Choosing Arch is HARD.

[@jonatan3035]

I use vanilla Arch because I like to choose what to install. I've tried Garuda and EndeavourOS and they're fine but I tend to spend more time removing things I don't use and changing themes than what it takes me to just install what I want and use in vanilla Arch. The archinstall script has made installing Arch really simple and fast and for me everything works out of the box. I don't like spending hours fixing errors but I've only had one in about two years using Arch and that was the resent Grub issue. For me the easiest way to fix it was to reinstall with systemd-boot. With all my stuff in the cloud it was no big issue for me.

[@giveaway4002]

i use arch btw

[@jonatan3035]

@@giveaway4002 Yeah, but it really has become so easy to use that anyone can run it. I'm not a poweruser, I just like a clean system.

[@warhawk_yt]

I agree. To me vanilla arch is also more stable then a lot of distros based on it. Some are better compared to others but I always seem to have some random problem at some point that I have never had on vanilla arch. Plus you don’t have to take time removing things you don’t want and follow what the developer thinks a good os is. Also with the archinstall script, it opens the doors for more people getting into arch. I still prefer installing the manual way but I can get that done in like 15 minutes since it’s pretty much memorized.

[@-aexc-]

yeah same , I started with endeavor and switched to vanilla. theres no reason to use endeavour given how easy and good the arch install script is imo

[@fastrockproductions9788]

As an IT and computer science student, I perfer non rolling models for most distros I daily drive as stability is good and most places I hope to be working at use debain/ubuntu/fedora/rhel related distros

[@x3roxide]

have you had a lot of instability with arch? just curious because I hear that a lot but have yet to experience the instability. the only exception was with the grub bootloader incident. arch did not respond all that well, but the endeavour os team had a solution within hours of the bug being discovered.

[@kurasibe8405]

@@x3roxide for me I had better stability with endeavors than with fedora, I think the worst thing that happened with arch lately was the grub getting broken.

[@KatzRool]

@@x3roxide The issue with the discourse on "stability" is that it refers to something other than what most people interpret it to be. I've found stable environments to actually be much more finnicky as an end user on a desktop, since they are constantly putting up walls everywhere you go and things don't work as expected/require tinkering if you want to use the latest software. On the other hand, I've never had issues with the "stability" of Arch as an end user, but on the server side it won't have an easily replicable or consistent environment, which is what stability actually means. TL;DR, non-stable is not instable. Constantly changing/up to date, not constantly breaking.

[@AnotherSkyTV]

@@KatzRool Interesting perspective! Makes sense. I'm a big debian stable fan, that was first distro that made me stop distro hopping. Not a fan of redhat/fedora. Nowadays I use manjaro, quite extreme from my debian preferences, but it didn't explode so far, hehe 😆

[@x3roxide]

@@KatzRool makes sense, arch would not be my distro of choice for a server environment. I have a proxmox server running at home and almost all of the clients are running Ubuntu server cause like you said, thing remain unchanging. But as a desktop user, I've found arch to be quite pleasant. A rolling release full of bugs, many of which are prone to breaking your system sounds more like windows 11 to me.

[@TheWanderey]

I was distro-hopping for quite a while, however my daily driver now (and it's been for about a year and a half) is ArcoLinux. I did try all sorts of Arch based distros, but for me personally, ArcoLinux project is a sweet spot. Very easy to use, configurable, you can choose any WM or DE you can possibly think of. Also it has been rock solid, never had an issues with updates, etc. So big kudos to Erik Dubois for such an amazing project. Give it a go, and you won't be dissapointed...

[@DeeezNuts]

was thinking of moving out of Mint to arch, i'll take your word and do my research if all good i should be in Arco within 8 hours 😁

[@brooceree]

You were distro hoping? Maybe you should reconsider your DISTRObution of choices. Hehe

[@jeremyworkman5104]

Without hesitation I will second this. ArcoLinux is hands down the best Arch-based experience I have had. I have been using the Qtile version for quite some time now. It is also worth noting that the tools that make Arco unique are no longer exclusive to ArcoLinux, they've been made available in the AUR, etc. I have even used some of them on my Fedora system (archlinux-logout in particular is on all my systems no matter what distro they're running).

[@TheWanderey]

@@Waking_Abyssal I agree mate. Kind of difficult to navigate through, and at first glance the website(s) might be overwhelming...

[@randomname2437]

@@brooceree huh

[@techthroes5108]

Agree. I'm an "everyday" user too. Tried Arch on my main PC, but went right back to my daily driver Ubuntu-based distros. Gave Garuda, Endeavor and Manjaro a shot too. Only Manjaro stuck around on one old laptop.

[@micleh]

I'm a high school teacher, too (based in Germany, for English and Computer Science). Nice to see that teachers are interested in Linux (I've been using Arch for quite some time now, too (btw)) and I've been trying to whet my student's appetite for Linux and open source in general. Almost everything in the German school system is Windows-centered and administrators don't have the foggiest about Linux and open source. You might have forgotten the arch installer, which has become more and more mature and which gives you the choice between different desktop managers. The install for me is almost as perfect as a manual install with lots of choices such as grub or systemd-boot, encryption, pipewire of pulseaudio, user creation and sudo and / or root user, to name just a few. What I'd also put on the list is ArcoLinux, which has a very strong user base and is well-maintained, with lots of helpful information on the project's website as well as frequent tutorial videos by the maintainer.

[@sabergo1]

I think Arcolinux is worth a try in addition to Endeavour OS. I've tried and like both, but am too lazy to learn the Arch specific terminal commands/package management. I do really like the communities for both of those distros, and never felt hesitant about asking for help. Very similar and there seems to be collaboration at some level.

