Fedora, Arch, or EndeavourOS?

Hi, I was here and asked about a few distros already, so here's a quick summary of my situation:

I'm thinking about what distro to put onto my new Laptop, which will be used for University, Work, and just general daily usage. I am currently using EndeavourOS on my main PC and have been decently satisfied, but I want to experiment more. I've already asked if Arch was fine for this situation, to which the answer was a general "Yes, but keep x in mind" and I've asked about NixOS, where the answer was generally a no.

I've been looking around a bit more, and now I'm kind of curious about Fedora, specifically the KDE spin (or i3, I haven't quite decided). It seems to be cutting edge, compared to Arch's (and by extension EndeavourOS's) bleeding edge, and I'm wondering what you all think of it. From what I can gather it has basically all traits which people used to enjoy in Ubuntu, before Canonical dropped the ball on that.
While it's not rolling release, the stability improvements and user experience compared to something like Arch, or even a more comfortable fork like EndeavourOS, seem quite decent, but in your experience, does that make up for the lack of the AUR and reduced applicability of the Arch Wiki?

I'm curious to hear about your experiences and recommendations!

Edit:
I feel like I need to clarify, I know about the difference between EndeavourOS and Arch, I mostly just brought it up as a note that I am somewhat familiar with arch-based systems, and as a question of if it'd be stupid to just go with raw Arch, as EndeavourOS is basically the same, but with a more comfortable installer.
I should have specified that more clearly in the first place, my apologies.

yum13241 ,

Fedora requires less maintenance which is important in a university scenario. But then you have those Exam Safe Browsers which don't run on wine anyway.

If you're going to miss AUR-levels of package count, my advice is to grab openSUSE (preferably non-Leap), get familiar with zypper and yast, then add the Packman repo. Combined with the OBS (basically the openSUSE version of the AUR), you'll have pretty high package availability.

openSUSE also requires less maintenance than Arch.

But generally, I recommend EndeavourOS, just add the chaotic-aur so you don't spend hours compiling, and have fun!

MalReynolds ,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

Consider immutable, I use ublue-kinoite (fedora spin 'with batteries') and use a distrobox Arch for the AUR and development, best of both worlds, rock stable main OS, cutting edge rolling release as needed. I've been very happy, and if you're using for uni and work, reliability should be a consideration.

jjhanger ,

With the options you gave, Fedora. Not really into the AUR. I don't think it is bad, just not for me.

Liz_thestrange ,

I personally go with archinstall for an easy arch install, I recommend that to most of the people

ILikeBoobies ,

Once Arch is set up you have Endeavour

I really don’t see a reason to use Arch over it outside of the initial learning experience and bragging on the internet

Perroboc ,

I just switched from Arch to Endeavour to Fedora! My 2 cents:

  • Arch is like a barebones Lego box without instructions, only a set of pictures. Sure, you get a paper telling you how to ensamble a basic OS, but what to do of it is up to you. For example, you might want a firewall there, right? or maybe a systemd timer to trim your ssd? IDK, you can guess it on your own. The pieces are there, it's up to you to decide what to use.
  • Endeavour is like that same Lego box where someone handled you the manual from another themed box. If you installed Arch on your own, and felt like you might've missed something, or something feels off, EndeavourOS just gives you the ensambled set for you to play with. The problem? No problem, really. It feels like a greatly configured Arch installation.
  • Fedora feels like a themed box. You don't have whole lot of bricks like that other unthemed box (AUR), but damn, everything just works and it works great. Only caveat is that non free stuff (drivers, codecs, etc) require that you input some commands (but really, every linux distro requires this still). So far, my experience is between "wow, I didn't know you could do/have this! Must've missed it in the arch wiki" and "damn, there's no easy way to install X in Fedora? I miss the AUR :("
thepiguy ,

Arch and endeavour should fall under the same category. You are more likely to break your system, but tinkerers love how barebones those are. I have not broken arch in the 4 years that I used it, but I did dodge a few updates which would have nuked my system. Fedora will be more stable, and it will get fewer breaking changes due to it's point release schedule.

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

I use nobara it is fedora but with gaming and xwayland spesific tweaks and bleeding edge kernel and drivers but also it doesnmt have the difficult maintenance of arch because the only thing bleeding edge are the kernel and the drivers the rest is normal fedora, I also use distrobox to use AUR packages

LeFantome ,

Arch and EndeavourOS are the same once installed. EndeavourOS just helps get your system setup and fully configured more quickly.

Nothing wrong with experimenting though of that is something you enjoy.

I used Fedora for many years and liked it but it was years ago now. I have used Arch. I mostly use EndeavourOS these days.

My “play” installation is Chimera Linux. I want to check-out VanillaOS and LMDE. I have thought about trying Fedora ( or maybe Nobara ) again.

jaeme ,

Fedora KDE, if you want extra packages you can check RPMFusion, copr, Nix/Guix and Flatpak.

Arch (and also EndeavourOS) expect the user to be able to troubleshoot and solve problems themselves and also customize things as they want. You have the highest amount of freedom, but also the most responsibility.

Kangie ,

Honest answer: Gentoo with the new official binary package hosting.

drndramrndra ,

  1. Endeavour is just Arch with an installation wizard and a pretty theme.

  2. Definitely don't use nix or guix as an OS if you're making posts like this. They're great as a supplementary package manager, but extremely difficult and convoluted as an OS.

  3. I've recently switched from Arch to Nobara after running it for a few years. It's really nice being able to update without the fear of something breaking. I'm just using flatpak and guix for the few packages that are missing from the repos, no AUR needed.

  4. Install i3 on top of whatever DE you want, don't look for a specific spin. It's really useful to have tools for stuff like power management. Also, when you break something, you've got a backup.

ArmainAP ,

I recently distro-hoped to Fedora Silverblue and I am quite pleased with it. This version has in immutable filesystem, thus you might want to look for another version of Fedora.

NixOS is big no go for me too, especially given that you can install the Nix package manager on any distro easily.

Arch Wiki is great and I often use it for non Arch distros well.

Pantherina ,

Nix even works on Fedora from ublue, using Fleek!

Secret300 ,

Fedora has been what I've been using for years. I used arch before for about a year and I still love it but I've just been fuckin with fedora

driveway ,

PopOS beats all if its an Nvidia laptop. I'd use arch for anything else.

thequickben ,

Nobara works in that regard as well. It’s based on Fedora.

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