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.

selokichtli, (edited )

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.

BlanK0, (edited )

Fedora is indeed a pretty solid option its very stable and you are still up to date when it comes to packages.

One distro that I personally use and I’m going to shill is void. Its bleeding edge but its surprisingly stable. If you don’t mind reading documentation and researching similarly to arch you shouldn’t have a problem (since you are accustomed to endeavourOS).

Falcon,

I absolutely love void. Second to that I would say endeavour, it’s just arch with zfs, a wm and an installer.

If you’re interested in learning more try , I use oddlama’s installer. With binary packages, distrobox and flatpak, the small amount of compile time is a much smaller issue.

Alternatively, if you’re thinking about Fedora maybe play with Silverblue, it forces you to learn a bit of containerisation which is handy

BlanK0,

The oddlama installer looks interesting, I might personally check it out later 👍

LeFantome,

Is there an oddlama installer for Void? My least favourite thing about Void is the installer.

When I search for oddlama, all I find is Gentoo which seems to go better with your comment.

kittenzrulz123,

If you want to use the device for school and work I highly recommend a stable distro over rolling release. When it comes to stability nothing beats Debian and Debian 12 recently released so now is a good time to install it.

vox,
@vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

debian is stable as in “nothing changes”, not “nothing breaks” (but tbf it’s a consequence of that)

kittenzrulz123,

Who cares, when you need a device for school and work having the most up to date packages isn’t the biggest priority.

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

Shamot,
@Shamot@jlai.lu avatar

A better advice would be: Don’t install updates when you have a class to attend and assignments to do. There is always a risk of breaking something on any OS.

Stanley_Pain,
@Stanley_Pain@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

This is the right answer.

What are you studying OP?

My opinion has been to install PopOS on all my laptops. It’s consistently needed the least amount of fixing to get things like fan curves, or keyboard backlights, etc working

Arch in desktop.

lemmyvore,

While not choosing a bleeding edge distro is a good idea, there are plenty of stable Linux distros to choose from. And it’s not like Windows is a paragon of stability either. And buying a Mac is a whole other story.

astronaut_sloth,

I agree with this in general, but you still may want to consider using Windows or Mac if there’s university only software that is Windows/Mac-based and doesn’t play nicely with VMs, which is really common in test-taking software (since it’s essentially spyware). An alternative would be dual-booting if you want to deal with that.

The reason I say this is that when I went back to school and started course work, there was an online class that mandated the use of certain test-taking software. I tried to get it to work in a VM (by masking the clues of being in a VM), and it kept shutting me down. I ultimately had to borrow a friend’s laptop to take all of my quizzes and tests, which was a real pain. Thankfully, I only had that one class like that, but any others would have driven me to get a cheap throw-away Windows-only box.

In the end, I’d stay away from bleeding-edge for school work, so Fedora is probably your better bet, but there may come a time that you will need to use Windows (much to your chagrin).

morbidcactus, (edited )

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.

rufus, (edited )

Yeah, I had sound and printing break on Windows, too. And my mom’s Windows PC breaks every year and a half. I’d say go for linux if you’re comfortable with that, it’s pretty robust. Or MacOS that also seems not to break.

(Of course something like Arch or EndeavourOS is more complicated and may break. Fedora, Debian, Mint … will be a better choice for stability. My Debian install runs without mayor issues for 5 years now. If you don’t do silly stuff an mess with the system, they’ll outperform windows.)

Most people choose an OS because they’re used to that specific workflow and know the quirks and how to get around. That’s why many peoole use Microsoft, not because it’s better. School/College/University is a good time to try something. After that you’re pretty much stuck.

atzanteol,

Just install one. Find out.

Secret300,

This. I shill fedora all day but really it comes down to preference

BlanK0,

I would recommend trying it on a virtual machine, or even better a external ssd

atzanteol, (edited )

Just friggin’ install it. People spend so much time debating “which distro should I install”. Toss a dart at a board and pick one. Install it. Get your hands dirty and go. You’re not naming your first born you’re trying a new OS.

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.

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, (edited )

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.

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.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #