I’d stay away from Manjaro, personally. They’ve had a number of organisational and security fuck-ups that in my opinion makes it hard to take them seriously. Once is forgivable, but when they make the same mistake 3+ times it’s just completely unforgivable and unprofessional.
Plus there’s the whole “we hold Arch packages back two weeks but not AUR packages” - which means there could be dependency issues if you like installing stuff from AUR. In fairness though, they do request that users do not install AUR software on their site, so people do get warned about that.
Endeavour is good. If I was to go back to an Arch distro, it’s what I’d use hands-down. Fundamentally just Arch with a better installer and a nice theme.
I’d also consider something Fedora based, like Fedora (duh), or Bazzite (if you want an atomic/immutable OS). Up-to-date, extensively tested. Bazzite even allows you to install it with out-of-the-box Gamescope support (in simple terms, you get some of the performance options and performance overlays that the steam deck has).
I can vouch for Fedora, I used plenty of distros from Arch to Ubuntu (and many of it’s forks) and even weird outliers like Solus and Fedora is the most boring distro out of all of them, and I mean that in the best way. To quote a certain Todd: “It just works!” Do note you will probably want to enable RPM fusion (basically mandatory if you use nVidia) to get access to useful non open source and license encumbered packages Fedora can’t ship by default (like media codecs). Other than that, install Steam and whatever other launchers you want and enjoy a boring, reliable distro.
Not the person you asked, but I also switched from endeavors to fedora. My reason was simple - after all my screwing around in arch, I realized I was just building fedora. And fedora updates take less attention than arch’s do (and I’m lazy).
I just didn’t feel like setting everything up myself anymore (e.g. switching to BTRFS and enabling compression, switching to Pipewire and stuff like that) and I also wanted to be able to install packages through GNOME’s Software app, which isn’t possible on Arch but is on Fedora. Fedora has really good defaults IMO, they’re really fast to use new technology, like what I mentioned I had to manually switch to before.
I’ve been using EndeavourOS for a little over a year now and maybe only twice have hit issues with updates or packages or whatever. Their built in update script helps a lot. I will also say I have an RTX 3080 and fedora wouldn’t run games on my setup, EndeavourOS would.
I’m not the above user, but I also went from Endeavour to Fedora.
I had a couple of issues with Grub after updates - this was an Arch bug that was quickly resolved, but it was still an annoyance that highlights that the bleeding edge isn’t without risk.
Fedora pretty aggressively pushes modern tech into their distro. They’re kind of the main driver that paves the way for other distros to join the modern world, IMO. Wayland, Flatpaks, Portals, PipeWire, they push all of that.
Last time I tried Endeavour, despite the packages being new, it still defaulted to a lot of older technologies (that may have changed now, it’s been 2 years since I used it). Fedora doesn’t, and it plays a part in shaping those technologies. Some people may not like that, but personally I love it.
Like I said in an earlier comment, though, I do love EndeavourOS. If I went back to Arch-based distros I’d use it without a doubt.
I do have annoyances with Fedora. Stuff like having to enable proprietary media codecs via a command is utterly brain-dead and not intuitive for new users.
Manjaro was the first distro I used and it happened twice that it wouldn’t boot anymore just because I installed updates. To be fair, I did use the AUR but that’s like half the reason to use Arch in the first place IMO.
After that I installed EndeavourOS and that always worked fine but nowadays I use Fedora.
If “more stable Arch” is why you’re considering Manjaro, consider openSUSE Tumbleweed. They’re rolling like Arch, but openQA and rebuilding everything after a compiler update seems to catch a number of issues.
If you want easier to install Arch, consider EmdeavorOS.
Issues with using AUR was enough for me to stay clear and not recommend to people.
Not that I’d necessarily recommend Arch as something for someone just getting into Linux or anything, but if you’re deadset on using something derivative, I would just recommend going with Arch.
This install scriot makes it no harder to install than anything. And the wiki is robust.
However, if you don’t want to learn how your OS works, and troubleshoot fringe issues, don’t use Arch.
My route into Linux I wouldn’t tell others to take.
I can’t disagree. I love Manjaro on one of my devices, a shitty old HP laptop. It runs better than any other distro on it, and it’s smooth as butter (even for light gaming) even though the hardware is terrible.
But.
I’ve had to reinstall more than once because things broke while installing upgrades, lol
I just installed EndeavourOS on a virtual machine to see what it was like. I can confirm, it’s easy. It’s definitely similar to other distros. Didn’t feel like Arch at all.
