Linux

I chose EndeavourOS initially because I was relatively new to Linux (I tinkered with Ubuntu in grade school) and wanted out of Microsoft's environment. The support community is amazing and newbie-friendly. They've helped me through a few bricked systems.

Now I'm at a crux because I own a 1080 and am tired of mistakenly breaking my installation because NVIDIA stopped supporting open source drivers for old cards. I felt uncomfortable building my own driver packages and was relying on AUR, but the recent security breach has me skittish.

Rather than switch to another distro (Mint being the top contender), I decided to replace my graphics card and stay with Endeavour because it seems the Arch distros are the only ones staunchly against age verification laws. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position to update and stick with Endeavour. Maybe when I actually get good at Linux I'll switch to pure Arch.

I taught myself how to properly configure things on Linux using EndeavourOS but ended up sticking with it because there is no real reason for me to switch to pure arch. On my laptop I have NixOS and occasionally notice some of the disadvantages of having not having things pre-installed.

I have no reason to use a raw distro that requires customization when there’s a better version that already comes preconfigured.

I use the Calam Arch Installer ISO to install Arch. It's the same GUI installer that most downstream Arch derivatives use, but configured to install base Arch. No dealing with messy terminal install process and you end up with pure Arch install at the end. If all the downstream distros give you is an easy installer, this exists for base Arch as well even if it is a third party thing.

I haven't run Arch in a few months, but I used to use CachyOS and Artix.

In the case of CachyOS, the repos have a few packages from the AUR pre-compiled, and linux-cachyos-hardened is a fantastic kernel flavour.

Artix, meanwhile, lets me use runit instead of systemd.

I also like the idea of Linux-libre, for which I would probably use Hyperbola (if not Guix). However, the only machine I own with a compatible WiFi chipset is a 32-bit MacBook from the 2000s, which I haven't seen since 2024.

The preconfigured desktop and software is irrelevant to me. I have my own DE recipes and workflows that I can replicate across most Linux distros and BSDs.

I like endeavour cause of the pretty wallpapers

I use CachyOS because I don't feel like going through the hassle of installing drivers for my 1070ti. The kernel optimizations are nice, tho.

I don't use Arch anymore but I can imagine that the install process turned a lot of people off it or pivoted them to stuff like Manjaro, CachyOS, Endeavour etc. It isn't until recently that ArchInstall has become VERY good and simple.

Primary factor even with Archinstall is if you're trying to install Arch via Wifi. you have to do iwd and all that and for someone who isn't quite as comfortable on the command line yet that can be daunting. Even now for myself if I were installing Arch I still have to pull up the Arch Wiki during install cause I can never remember the iwd commands for wifi. I've also borked the install a couple times because I either forgot to include the networkmanager or selected the wrong video drivers.

I want to, I've used arch in the past for a bit, then bazzite and then cachyos.

I want to go back to arch and set it up manually following a guide just to get more familiar with it, I just haven't had the time right now and cachyos has been working great

I googled 'gaming Linux distribution' and it basically gave me popos and cachy. Didn't like popos

The installation process is intimidating for a lot of people.

I taught a friend Linux using the Arch install process.

They use EndevourOS because installation took 15 minutes instead of 3 hours.

Because the PC enables me do do my hobbies (gaming, 3d modelling and printing), the PC itself isn't my hobby. If I spend more time tinkering with the OS than having the OS run the things I actually want to do, I'll go do something else.

i've been customizing linux for 15 years. it's nice to just sit down with something that works.

Got tired of consistently running into problems trying to set it up(e.g,, messing up the UUID)

I tried pure Arch. Installed it and then realized I have to set up everything myself and lost all motivation. Didn't know about archinstall at that time. Found CachyOS and stuck with it. It runs perfectly and I see no reason to switch.

While not answering the question, the first "user friendly" arch based distro I tried out was endeavour and I remember going back to vanilla arch after realizing how bloaty it was.

I’ve spent far too much of my life configuring computers. I want to do as little configuring as possible. Also, I’d heard that Cachy had custom kernel changes that made pretty much any game run better.

Games run phenomenally, not sure why I’d go try anything else. (Bazzite, mint, zorin did not work with my setup)

I've ran vanilla Arch multiple times in the past, and each time it was for the 'fun'of building out my system, this was mainly back when I was a uni student.

These days however, I just want something that works well for my use case.

I've been using bare Arch for a while but after five or so installs I couldn't be bothered anymore and realized that EndeavourOS is basically doing exactly what I'm looking for.

So it's mostly the installer.

I used EndeavourOS for a long time. I liked it mainly for the Sway config making it all so nice out of the box. And of course the easy install.

I do it because if I can save myself some busywork and have a ready to go and maintain system...From after an install, I much prefer that. I don't see the point of installing purely vanilla Arch. There are use cases where this would make sense, but I honestly cannot be arsed. Garuda Linux takes the pain in my arse out of Arch, makes it fun to use. Easy to keep up with .pacdiffs, merging when appropriate (or skipping pointless mergers because they build the damn distro, so they stop pointless busywork from bothering users).

I get access to the latest software and kernels, smooth performance, and all I have to do is pay attention to breaking changes (implement the fix post update) in exchange. It's a pretty damn fine deal. The safety nets that Garuda Linux provides over traditional Arch (which is historically minimal by design) is a better deal in my opinion. However, if I had the drive; I feel like I am beginning to understand the workflow enough to potentially reproduce something similar (not one to one) on a vanilla Arch install.

Now don't get me wrong, the archinstall script is pretty cool, the only bane about it is needing to be connected to the internet. Connecting via a command, rough AF. I honestly might've misspelled that command and not noticed during a frantic moment (it was a floptina moment for me, so, Arch isn't to blame). Garuda Linux lowered the barrier, just enough that I got my foot in and got really comfortable with manual interventions and the like. But they also kept it high enough to isolate me from the AUR, but let me have their nice properly managed ChaoticAUR instead.

Not a masochist and Arch is the only distro I'm aware of that comes close to Windows in terms of package availability (i.e. if it exists and is either open source or prebuilt I can get it on Arch). Cachy specifically for their optimized custom kernels, but lately I've been really wishing they had a bigger team and were sponsored, as some packages can lag behind for quite some time. Same for packages in the Arch repo.

Last time I installed Arch I just told Codex to build an ISO with my favorite stuff, flashed the physical media, and started using it. Now that's a one step setup