[@Christop54]

I agree. I've used Endeavour OS and liked it, but had network issues each time. It's pretty close to running Arch, and seemed to have a great community. Arco is (currently) my distro of choice. Arco uses their own repos as well as Arch's. Their website is a bit of an issue, a ton of information and can be a pain to navigate. Definitely worth a try.

[@warhawk_yt]

I do think for someone who hasn’t used arch before but have used another distro which is most people it is more daunting and confusing since the way it does things is pretty different. I was fortunate that I started with arch first back in like 2017 so I wasn’t coming from previous experience so it was an easier process for me. Plus I am more technical so I learned it easier. I am not like most people so I completely understand the difficulties with it and understand it’s not for everyone.

[@slifek85]

If you want to learn more about Arch (and Linux in general) Arco and Endeavor are great choices :) Endeavor has a great community and Arco has a great backlog of videos about Arch and Linux.

[@revcliff]

I love that Arco can be anything from one step beyond Vanilla all the way to throw the kitchen sink into my Arch-based Distro. I go with a pretty simple openbox based install, toss in a few utils (polybar, albert, plank, variety, sakura), then I can top it off with apps specific to that system's purpose.

[@denizkendirci]

I'm also a causal user. I'm not a programmer or server specialist etc. I'm a civil engineer. The most hard thing for me to use a distro other than arch is that finding packages. And there are two reasons for that. 1- arch repo + aur cover mostly everything 2- i don't know the names of packages in other distros. But i know the arch ones' names. For example when i try out fedora or others, i have to check web for a program's package name on that distro before installing. (In which i have to use a second device to check web) You might say that i won't need to know the package name if i use software center (gui front end for that package manager) but i'm not using a desktop environment. I do minimal installations with no graphical environment then i install a window manager (mainly, ratposion or dwm which aren't included as a choice in installation process) so i have to use the terminal to install software. I know i can search the package name in repo using package manager commands, but i'm not familiar with those package managers, so i have to read the --help or man page to figure out the command first. And it's a hussle. I already know pacman commands by heart. For example, i installed and configured fedora minimal + ratposion wm, it took 1.5 times more than when i install and configure vanilla arch + ratpoison wm. (By the way slowness of dnf gave me cancer) Also i don't agree with manjaro. I think manjora is the only one on that list that is arch-based. The others are just simply arch, they are not based, they are barely distro in my opinion, they are just pre-configured arch. I dont think that counts as being "based." Especially the endeavour (which is great). I think It's just a riced arch installation with an extra repo and option of wm.

[@v01d_r34l1ty]

From a hobbyist programmer's perspective (meaning, myself..), Arch is nice because of its RR package manager. Being able to get the latest versions of GCC and subsequent C/C++ libraries, without having to go through the process of building from source, is really quite pleasant. I was honestly kind of annoyed throwing my opinions out to the Linux community regarding (Ubuntu) APT's lack of newer updates, and them subsequently responding with just using community-managed PPAs, because I feel as though it's extra work and extra reliance on other parties whereas Arch updates get reliably pushed through the official channels. Also, just my opinion, but the AUR is much more dependable than PPAs. There are some caveats as well to using Arch (and other RR distributions) such as backwards compatibility. I've found that software I've compiled with newer versions of GCC just do not work with Ubuntu distributions because LibC is not updated, and consequently does not support some features of the newer standards of C/C++. I'm sure this happens with other software as well, as backwards compatibility is usually an after thought and not a priority when it comes to development (unless we're talking about Windows). Edit: The big thing I want to throw in is that (Ubuntu) APT has packages that are major versions out of date. Software updates in increments, tweaks, patches, minors, majors in that order. It also can go through various stages, such as Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta, Release-Candidate, etc. That means that APT is either months or years behind the current release version of a lot of software in the official repositories. This isn't as much the case with distros based off of Debian as APT is usually a bit more updated than Ubuntu, e.g. Kali rolling-release based off Debian already has GCC-11 whereas Ubuntu point-release still uses GCC-9 with the latest version being GCC-12 which is provided with Arch.

[@propjoe1060]

Have been using Endeavour OS with GNOME for about 6 months now and I must say, it's been a great experience. No issues whatsoever, easy to set up a dual boot, and the system is faster and more responsive on my rig than Fedora was. Very happy with it.

[@julyort6762]

The responsivness which arch with zen gives is just so good, any other distro is slower, i can feel it

[@user-mc3gr4ps5b]

What got me to switch to arch-based years ago from ubuntu-based was that 1. The update cycles, basically having to wipe and upgrade every year or two 2. access to the latest versions and features and kernels. Basically my install just grows with me, and for me the magic was in utilizing as many flatpaks and appimages as possible to keep the updates and installs on the main system to a minimum.

[@soccerbeast5529]

I was running Linux Mint and PopOS on my work desktop and laptop, respectively, but then installed Manjaro on my gaming PC. I liked it so much that I decided to install it on my work desktop, but tried Fedora on my work laptop. Fedora had a ton of issues with hibernation so I ended up install Manjaro on it then as well. I've absolutely loved Manjaro and haven't had a single issues with any of my computers and gaming on Manjaro has been perfect. Definitely recommend Manjaro for those looking to get into Linux.

[@KgodWalldestroyer]

Manjaro on a gaming pc?? Hmm I need more details

[@soccerbeast5529]

@@KgodWalldestroyer Ha well specs are the Ryzen 3700X, 32GB RAM, AMD 6800XT for the GPU. Been running Manjaro on it for about 10+ months. Currently I still have Windows for CoD, but only used it once for the MWII beta. What else would you like to know?