I’d stay away from Manjaro, personally. They’ve had a number of organisational and security fuck-ups that in my opinion makes it hard to take them seriously. Once is forgivable, but when they make the same mistake 3+ times it’s just completely unforgivable and unprofessional.
Plus there’s the whole “we hold Arch packages back two weeks but not AUR packages” - which means there could be dependency issues if you like installing stuff from AUR. In fairness though, they do request that users do not install AUR software on their site, so people do get warned about that.
Endeavour is good. If I was to go back to an Arch distro, it’s what I’d use hands-down. Fundamentally just Arch with a better installer and a nice theme.
I’d also consider something Fedora based, like Fedora (duh), or Bazzite (if you want an atomic/immutable OS). Up-to-date, extensively tested. Bazzite even allows you to install it with out-of-the-box Gamescope support (in simple terms, you get some of the performance options and performance overlays that the steam deck has).
Manjaro’s fuck-ups.
See also another source for the same.
I can vouch for Fedora, I used plenty of distros from Arch to Ubuntu (and many of it’s forks) and even weird outliers like Solus and Fedora is the most boring distro out of all of them, and I mean that in the best way. To quote a certain Todd: “It just works!” Do note you will probably want to enable RPM fusion (basically mandatory if you use nVidia) to get access to useful non open source and license encumbered packages Fedora can’t ship by default (like media codecs). Other than that, install Steam and whatever other launchers you want and enjoy a boring, reliable distro.
I switched from EndeavourOS to Fedora too and I love it
As someone considering the switch in the other direction, what made you want to leave EOS?
Not the person you asked, but I also switched from endeavors to fedora. My reason was simple - after all my screwing around in arch, I realized I was just building fedora. And fedora updates take less attention than arch’s do (and I’m lazy).
I just didn’t feel like setting everything up myself anymore (e.g. switching to BTRFS and enabling compression, switching to Pipewire and stuff like that) and I also wanted to be able to install packages through GNOME’s Software app, which isn’t possible on Arch but is on Fedora. Fedora has really good defaults IMO, they’re really fast to use new technology, like what I mentioned I had to manually switch to before.
I’ve been using EndeavourOS for a little over a year now and maybe only twice have hit issues with updates or packages or whatever. Their built in update script helps a lot. I will also say I have an RTX 3080 and fedora wouldn’t run games on my setup, EndeavourOS would.
I’m not the above user, but I also went from Endeavour to Fedora.
I had a couple of issues with Grub after updates - this was an Arch bug that was quickly resolved, but it was still an annoyance that highlights that the bleeding edge isn’t without risk.
Fedora pretty aggressively pushes modern tech into their distro. They’re kind of the main driver that paves the way for other distros to join the modern world, IMO. Wayland, Flatpaks, Portals, PipeWire, they push all of that.
Last time I tried Endeavour, despite the packages being new, it still defaulted to a lot of older technologies (that may have changed now, it’s been 2 years since I used it). Fedora doesn’t, and it plays a part in shaping those technologies. Some people may not like that, but personally I love it.
Like I said in an earlier comment, though, I do love EndeavourOS. If I went back to Arch-based distros I’d use it without a doubt.
I do have annoyances with Fedora. Stuff like having to enable proprietary media codecs via a command is utterly brain-dead and not intuitive for new users.
Manjaro was the first distro I used and it happened twice that it wouldn’t boot anymore just because I installed updates. To be fair, I did use the AUR but that’s like half the reason to use Arch in the first place IMO.
After that I installed EndeavourOS and that always worked fine but nowadays I use Fedora.
If “more stable Arch” is why you’re considering Manjaro, consider openSUSE Tumbleweed. They’re rolling like Arch, but openQA and rebuilding everything after a compiler update seems to catch a number of issues.
If you want easier to install Arch, consider EmdeavorOS.
Manjaro is pretty much never the right answer.
Issues with using AUR was enough for me to stay clear and not recommend to people.
Not that I’d necessarily recommend Arch as something for someone just getting into Linux or anything, but if you’re deadset on using something derivative, I would just recommend going with Arch.
This install scriot makes it no harder to install than anything. And the wiki is robust.
However, if you don’t want to learn how your OS works, and troubleshoot fringe issues, don’t use Arch.
My route into Linux I wouldn’t tell others to take.
I can’t disagree. I love Manjaro on one of my devices, a shitty old HP laptop. It runs better than any other distro on it, and it’s smooth as butter (even for light gaming) even though the hardware is terrible.
But.
I’ve had to reinstall more than once because things broke while installing upgrades, lol
I just installed EndeavourOS on a virtual machine to see what it was like. I can confirm, it’s easy. It’s definitely similar to other distros. Didn’t feel like Arch at all.