Is there anybody whose had experience with both?
I’m trying to decide if I want to go back to Manjaro or get into Endeavour.
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.
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.
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.
You have to remember that most people aren’t power users. A lot of people find if difficult to even install Windows. Vanilla Arch isn’t for everybody.
Honestly, in that case, I can’t recommend Arch to those users. Nothing wrong with Ubuntu for beginners and there’s so much documentation.
Is it? I thought SteamOS was based on Debian
Since SteamOS 3 it’s based on Arch
I did not know that. Thanks!
@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.
I have switched from manjaro to endeavouros about a month ago. I definitely prefer endeavouros. However, the kernel install GUI in manjaro was nice, made it very easy to get an overview of the available kernels and which ones are still getting support.
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
After migrating from Solus a while ago I tried Manjaro, but quickly decided Endeavour OS seemed better. I mostly wanted Arch with some sane defaults so I think it was a better fit for me. However, I think plain Arch is also a strong contender despite IMO more annoying setup. I have had some issues with keys not syncing properly from the EOS repository.
Used both, and I prefer Endeavor, had been using it for an year. Endeavor feels like Arch with some useful additions while Manjaro felt bloated.
went from manjaro to endevour (both kde). for me personally, there wasnt much difference, just less stuff preinstalled (bloat?) on endevouros.
I was expecting the responses to be more mixed. But pretty much the issues I see here confirms to me that Manjaro is not the winner. I think Endeavour is going to be the one I will install.
I choose Endeavor because it’s basically Arch with GUI.
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I like Reborn OS. It’s like Manjaro but more user customisable.
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.
Yup my install order is
Repo
FlatPak (if it doesn’t need is level stuff)
AUR
holy cow i had no idea manjaro was this bad
@yote_zip @neurodivergentAF lot’s of instability. Understandable. I’ll probably steer clear, if not completely away, from Manjaro :/
FWIW i’ve been using endeavouros for about a month and i’m absolutely in love with it. their installer is super easy to use and i’m just liking how lightweight and customizable arch is
Decided to stick with pure Arch in the end.
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