[@StarlordStavanger]

EndeavourOS is the only Arch any general user needs.

[@supertigerroadtrip5193]

I would argue Garuda as well. Garuda needs to stop marketing itself as a gamer thing, because although good at that, it's so much better for other things. I don't game on it.

[@sirrobertdowneysenior8080]

I found my way out. Pick one side plasma vs gnome, then decide what u getting attracted towards? Layout or their behaviour, if layout everything can be replicated in plasma if behavior make your way up. If gnome are you ok with stock gnome or need tweaked version of it in the form of cinnamon or xfce or mate or elementry. Once you know just install arch with all the required packages and dependencies. A very good source is manjaros installed programs make list of essential ones and you will have very feature rich Arch system customised just for you. ❤️

[@tempest_dawn]

i ended up on Arch by trying to find something that would run on my first laptop, and ended up pursuing more and more bare-bones distros to do that. i started at Ubuntu, tried Debian, crunchbang, archbang, and finally regular arch it was nice, it worked for what i needed, and i finally realized the arch wiki was not just a general linux guide (although it was good enough i'd been sort of using it that way for years) thank you for the video! it's interesting seeing other peoples' needs though - that's the coolest part of linux distros tbh, that you can find a tool that works the best for you and i can find what works best for me, and we can swap notes and share what works for both of us, and learn and grow along the way! these days i use MacOS more for work, and windows for VR and games, but I've still got a headless arch VM for personal dev projects, and i can't imagine replacing it with anything else to be honest

[@toquita3d]

I used Arch from 2013 to 2020, exclusively. On all this time, I only had 2 problems and they were easy to fix. Now I'm back, and went to install the nvidia driver. It should be just a "pacman -S nvidia" to install and get going, but no, I just get a black screen. This seems common now with a 30-series GPU from NVIDIA, and I tried about 10 "fixes" that didn't work (re-installing the OS every time just to be sure). None worked. I'm sorry, but I've got stuff to do. I use my computer for work. So, I just installed openSUSE. Everything works, no black screen with the nvidia drivers. Arch devs used to patch a lot of stuff, now it seems that is no longer the case. If I need to spend hours trying to fix a freaking driver install, then your OS is completely useless to me and is not worth my time.

[@x3roxide]

the package is nvidia-dkms and it works just fine. maybe the package name changed due to the newer open driver modules (nvidia-open). I don't consider them ready for everyday use. most common issues is that perhaps the driver is conflicting with the older open nouveau driver. you might need to blacklist that driver as well if you are installing the nvidia drivers after the initial install.

[@nikolaoslibero]

@@x3roxide "The package" is not nvidia-dkms, though (no knowledge here) that package might circumvent whatever problem they were having with the nvidia package. The nvidia package is still nvidia. nvidia-dkms is the module sources for the Dynamic Kernel Modules System. With the addition of the "open" drivers came the creation of the packages nvidia-open and nvidia-open-dkms.

[@x3roxide]

@@nikolaoslibero yep, you're right. Just wish NVIDIA would have better Linux support in general. Also I'll be the first to admit that Wayland is kind of funky at times (on all distros with an nv card)

[@shanedavenport734]

Antergos died because of their installer. For some reason they chose to write their own install instead of using a tried and true one. I loved Antergos when I could get the installer to work, which was not very often.

[@TVPInterpolation]

there is a project to revive antergos. its called RebornOS, if you are still interested. i personally dont use it, it feels a bit odd to me, but if thats your cup of tea, there you go :)

[@bernard4459]

Endeavour is just as good if not better than Antergos anyway. I used to get keyring errors on every update back in the Antergos days. Not too crazy but still annoying.

[@raullezameta7294]

If you're planning on using Gnome, I highly encourage you to try out Garuda. I have been using their Gnome Version for half a year now, it has truly been exceptional. They have so many quality of life improvements configured out of the box, it really makes your life easier. One example are auto snapshots configured out of the box which is really a must-have for me: every time you install something, the system automatically creates a snapshot. Those snapshots are bootable and restorable directly from grub, making your system basically unbreakable. I could go on telling you points why Garuda really is that good, but just try for yourself and see. You won't be disappointed!!!

[@zatsando]

Vanilla arch is pretty much easy to setup right now, just type "archinstall" and you are good to go! I also go for minimal and then I install Pantheon (elementary's DE) just to have a rolling release of Elementary os with pacman package manager! :D

[@スペース-o2h]

Please don't do that if you read this, the installation guide is the most informative way to install arch and it's not as difficult as it seems. The hardest part is really the partitioning, in that case you only need 3 partitions, a swap partition, a boot partition and a root partition. If you are going to use the "archinstall" script, please take a moment and think of using an arch based distro instead such as manjaro. Now, regarding the complexity, I attempted to use the archinstall script to see what it was all about and it was actually harder than following the installation guide, it failed to install and boot and I was quite frustrated with it.

[@zatsando]

@@スペース-o2h Nah, I don't think so. Archinstall installation vs Manjaro (or garuda) fresh install have very little things in common. I 've done an arch installation in the past and (except from the hassle, which wasn't so much as I thought) I didn't saw anything different with the archinstall script.

[@zatsando]

@@スペース-o2h Also how exactly did you failed the arch installer script? maybe due to bad boot option, is my best bet... otherwise its very foolproof!

[@cj7073]

@@zatsando what DE did u pick for arch? I've been trying to find a DE so far I've tried plasma and cinnamon

[@zatsando]

@@cj7073 Pantheon is my favorite

[@julyort6762]

Arch and derivatives are very cool, but you have to pay a lot of attention on every single update which occurs very frequently (but you can Always decide when to update the system obv) to make sure that updates doesn't break important things. This type of update is not so common, and all the arch community report any bugs so if you see arch news before every update you'll know when it is a good moment to update. Btw if you don't pay attention and update indiscriminately your system will break sooner or later.

[@KgodWalldestroyer]

I am so glad you’re back. Full endeavourOS review soon…please 😊

[@Berkshire-Hathaway]

I use arch linux as a daily driver. I really like it because of the fast updates and the things I learned along the way and during the installation. But I can absolutely understand, why choosing Arch is not the best choice for everybody. Good Video, keep it up!

[@user-wf7uf2jp8x]

Artix is a very interesting spin on arch. If you for instance want to experiment with anything other than systemd as your init system then it makes that experience much easier. It is pretty cool.

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

I've tried endeavourOS and garuda linux and neither come close to Manjaro at least for me. Manjaro KDE is about as close to a perfect arch based distro as I've ever found.

[@dp27thelight9]

Depends on your experience. I have an rdn2 laptop and failed to get a bootable screen on several attempts with a manjaro install. While endeavourOS and garuda Linux boot right up. How a OS responds to a fresh install is my number #1 critique. Further more is AMD and they're lack of opencl drivers on linux. The only reason I used arch on rdn2 is that it's AUR hack of opencl works with my rdn2 laptop. While the ubuntu driver that AMD provides doesn't work on a ubuntu system. Despite the exact same driver working in Arch through the aur hack of using the .deb packages. I'm always wanting to use an open source gpu, but because of AMDs lack of proper driver's. Linux Mint and Nividia laptop gpu is my daily driver. I have to use proprietary driver's because AMD doesn't properly support they're products on linux.

[@JTKroll12]

doesn't Manjaro have crap dev support

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

@Med Simon I've had issues with it in the past (all flavors of Manjaro actually) it use to break about every third or forth round of updates. They have gotten much better. In the last year I've had my main Manjaro machine break on me once. It will never be as stable as other distros simply due to the arch backend. Just go in knowing thats a risk you are taking and make backups.

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

@@JTKroll12 Not sure, but I haven't heard good things.

[@zamnell88]

Nice to see another Aussie KZbinr in the land of Linux. Cheers from NSW.

[@imzesok]

Personally, I love arch, but I find most of the derivatives, much like the ones for fedora's, seem to be redundant. a lot of them were created to make installing arch easier. now the arch-install script exists on the arch iso making the majority of those aren't necessary anymore as they don't really have additional packages that aren't available in arch itself. Pretty much the various welcome tools are the only thing that really sets any of them apart. the rest is 100% automatically enable AUR, themes and fonts, and some of them will install the nvidia driver right out of the box(which isn't that hard to install on your own in the first place, but I totally get wanting that to just be a checkbox at install). The AUR, IMO, should be left disabled, and instead use appimages and flatpaks where possible for things not in the official repos(for security and stability reasons). Sure there are some things you can only easily get via the AUR, but this creates a mixed update environment, and is what causes 99% of cases where an update to bricks the system on Arch. It's really better to take the time and jump through the hoops on Arch. Fedora's are redundant (and now mostly gone), because all they did was automatically enable non-free packages via RPMfusion and maybe had a custom theme and that's it. Now that's just a check box in Fedora proper, so there's no reason for them to actually exist.

[@zeckma]

I'm a mix of everyday user and advanced user. For me, Arch is great because I hate packages floating in my file system that I don't use, it's just a sensitivity thing. I also really like Linux From Scratch, although my version isn't ready for work yet. Linux From Scratch gives me as much control as the bins give me. Being my own package manager is also really empowering. But, I mainly use Arch.

[@JimScholfield]

I'm a long time Arch user for whom things changed this year, in a number of ways. I ended up wanting to switch to an Arch based distro instead of Arch. Requirements- btrfs well set up with snapshots, wayland and pipewire, chaotic AUR. I looked into all you mentioned and more. I ended up with Garuda and am very happy with it. I love the chaotic aur being a normal part of package management and the enhancement to that process provided in Garuda. I've needed and used snapshots because of an update related to my using wayland and gnome. I''ve only run into one program not in the chaotic aur that is in the aur, internxt. I still love arch but I get into rabbit holes often. There are fewer of them for me now but I still basically have arch for the most part. Garuda helps but doesn't get in my way.

[@majRFan]

Yeah, i chose endeavour os and been using it for about 3 months. And yeah, it did broke one time after an update.. But I still re installed and still using it... It's just good... Everything i want is there... It's the most optimised linux I've ever used. It feels like it is made for my Lenovo ThinkPad. Installing apps in Arch is much easier than any other distros, imo. If you want to tinker with the os, arch is for you. If you want daily stable (just use time shift) arch is really good. I was also afraid and lazy to start using arch, but now i know, it is worth using it. But if debian or fedaro is working fine for you, stay there, it's not a bad thing. Only distro hop if you feel like the one you are using is missing something...

[@jeffrodrequez]

I went through the same thing...so many good arch choices. I ended up splitting my time between Xerolinux for my KDE spin and Archcraft (xfce+openbox - because I wanted to experiment with a wm vs a de) and have been very happy with both, especially the built in styles with Archcraft. A bit of a learning curve with Archcraft in getting all my normal daily stuff I am used to using up and going but have learned a lot during the journey.

[@lukaslykus9599]

As for vanilla installation of Arch, I did it but bricked my chromebook several times in the process. I won in the end. Manjaro was my first experience with Arch and that is what I use when I have to switch family and friends over. They had a deepin spun that I absolutely loved. I have tinkered with Arco and Antergos as well. I settled on EndeavourOS with Cinnamon desktop. I tried other distros after that but keep going back to Endeavour. I installed cinnamon and htop was showing roughly 690-750mb idle upon first boot. I also use linux on my ipad. It’s alpine linux and all command line. The app if anyone is interested is called iSH.

