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.

nimrod ,
@nimrod@kbin.social avatar

My vote would be Fedora, too. I've been hopping between distros for 16 years now. Funnily enough, I switched from Arch to Fedora.
And it just works, no broken dependencies or breaking a sweat when you forgot to update for two weeks.

If you can get used to the concept of an immutable file system (as discussed by @Guenther_Amanita) + flatpaks, it is really a smooth system without hassle. You should upgrade to the next version every 6 months - worked flawlessly for me the last two times (you should do backups before obviously).

Lack of AUR could be a thing - how much do you use it? I would say, that is the only weak point for Fedora regarding your requirements.

For me, it's the perfect balance between recent packages , stability, and user experience.

Please let us know what you decided and why - I am curious to hear about your reasons!

CatLikeLemming OP ,
@CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

After reading all this, and generally being predisposed towards Arch since my experience with EndeavourOS has been rather comfortable so far^1^, I'd say I've less been rationally convinced of using it, but rather not deterred enough. So I think I'll just go with Arch, but make sure to keep my home folder in a separate partition, so I can bail if needed, with Fedora as my preferred backup.

1: Well, I say it's been comfortable for me, and that's true, but a friend of mine who installed EndeavourOS at the same time as me recently booted his pc up to find a terminal staring back at him. He says he didn't do anything weird, and didn't even update, but who knows. If I understood him correctly, reinstalling (one of) the Kernel(s) (I think he has two installed, one as a backup) fixed the issue. Problem is that this takes time, and when you're not home, with shitty or possibly no wifi, that's gonna be a big problem.

nimrod ,
@nimrod@kbin.social avatar

Cheers for letting me know!
if your comfortable with it, go for it -I think that's the important part.

You should be good if you keep your system updated, a seperate home partition is a good idea.
In the end, we all use (GNU/)Linux. I think the differences are often exaggerated here. Sure, your package manager may vary but under the hood they tend to be quite similar (apart from being immutable or other special cases).

Have fun with Endeavour, fellow wanderer and thanks for the thread, it was a quite interesting read!

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

selokichtli ,

Use openSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a rolling release distribution with the best a great KDE Plasma implementation.

Now, your specific question boils down to choosing between Arch and Fedora, since, arguably, Endeavour OS is actually Arch Linux. Now, as you're willing to use a Qt-based DE, specifically Plasma, I'd say none of your options are ideal. That's why I mentioned openSUSE Tumbleweed, but, for you, I'd say Arch Linux, however, you currently use Arch Linux, hence, you should just switch to the Plasma DE.

LeFantome ,

EndeavourOS is Plasma based now

selokichtli ,

Well, thank you for bringing that to my attention, but the comment holds.

geophysicist ,

Controversial opinion: unless your university studies and work is in OS development, then you should go for Windows or Mac. You won't have energy or time to keep fixing your laptop OS when an update breaks the Bluetooth driver or whatever when you have a class to attend and assignments to do

morbidcactus ,

I've literally never had issues like this with Linux updates, tbf I use Debian and Debian derivatives so maybe that's why (Debian on my laptop, Ubuntu server on my nas/server, Debian and Mint for my 3d printers). On the other hand I've had horrible experience with Bluetooth in windows for audio, some devices losing audio mid meeting but remaining connected for examole.

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

Dirk ,
@Dirk@lemmy.ml avatar

Nothing beats the Arch wiki, to be honest. One of the best and broadest collections of useful information around the web. And since Arch is not-too-modified in relation to upstream, all of the information is usable for most a lot of other distributions, too.

And yes: I’m using Arch, btw.

To be more specific: I’m running Arch with Hyprland (a tiling compositor for Wayland) on my DELL XPS 13 without any issues, running Arch with Openbox (X11) on my main computer since over a decade without any major issues (device is used for gaming, multimedia, video and image editing and screen recording), and on all devices I serve something from.

Since I run Arch as a server (had it as communication server, as DHCP/DNS server, as VPN endpoint on a Raspberry Pi, and as a gaming server, currently on my main server it’s used as host for a Docker setup), I can tell you, you don’t need to worry about any real issues regarding stability and performance. Arch is way less bleeding edge as non-Arch users think. Just update regularly every 2-3 weeks at least, and check the news before doing so.

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

It boils down to what effort you want to put into it.

If university and work usage is mainly running productivity stuff like some type of text processing or using web-based applications you likely won’t ever have any issues. If you’re constantly switching environments, need to run specific apps (maybe even 32-bit software), constantly use different video outputs, tons of different BT devices, etc. … well … Arch is of course capable of everything the bigger distributions have to offer by default (all the nice “magic” stuff that happens automatically in the background), you just need to set everything up by yourself.

I might be biased towards Arch, but maybe just try if it fits your intended purpose and if you’re willing to set up everything at least once before using it.

driveway ,

I wonder how incompetent people who say Arch is unstable must be. It doesn't even mean what they think it means. It just a way of saying you'll get updates more frequently.

jaykay ,
@jaykay@lemmy.zip avatar

Took me too long to learn that lol been on Arch since

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.

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.

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!

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