Manjaro 24.0 Since we released Vulcan in December 2023 we worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it Wynsdey. This is also our first release which comes with Plasma 6. The GNOME edition has received several updates to Gnome 46 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when Gnome 46 originally was released in March 2024. You can find the changes made to each point-release here: 46.1. Highlights of 46 release series are: GNOME’s filemanager comes with a new glob...
First of all: it’s a joke.
Second of all: no, Arch is not as easy to install, specially for someone who is looking at Manjaro as a possibility.
And believe me, I was once a Manjaro user.
And for 99% of Manjaro users, what they really wanted was Arch with an installer. Which is what Endeavour OS is. (Although I’ll never understand why Endeavour people didn’t just develop the tools FOR Arch instead of wrapping it all up as their own).
Current (1,5 years in) Manjaro user here. If I’d want just an installer for Arch, I’d go with Archinstall. And I doubt I’m 1%, though nice installer might be a selling point for absolute Linux noobs.
There is plenty of experienced people using Manjaro and recognizing its strong and weak sides.
And yes, I don’t understand EndeavourOS as a separate distribution either.
How would Arch have implemented the default installer within Arch itself?
I would argue that EOS in fact did work within Arch as they use the entire Arch repo system ( including even the kernel ). EOS adds a few utilities some of which are not even unique to EOS ( like yay and paru ).
EOS has become more opinionated about the install such as using Dracut and systemd-boot but even those come from the Arch repos.
The other thing that EOS brings is the much friendlier community.
Sorry I don’t understand your first question.
What I mean is that anyone (in fact there were projects that did this) could make an image with an installer GUI for Arch Linux that installed Arch Linux and some opinionated software like Endeavour does. But at the end you just got an easy Arch installation. What bothers me is that instead of pushing for Arch Linux’s brand, Endeavour created their own, virtually wrapping Arch Linux as theirs, and I don’t believe it is enough work to consider it a different distro, because it is LITERALLY ARCH with a couple of extra packages (that could be on the main repos or the AUR).
And I am saying all this as an Endeavour user myself!
First of all, thank you for the reply and I find your position completely reasonable. We agree that EOS is essentially an opinionated Arch install.
That said, the goals of EOS seem antithetical to the Arch project and many of its fans. I think it was elsewhere in this thread that somebody argued that somehow EOS would confuse new users because of mild deviations from the default like dracut or systemd-boot. Those are directly from the Arch repos and yet Arch users still brand them as “the other”. I do not see how EOS could have been done under the Arch umbrella and the decision enforce the separation with pure Arch is driven by the Arch desire to define Arch by a very narrow standard of purity.
I am very happy that EOS uses the vanilla Arch repos and I am very happy that they have limited their ambition in terms of what to change.
The dracut-systemdboot thing makes no sense. If you are installing Arch Linux, you have all options available? There is no “default” Arch, 😅
FWIW I’ve read an Arch dev complain that folks using any 3rd party installer are not in fact “running Arch” and should not claim to be doing so.
I would say that does apply in the case of Endeavour OS but shouldn’t for a custom install with 100 % Arch+AUR packages.
Arch has an installer
*GUI installer
People who are are not able to use or dislike a TUI install script should not be using Arch or an Arch based distro. Especially when taking into account that EndeavourOS doesn’t have a GUI package manager.
At least Manjaro has a point with it’s slower repos and pamac.
EndeavorOS is just Arch with Calamares, some welcome window bloat, and pacman hooks to have it be distinguished from Arch by neofetch; all at the cost of the install duration: the download is slower, the flashing is slower, the boot is slower, the installer is slower, even pacman is slower due to the hooks.
You can just download in ISO of Arch with Calamares instead, if you really want it (example)
EndeavorOS does not contribute anything to make the install process easier nor to the experience using it. Why it is still so popular after the reintroduction of
archinstallreally remains a mystery to me. I really only view it as a security risk due to the smaller team.