[@richardmonroe4208]

EndeavourOS is a good place to start. If not mistaken, EndeavourOS was inspired by ArcoLinux and as Erik Dubois states: "It's all Arch!"

[@VektrumSimulacrum]

It was inspired by Antergos.

[@richardmonroe4208]

@@VektrumSimulacrum Yes, I stand corrected. Arco embellishes it with its Tweak Tool.

[@FengLengshun]

I consider Manjaro as "Arch for people who don't want Arch." I've been using it for the last... two months or so, and for the most part it was fine. I just wanted native access to AUR, I don't care if it works only on that window when everything is up to date, I just want AUR with a system I don't have to manage... and for the most part it gave me that. There was a scare when a kernel update didn't get the kernels registered on grub, but with them now having btrfs-snapshot it was easy to roll back and re-update; plus, only a week of the broken glibc update and doesn't have the broken grub update too. Other than that I've used Garuda. I've learned a lot about what I like in a user experience from them, but overall, they're kinda a double-whammy of the known issues with Arch plus being rather aggressive with their tweaks. For a while it was fine, but for the last two months it was really bad on my system, so it prompted me to switch away from Arch on my gaming machine for now. It's really annoying when you're playing a game and then the PC just freezes requiring hard shutdown.

[@BeesCantSwim]

I have been distro hopping for years. Arch is always broken. I have landed on Fedora and that's where I'm staying.

[@fredericpruvot5808]

I'm a great fan of Manjaro KDE and use it everyday on 1 PC. But i use an like LinuxMint too, it's more simple i found 🙂

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

Same here. Manjaro KDE is my daily driver.

[@tiktok.4527]

That's why i move from arch based linux distros to Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu. Because i need stability

[@MarkDavidMcCoskey]

My newest machine is currently running EndeavourOS, which I'm about to repartition via GParted. I'll be adding ArcoLinuxS, Archcraft, Garuda Dr460nized, Mabox, XeroLinux, and a common /Data.

[@jaredkomoroski]

ArcoLinux has always tempted me. I'm a Suse guy who's daily driving Fedora right now, but Arco always has my eye whenever I look at Arch land

[@mpw621]

EndeavourOS is great. easy to install. Pretty close to vanilla Arch, stable, low memory usage, fast. Plus one can use the great Arch wiki if need be.

[@emjaycee]

Yeah, the ones I think you kind of missed that have good reputations are ArcoLinux and RebornOS. I also agree with you about Manjaro, it's not 'real' Arch (lol), but it is still the only Arch-based distro that I would trust to use as a DD. I love that you can use an LTS kernel, that they have their own repos and that 'I' don't need to use the AUR at all. Until Endeavour give me an easy install option of both Pamac and Wine, I would never use Endeavour as a DD option either, but agree that it is a wonderful distro. These days, out of Garuda and Endeavour, I would actually choose Garuda, and plan at some stage to put it on hardware for a monthly trial.

[@k.b.tidwell]

I just today ran Endeavour through the paces on the least-powerful laptop I own in order to try to find something to unify all of my machines. I'm drawn to Arch for the rolling aspect, but I also would like to have a distro that looks smooth and pleasant. Endeavour just feels clunky to me after a decade of Debian based distros. I'm sure lots of people enjoy the feel of it, but it almost gives a Gentoo vibe. There's a lot of loose ends and rough spots that you have to go out searching for and building and fixing. Even on my low spec laptop I've run some distros that were very quick and looked nice.

[@BradleyBell83]

I’ve settled on Fedora, it has been rocked solid and very up to date. Love it.

[@JungleLibrary]

I used Garuda Dragonized Plasma for about 6 months as my DD, and though it looks fantastic, is easy to use and quite configurable, I decided to try Garuda MATE due to issues with battery performance and the display manager. I found that the bundled apps weren't fully baked outside of the KDE environment (even the welcome popup buttons were only designed for KDE apps) to the point where it seemed that I just had Manjaro + useless junk + cool desktop pic, hopefully it's improved since I used it last.

[@peterjansen4826]

Choosing Arch is easy, just Arch itself and installing it from the tty. Everything that you need to know is in the installation guide or one link away from it and there are plenty of videos which tell you how to do it. Choosing a DE or windowmanager was a bit hard for me until I discovered dwm and now I don't look back. For gaming I sometimes switch to Wayland because some games function better on Wayland but there is no alternative for dwm on Wayland yet which is equally as good.

[@tabnumlock7790]

My Zorin Core taskbar looks just like yours except I moved the clock (plus weather) to the far left side making use of the wasted space (which also exists in Win11). It does take about a month to get fully used to. Also makes more room for extensions in the tray and the center icon area more spacious. BTW, I suggest you turn on the Workspace Indicator extension to quickly scroll thru workspaces.

[@zeocamo]

you forgot ARCOLINUX, it is a good distro for getting started with Arch, you(and your viewers) will learn it all step by step or in jumps if you want to move fast

[@itsthem5699]

The thing about Arch is we're all always talking about how horrible it is to get into, yet we're all talking about getting into it. There are simply things you cannot do in other distros, which completely negates the point of moving to Linux in the first place. One example is playing source games like counter strike and team fortress 2 in a native Wayland window. This can be done in Arch with the help of the steam native libraries package from AUR. Every other distro has to play in an xwayland wrapper. "Easy" distros will do what they assume you want, not what you say. Sometimes I just want my computer to do exactly what I tell it to, regardless of what some pencil neck mailing list moderator thinks is reasonable.

