isn’t too different from arch. It’s arch with a gui installer.
Yes! That’s the point. It’s just Arch with a GUI installer, quite literally. So, why not simply make the archinstall script better? Or simply make an installer for Arch Linux? It’s like you take your grandma’s cookies and put a sticker of your face.
They do ship some other stuff as well.
Arch Linux GUI does exist though.
It’s a couple of extra tools they bundle. Most of them you’ll never use.
An Nvidia driver installer is useful.
Here’s the thing with Arch-based distros: they aren’t more stable than Arch, and Arch breaks. Fixing Arch is often possible, but requires Terminal skills. You mentioned you want Arch because of the AUR, why not try Distrobox? It’s a tool for integrating containers (and their apps) with the “base” system. With a few commands, create an Arch container, then just use your favourite AUR wrapper (like
yayorpacman) as you would on a regular Arch system and you may need to run `distrobox-export ’ in the container. Your apps will just show up like any other apps.If you want something that “just works” any Arch base won’t be a good idea in my opinion. I love Arch but there will be certain things to figure out from time to time and for someone with little experience they can be tough! For you usecase I would recommend Fedora, that’s a lot more up to date but not a rolling realease and tends to just work for me.
The out of date package problem you’re running into is because Mint is based on the LTS version of Ubuntu. This means that it’s set up for long term service and stability. All well and good if that’s what you’re after.
As to your problem, I’m not big on Endeavor - or any Arch based distro - for folks who are new to Linux. Unless you’re willing to take the time to use Arch itself and set up your system, and learn how it all comes together, you’re better off not using Arch. I know I’ll get shouted down for this, but IMHO, all of the easy install Arch based distros are terrible for people new to linux.
If your biggest issue is that the software versions aren’t as up to date as you’d like, then all you really need to do is switch to a non-LTS. I’d recommend Fedora. I use it myself, and it’s easy to set up, works great out of the box, and is up to date. They come out with a new version twice a year, and upgrades run smoothly.
If you’re really focused on a rolling release, though, I’d suggest looking at OpenSuse Tumbleweed. It’s rolling, super stable, and has a fantastic community. Their Yast tools are famous and really impressive.
Alternately, take the time to install a proper Arch setup. You’ll learn a ton, and find out that all that maintenance stuff you feel like you don’t have time to do isn’t that big a deal, really.
Fedora is ok, idk what it is but I have never had a good experience with Fedora. If you need to install anything outside of the default repos it can be a major pain and while yum is ancient and rock solid, it’s replacement with dnf, is terrible and slow. OpenSuse is also rock solid but I didn’t like the install experience and while yast is good, you’re still limited by the repos. Also OpenSuse is getting rid of, I think it’s called leap or something, which I think tumbleweed uses as a base. It’s unfortunate but I think the best option for most new Linux users is simply the latest Ubuntu. I hate snaps as much as the next guy, but their packages are fairly up to date. Outside of that you have the niche distros like MX and Garuda, but even those are just Debian and Arch. The other option is LMDE by the Linux mint team but idk how often that’s updated.
What do you think flatpak and snaps are? They’re at the very least containerized applications. Why would I install distrobox when I can literally install the same apps without having to screw around with installing a third party tool from a GitHub repo? That just seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Not to mention you have to trust the GitHub author which really is no different than trusting the AUR package maintainer.
@Defaced Distrobox ist included in the Fedora repository. Have you ever used Fedora? Or are you just spreading your prejudices here?
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Tumbleweed is a snapshot of factory. Leap is based on SLES which is based on Tumbleweed. The next SLES release is likely to be immutable and there will be something like Leap but it could have a different name.
This is good information! I tried to give OpenSuse an honest try, and while I would recommend it over RHEL any day in enterprise environments, I just don’t like it as a daily driver workstation.
I use EndeavourOS and OpenSuse tumbleweed myself, and I’d caution you about using endeavour. It’s a great OS that I personally love but there will be manual interventions you’ll have to keep track of, and implement. Maybe twice yearly. Like the grub issue, or the repo migration for two recent examples.
OpenSuse tumbleweed however is a rolling release distro that’s more stable, takes little in the way of manual interventions, and is quite sleek out of the box. I use it as a work partition for freelance dev work personally.
I love endeavour, but it can take some more babysitting than other distros as it’s essentially just a really good graphical arch installer
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Apologies if I’m a bit ramble-y, I’ve recently caught covid.
Just a few simple partitions. I have one for EndeavorOS, one for Tumbleweed, and a third intermediary that I auto mount on both. That one houses a few applications that both need access to, I just added a bin folder before adding it to the path on both. As long as nothing there is system critical it’ll be fine
You definitly could get away with just two partitions though if you just want stability, and auto mount your partitions onto each other for ease of file transfer of you want.
it’s not really different than duel booting windows, and works quite well
I also have a fourth 70gb partition for a macOS virtual machine as that’s much quicker than a qcow file but that’s a bit much, to be fair
My honest opinion is it is a nice Arch based distro with a gui installer
Endeavour is fairly easy to run and maintain, aside from not having a GUI package manager installed by default (I say this as someone who has been running it for about 2 years now, and still considers themselves a Linux noob)
One underrated feature is the Welcome tab, which also notifies you if there’s some critical error in the latest update so that you know to use caution and take certain steps when updating
Other than that, running
yayorsudo pacman -Syuis most of the maintenance you’ll need to doI’ve been using EndeavourOS for about 1.5 years on my laptop and about a year on my desktop. I’ve been using it as arch but pre-configured. I believe EndeavourOS uses the same repositories as stock Arch, with an extra EndeavourOS repo added for theming and some convenience tools they use.
The UI might not be as easy as Manjaro (I don’t think they pre-install a GUI for pacman/yay, but it isn’t hard to install one like pamac). Other than that if you use a desktop like Gnome or KDE and install a pacman frontend you probably won’t need to interact with the terminal more than you want. Honestly I think EndeavourOS is a great place to start if you want to learn more about Linux without having to spend the time configuring your system from scratch.
It’s great. I’m on vanilla Arch now, but EOS would be my first choice if I ever wanted to change to another arch-based distro. The only time I ever encountered any issue (that’s not my fault) was the grub issue last year iirc. Other than that, it’s been pretty smooth. It’s basically Arch with a few QOL features preinstalled.
Edit: just like you, I was on Mint for years before switching to EOS. It’s easy, don’t worry. You’ll want to start reading, though. The wiki and aur are great.
EndevourOS is excellent. It has been very stable for me. It is easy to install. Your problem will not be out of date packages for sure.
That said:
- there is no graphical package management. You will need to use command line ( yay / pacman ) or TUI ( pacseek ) tools.
- there are A LOT of package updates and you will want to stay current with them. I update my packages multiple times per week.
If either of those things bother you, they may be a problem.
Updating packages is reliable and painless but a chore you need to get in the habit of doing. I suspect you would get more problems if you let it go too long. On the upside, as it is a rolling release, you never have an “upgrade” to go through.
there is no graphical package management.
You can use yay to install either
pamac-auroroctopifrom the AUR and that will give graphical package management. Yeah it isn’t provided out of the box, but its a quick one-liner to set it up so it isn’t too bad IMHO.I have had pamac cause problems. I do not use it.
You should look into Octopi then. It uses pacman for all its operations.
I completely forgot Octopi existed. I should give it a shot. Can it work with the AUR though?
Yep! It can leverage paru, yay, etc. for the AUR.
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I’ve been using it since it succeeded Antergos (2019ish) and I’ve really enjoyed it, I use it on most of my systems! It has really sane defaults and makes for a good Arch experience that doesn’t involve setting things up yourself. If you like XFCE, they have the best out of the box theming I’ve seen a distro have for it, but there are other DEs that you can pick (I think you need internet access during the install IIRC).
It has its own repository that has some nice apps in it (like AUR helpers). The community around the distro is also really good, whenever I’ve come across an issue posted on the forums everyone seems really chill and noob friendly.
Other than that, it’s basically a GUI Arch installer (an amazing one at that!) that doesn’t get in your way and it just works. There’s been probably one problem, in the four years I’ve used it, that wasn’t caused by me breaking things (the grub incident), but the distro’s response to that was very well done.
The only other distros I use are Arch and Debian, but EndeavourOS is always my recommendation for people newer to Linux. It just works.
It’s a solid choice for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. I used it for a long time before switching over to regular Arch and I still use it as a live USB to recover my Arch install or to rollback to an older BTRFS snapshot.
I will say though that it is sorta barebones enough it essentially becomes a gateway drug to regular Arch. If you’re curious, you might want to check out the official
archinstallinstaller that’s bundled with the official Arch iso. It really makes it quite easy to get a working Arch install up and running.What made you decide to switch to vanilla arch?
Two reasons actually:
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After getting really familiar with EndeavourOS, I was just curious about how hard an actual Arch install was. Then I found out about the official
archinstalltool bundled in the ISO, decided to try it out, and it gave me a relatively barebones KDE desktop that was super snappy and that I could expand however I wanted. It just felt nice so I decided to stick with it. Now I am so used to usingarchinstallon my many Arch deployments (desktop, DIY NAS, home theater PC, work laptop, Surface Pro 7) that it really just feels like home. -
After Antergos shut down, I briefly used Anarchy installer. When that also shutdown, I became a bit wary about the longevity of these smaller community-driven Arch-derivatives. I don’t have anything against them and it’s super cool that these projects exist to expand the appeal of Arch to more users, but personally I wanted to be familiar with something that I knew would exist for a really long time and wouldn’t close down due to the developers getting too tired of doing maintenance, which is a very real thing in FOSS. I am constantly getting new devices and installing Arch on them, so finding a more permanent solution that I knew was always going to be there was important to me.
Good reasons! Thanks!
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It has been for me, however no matter which distro you ultimately choose, on Arch I’d very strongly advice to use btrfs as your file system and snapper with snap-pac for snapshotting. It gives you a relatively straightforward way to recover in case you encounter a broken update. At least if it only breaks to a point where your kernel / tty and snapper are still alive and well.
It’s very easy to set up, but if your really want it out of the box (and even with bootable snapshots), you could give Garuda Linux a try. I’d advice to have a look at the different versions, especially Dr43gonized and KDE minimal. Dr43onized Gaming is very bloated and only good to get to know some cool software imo.
I am very happy with Endeavour, have been using it for two years now and have had no problems with it.