[@bernard4459]

I like rolling distros for personal computing but rolling doesn't work for enterprise work. I don't care what nerds say, Arch is labor intensive and unstable.

[@itstoxicqt]

I've basically have been using Vanilla arch on and off since a couple years after it came out when I was in high school especially on my netbook back then. Man a lot of late school nights getting my wifi working lol but this past summer with how quick and goof gaming is getting on Linux I pulled the trigger and went full send fully daily driving Arch on all of my systems

[@skytale35]

Came to Linux in 2010 . . .started wit hfedora, and hopped, and hopped again . . . and . . . landed on Mint for years . . . always trying out different distros in vm's . . . switched to arch about 4 years ago, and again switched to Endeavor OS about a year ago now.

[@d20Ryan]

I've now hopped to Gentoo (btw), but I am a fan of Endeavour. That is the Arch distro I love. I used the Zen kernel with it.

[@j800r_aswell]

If Ubuntu is still considered Debian based then Manjaro is Arch based. Unless something changed drastically since I stopped using it past couple of years then it still relies on Arch packages and you can still use Pacman even though there’s a Pamac command-line tool now. There’s also full AUR support. I used to be pretty big on Manjaro while I was daily driving Linux.

[@gregthwuen]

I agree with you that a lot of the distros like Manjaro chose their own path going far away from the vanilla Arch experience, but they are still Arch-based distros as they all use pacman and Arch packages or at least ones derived from the official Arch versions. They probably wouldn't survive without the "original".

[@getwreck]

I chose Endeavour OS for my work laptop. It is stable and has a great work flow. UpdateInTerminal FTW

[@mylinuxgr5050]

Nice video, thanks! I have been through several phases of distro-hopping and the arch era was the longest. I still believe that it is the best distro, IF one wants to learn the linux system and at the same time have full control over this system. And I am speaking about vanilla arch. But after 3-4 years with arch, I started to have needs for a more standardized workflow over several PCs and servers and so I am now through a debian and fedora phase. And yes, AUR is great, but I use it less and less, as you mentioned!

[@666yazman]

Currently running Garuda and it's that ONE distro that i can say took me the closest to ditching Windows for gaming... Great overall.

[@df3yt]

Endeavour runs fine in boxes but I can never get it installed on my bare metal pcs. The installation just keeps bombing out. In saying that I have zero issues doing the same with Arco, Xero, Manjaro, Garuda and pretty much any other distro. Arco has become my staple since Cvd started.

[@StaceyAyodele]

For me personally, I'll stick with Ubuntu MATE cause I like the stability and I don't wanna worry about rolling release issues with Arch or Arch-based distros. This was a good video showcasing these though.

[@little_forest]

As someone in a similar situation (lecturer in teacher education who uses a distro to get things done), I can say that I happily used Endeavour OS for quite a while for work. And I am still using it on an old laptop, that I almost only use for browsing/streaming. However, I have never used it for my casual gaming. And I am not sure, if you can test that very well in Boxes? And concerning the "Manjaro question", I would say, that Manjaro is as much based on Arch, as Ubuntu is based on Debian. If you're ok with saying that Ubuntu is based on Debian, then you should feel fine to say Manjaro is based on Arch. I was pondering about there statement, that Endeavour OS is terminal centric. Apart from installing and updating software, I don't use the terminal in Endeavour OS. Other than that, it is not necessary to use the terminal. But for installing and updating software, I use the terminal in any distro based on whatever, Debian, Fedora or Arch. But Endeavour OS is definitely great for that! Simply type "yay" or "yay (package name)" and that is all the syntax you need! :)

[@AnotherSkyTV]

Yeahhh, that's what I'm saying... Using ubuntu is NOT the same as using debian. There was a bit of a schism in debian community when ubuntu was created, actually. A lot of people didn't like ubuntu that much (me included) so it kinda makes me sick when people lump these two together 😆. But I get it, ubuntu has debian roots, not everyone has to understand internal debian political drama, lol.

[@little_forest]

@@AnotherSkyTV I was not at all saying, that it would be wrong to say ubuntu is based on debian.

[@ShaunakHub]

I was about to recommend Manjaro 😱. It is probably one of the best distros with a very helpful community. Used it a couple of years back for a few months. But I always switch back to Fedora after a few days/ weeks...

[@billeterk]

I don’t think this is a sensible suggestion for your daily driver .. and it’s not Arch-derived but I was pleasantly surprised. I have an old 2013 MacBook Air that failed to see its internal ssd at the start of this year. I didn’t think repair was worth it and it turns out that MacOS won’t install / run on an external drive unless you go several releases back. I gave Fedora a go but never really felt comfortable so a few weeks ago I thought I’d try something different and installed NixOS. I’m really, really enjoying it.

[@peterjansen4826]

Honestly, as a pretty experienced Arch user I don't like the AUR that much. Too many broken/outdated scripts and many of the scripts in the AUR should not be needed, those programs should be in the repositories. For example daedbeef (audioplayer), qpdfview (the best PDF-reader on Linux) and some controller-utilities. I also would like to see custom kernels in the repositories. I think that I might try out nixOS in the future, on a new SSD when I upgrade my system. That system seems promising but at the very least it seems great as an alternative to the AUR.

[@rossvold-dev]

The very first distro i used was Arch. I wanted to use it because i wanted to learn linux, and jumping into Arch forced me to learn a fuckton to be able to daily drive it. Daily driven it for 3 years now.

[@fulcrumthewhite]

I've been using endeavour os for about 6 months, and it's been great ! There is a lot of flexibility, the stability is pretty good, and my GPU was working out of the box 🎁 The first reason I could not stick to Arch GUI that I was using before is the support for University WIFI (Eduroam). Endeavour OS fixed this WIFI problem, and works for all the rest, it's great !

[@XeroLinux]

Why not check out my Distro based on Arch.. XeroLinux... In all reality most Arch based Distros are just a different coat of paint on same base.. It's nice to have choice but as Hick's law states Less is more. Is it really though in the Linux space ?

[@KangJangkrik]

Plain Arch designed well for home server, but not as desktop. Yes you can do that, but that's a lot ineffective compared to manjaro and endeavor

[@Johndoe-176]

Still chilling on Garuda after all this time. Love it, game on it, work on it, stays working even tho I like messing with stuff I am not supposed to.

[@ogrejd]

You're a high school teacher? Apologies in advance, then, for my horrible, horrible grammar. ;) Frankly, from everything I've seen and heard, Arch (and its descendants) just seems like too much work compared to Debian (which was, admittedly, the first Linux I had ever tried, waaaaaay back with v2.2 'potato', so perhaps I'm biased) and its descendents (Ubuntu -> Mint, which I'm currently running). And getting away from rolling releases is one of the reasons I've dropped Windows permanently, so going Arch really seems like it'd be a step backwards. I just don't feel the need to keep everything at the latest and greatest, mainly because most software updates in the last 15 years seem like change for the sake of change (IMO, if you need to keep software engineers employed, move most of them on to new projects rather than keep them tinkering with the existing ones).

[@AnotherSkyTV]

Yepp, debian stable for the win

[@billeterk]

I switched from Slackware to Debian in the 90s. Debian actually upgraded smoothly over the executable format change from a.out to ELF. It was very impressive.

[@ricardofranco4114]

choosing arch is the bet distro ever !

[@s9209122222]

I had used Arch for years, but I suddenly couldn't unmount all my partitions, I couldn't open any software either, the only thing that I could do was to force reboot, and the I could no longer boot my OS, so I chose to use Fedora until now, because it works better with Gnome. However, nothing can really replace AUR in other distros, Ubuntu has PPA, but it is a mess, and they lacks lots of software. Fedora has Copr, but it also lacks lots of software.

[@boogelymoogely8851]

I actually watched this from Garuda lol (I like Garuda because, while I could set up Arch myself, Garuda is set up pretty much how I would do it myself anyway, so might as well just use the one that's set up for me)

[@MrSlartibart]

Asahi Linux should be on the list. I would count it as one of the two the most popular Arch derived distro together with Manjaro

[@gamerking64]

You should definitely try out XeroLinux! Arch based distro with the best looking KDE plamsa DE!!!

[@nevbear666]

arch now has its own installer, it might not be as fancy as calamares... but it does the job

[@KibaSnowpaw]

i love arch and after i falled over Garuda i have a hard time to use anything ells. I love gaming and I find it so much easier to make it work on arch I use Garuda Xfce since it make Gaming more or less plug and play.

[@nakedeye44]

I liked arch and it's aur thru manjaro, but now I don't know what happened to both!

[@yamaddie]

currently on win10/endeavourOS duelboot and besides the problems win10 has given me with dualboot (lol) endeavour has been a dream to work with even when im pretty new to linux. The thing is that it kinda strikes a good middleground for me, since I really like problem solving and dont mind dedicating a day or two to solve problems or figure out how set things up correctly and learn in that way (tho with enough general knowledge to not break anything thats in my control...mostly)

[@russellraff6069]

Arcolinux , has a fantastic, informative and well maintained website to go with a awesome distro.

[@Ranblv]

Can you explain phrases like "power of arch"? other than more updated packages is there an actual difference for regular users?

[@stanzacosmi]

In my experience, it doesn't mess up doing average user things as something like ubuntu does. I've had so many issues where ubuntu base apps just refuse to launch, like firefox or even the terminal emulator that came with it after long enough use, and the only 1 issue i've had in arch was the problem of the system itself (the grub issue) with the only other issue was downgrading glibc incorrectly to run multiversus but that was entirely my fault rather than anyone elses fault

[@eijentwun5509]

The answer is always Linux Mint 20.3 MATE. Arch is SUPER duper unstable as all Rolling Releases. Always choose an LTS like Linux Mint..I would normally recommend Ubuntu...but they have veered off into a really bad direction and are continuing.

[@hedd6167]

ARCO LINUX. Endeavour and Arco are quite similar here and there, but the amount of options and "educational" (to learn how to do shit in Linux) support around Arco is amazing. Endeavour is more technical, Arco can give you the technical if you want. Both are excellent. I do find Arco sites convoluted, but Eric Dubois (the guy behind Arco) did an GIGANTIC job in KZbin. Look his name up in the YT, every bit of the system is there in his channel.

[@StarlordStavanger]

why would anyone want to spend hours looking at youtuber videos when the Arch Wiki does more and does it better.

[@hedd6167]

@@StarlordStavanger fair point. I must point out though that not everyone is able to actively understanding some things through text alone. As an educator I deal with all types of learning issues and for the most part, people like to hear someone pointing out stuff. I do prefer to read and look shit out for myself though

[@xzaratulx]

debian: killed it often cause of old packages and my need for new extra programms. is also afraid of closed source like opera, teamspeak and nvidia drivers ubuntu: so many releases that the ppa maintainer often stopped providing packages for extra software I used. (great wiki tho) fedora: package manager was crap 10 years ago. since extra repos were needed I didnt see a difference to ubuntu or debian (totally awesome now) arch: use it for 10 years. its awesome and the AUR delivers extra packages I need. Also the wiki is great. once a year some manual intervention is needed during upgrade but thats on the arch website. So far I never crashed it cause I didnt need to tinker with it in any way. And it has opera, nvidia drivers and such in the normal repositories. contra: crap installation you need the wiki and knowledge beforehand (maybe do partitioning with something else beforehand) pro-tip: dont use a sub-distro cause why ? .. go Flatpack instead if a package in Arch is compiled with missing features

[@MrGFYne1337357]

Arco Linux, been using it for years, all the greatness of arch with a gui installer and aur enabled by default. and the devs have made a video for almost anything you need help with. Arch is not hard... anymore

[@harshsrivastava9570]

It's sad to see no one has mentioned Artix :(

[@unclefester9113]

Why isn't it possible - to say update everything BUT - Hold back updates untill the update is 60 days old ? In other words - delay all updates until the update has some history on it ?

[@foss_sound]

I've been ages on Arch, later on Antergos, then Manjaro. Now Debian Testing. Same bleeding edge, rolling release. Less hassle on the way. Never had to tinkle as much as with Arch. I only miss pacman. I'll stick with the base distros than with the based-on-distros from now on (I guess).

[@AnotherSkyTV]

Nice, I've always been on stable, but it's a lil bit TOO 'stable' (dated, in this case, I mean, lol) for desktop. You're saying testing is good?

[@foss_sound]

@@AnotherSkyTV basically it's Ubuntu without ppa shizzle. :p No, for real. It's on my working machine (thinkpad t480) and drives me daily safe and secure 9 to 5 and light proton-powered gaming in the evening. I only can recommend it over Arch (for MY experience).

[@jared.mohammed]

Debian Testing freezes security updates, it is recommended, if you have to use Debian as a desktop OS, either to use Debian Stable with backports or Debian Sid.

[@foss_sound]

@@jared.mohammed I read that more than often, but my packages seem to be the latest - so I don't know where sec updates are missing?

[@foss_sound]

@@jared.mohammed This is what I found (on reddit, but it makes it more clear than any other source I found) "The freeze only means that the automatic migration of updated packages from unstable to testing is disabled. However, any package update in unstable which fixes an important bug gets a freeze exception from the release team after the maintainer of the package has requested them to do so."

[@thinkpremium567]

I always end up to use arch with xfce desktop environment.

[@daanota]

Had been an Antergos user; then Manjaro. Eventually though, I settled with EOS. Welcome.

[@OutdoorsTech]

I've been using RebornOS for 2 years and never had any issues.

[@epicthrees7367]

You can try gruda GNOME if you not like like default theme I think Garuda is best arch based system

[@snowmean1]

While Manjaro does a lot of things differently, has its own packages, package manager, installer and repositories, their unstable branch is still very much Arch current, so 95% of packages installed in Manjaro certainly will be packages built for Arch by Arch maintainers, so in my books Manjaro IS an Arch BASED distro.

[@raymondgradzewicz]

You should definitely check out Gentoo. I think it'd be perfect for you!

[@raitsa5834]

Another very happy Arco Linux user here.

[@goldilockszone4389]

You are regular people, _like me_ The grub debacle in Arch, was a reason which took me away from Arch. Also I feel quite ansi whilst I am away from my system for a few days. Fedora seems to be the best of the both *worlds* between Arch and Debian. Its not perfect either, but -no one- is, so its alright.

[@offertunatea]

I’m a casual linux user and that’s why I ended up leaving Arch linux for a lot of unexpected errors.

[@cristian86539]

Arco linux seems good, you should try it

[@kachilda]

A purely Arch based system relates to fix and repair daily and use at your own risk. You get exactly what you want and you get the latest and greatest Linux has to offer but you have to be knowledgeable enough about Arch to be able to fix the occasional break which is why command line junkies and enthusiasts love it and everyone else goes with something else. So to be fair to those Arch based distros who are no longer purely Arch it's not personal it's survival. If it's not stable it only appeals to a certain crowd who probably has already went with vanilla Arch. Everyone else just wants it to work without breaking.

[@code8986]

+1 for EndeavourOS

[@davidwayne9982]

It WAS hard for me too--- but lately-- it's NOT-- I simply AVOID Arch altogether... Every new one i looked at- WON"T boot- or has "firmware issues" or some such crap for ME-- and if they START OFF with issues- they're NOT worth the bother... I'm back on mX and stopped looking any more.. BESIDEs- as I said- if the START with issues- that is NOT a good sign for LATER!!! Maybe when i get a BEELINK SER^ I might try CACHY--- I had it on here and LOVED it-- but COULD NOT PRINT no matter what I did... including installing drivers, checking all connections all that crap.. ARCH is JUST not worth it...

[@pintsize8162]

I was primarily a Windows user even though I always found it very bloated. I dabbled with Ubuntu over a decade ago but is was not for me. Over the interceding years I was taking all the information I could get from the Linux Community which made me think about Arch. I liked the idea of a Vanilla Arch due to it being very stripped down. But after a look at the various Arch based distros I settled on Endevouros last year and it has been my daily driver ever since. Even for the odd PC app or game that I use. Every other app I use is via the AUR.

[@omegaroguelp]

Ive never distrohopped, i just went from ubuntu (mate and gnome) straight to arch (gnome) and not long after that straight to arch with awesomewm

[@databug]

Personally I love Manjaro and have had no issues with it but I also run Endeavour. I agree that Manjaro is no longer Arch. I would use Garuda if it wasnt for the unicorn vomit themeing.Endeavour is very good although Ive had more issues with it than Manjaro. Nothing too serious though.