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EndeavourOS, my absolute favourite way to easily install Arch Linux with a couple nice extras has continued growing and there's a brand new ISO download with plenty of improvements.

Unlike Manjaro which bundles updates together here and there for big releases, EndeavourOS sticks very closely to Arch Linux directly. The idea is to give users who know somewhat how Linux works to get an easy way to install Arch and it certainly does the job nicely. They do also add in a few small extras like themes, a couple helper applications and things like that - nothing huge but it does make a difference.

They also provide a new eos-apps-info application, which lists all of their own applications that allows you to get a manual for each with clear instructions on exactly what they do. There's a bunch of new community wallpapers but the biggest change is to the Calamares installer.

The new ISO-Next from EndeavourOS pulls lots of improvements to the install experience which the team say "brings us to a higher level and we are confident to say that this ISO is a milestone step towards our future". Under the hood the installer went through a huge amount of changes to give a "significant" speed increase when installing. They did this by throwing out their previous way of building the system for the new ISO which "resulted in an installer that is fast, light, easy to maintain, easy to add new features in and a hugely improved user experience".

Some of the changes include:

  • When using auto partitioning in the installer, BTRFS now can be chosen with the possibility to create a file system with a subvolume scheme. Needless to say that EXT4 will still be an option to choose from in the auto partition.
  • Now, the wifi setting used in the live environment will be automatically installed during installation, so there’s no need to re-enter your password on a new install.
  • When chosen a DE or WM that uses LightDM, the settings of LightDM have been improved to prevent a black screen at boot with certain hardware systems. Now LightDM will wait until the GPU and GPU settings are completely initialized before starting up. GDM and SDDM didn’t have this issue. 
  • The boot process on the initial boot is more failproof, thanks to improvements the Arch team made on the archiso.
  • The installation process doesn’t fetch packages from GitHub anymore but fetches them from our repository, to prevent failed installs from users in countries where GitHub is blocked or failing due to personal security settings like firewalls etc.
  • Another improvement to prevent failed installations is the hugely improved mirrorlist handling that minimizes the use of bad mirrors.
  • Calamares has an improved and better design that makes it easier for the user to deselect the packages they don’t need in the selected DE.
  • When chosen XFCE4 or i3wm in the online installer, we now offer the possibility to select or deselect the EndeavourOS theming. For the offline XFCE4 install, the EndeavourOS theme will still be installed.
  • The Linux-lts kernel can now be chosen as an option in Calamares.
  • With the help of our moderators, we have successfully implemented the option to use parallel downloads, introduced with Pacman 6, to choose during install which decreases the installation time by a landslide. The installation time is already incredibly fast by default compared to the previous ISO, but for people who have a fast and reliable internet speed, choosing parallel downloads can be a lightning-fast installation experience.     
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11 comments
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Linuxer Aug 30, 2021
Installing vanilla Arch nowadays is even more BS than it used to be as Linux has gotten more known. Arch proposers filling the forums with their btw's Linux has gotten more and more popular and there is a legion of users who refuse to touch the "bloody command line". Why can't Arch devs just let their brain blocks go and put in a PROPER damn installer?

Solus and elementary OS are examples of those which do not need opening of terminal no more, and they even encourage NOT to. Terminal is even not there right away to be found! It's the current year and stuff. So many now don't care whether or not "terminal is a handy tool". They just wanna sit down, click through things and enjoy!

And i don't blame them. Life can be short
Raaben Aug 30, 2021
Quoting: LinuxerSolus and elementary OS are examples of those which do not need opening of terminal no more, and they even encourage NOT to. Terminal is even not there right away to be found! It's the current year and stuff. So many now don't care whether or not "terminal is a handy tool". They just wanna sit down, click through things and enjoy!

Feel free to do so. Not every distro has to cater to you. Arch doesn't claim or pretend to be for everyone and does what it does for specific cases.
heidi.wenger Aug 30, 2021
Quoting: Raaben
Quoting: LinuxerSolus and elementary OS are examples of those which do not need opening of terminal no more, and they even encourage NOT to. Terminal is even not there right away to be found! It's the current year and stuff. So many now don't care whether or not "terminal is a handy tool". They just wanna sit down, click through things and enjoy!

Feel free to do so. Not every distro has to cater to you. Arch doesn't claim or pretend to be for everyone and does what it does for specific cases.

i think you missed his/her point entirely! arch is mentioned everywhere and when newbies take on it, it will not fly as they cant install it and no idea of arch wiki existing. they only know that this arch was recommended
sudoer Aug 30, 2021
To be honest, I never quite liked that oversaturation of purple everywhere. It could be worse though they could have chosen pink, who knows perhaps they wanted to.


Last edited by sudoer on 30 August 2021 at 6:11 pm UTC
ahoneybun Aug 31, 2021
Quoting: heidi.wenger
Quoting: Raaben
Quoting: LinuxerSolus and elementary OS are examples of those which do not need opening of terminal no more, and they even encourage NOT to. Terminal is even not there right away to be found! It's the current year and stuff. So many now don't care whether or not "terminal is a handy tool". They just wanna sit down, click through things and enjoy!

Feel free to do so. Not every distro has to cater to you. Arch doesn't claim or pretend to be for everyone and does what it does for specific cases.

i think you missed his/her point entirely! arch is mentioned everywhere and when newbies take on it, it will not fly as they cant install it and no idea of arch wiki existing. they only know that this arch was recommended

You could make your "point" about trying to install macOS on non-Apple hardware. Every distro has it's user base just like every other OS they aren't all fit most OSes.
Purple Library Guy Aug 31, 2021
Quoting: sudoerTo be honest, I never quite liked that oversaturation of purple everywhere.
Gee, maybe it's time I gave an Arch variant a chance.
TheRiddick Aug 31, 2021
I prefer just punching in 1's and 0's in order to install Arch. Sure it takes me around 5 years but it sure makes my farts smell nice..

j/k

I use this to install Arch because I'm lazy and don't like typing crap into console either (and because I make allot of typo's and have a blackhole in my brain!)
NoSt Aug 31, 2021
I've been using EndeavourOS for almost a year, and I'm quite happy with it.
As I see it, Manjaro is a great choice for "regular users" that just want everything to work. On the other hand, EndeavourOS is perfect for power users and developers who want to learn how to use Arch Linux. I really appreciate the work the developers put into their Welcome app.
demencia89 Aug 31, 2021
Quoting: heidi.wenger
Quoting: Raaben
Quoting: LinuxerSolus and elementary OS are examples of those which do not need opening of terminal no more, and they even encourage NOT to. Terminal is even not there right away to be found! It's the current year and stuff. So many now don't care whether or not "terminal is a handy tool". They just wanna sit down, click through things and enjoy!

Feel free to do so. Not every distro has to cater to you. Arch doesn't claim or pretend to be for everyone and does what it does for specific cases.

i think you missed his/her point entirely! arch is mentioned everywhere and when newbies take on it, it will not fly as they cant install it and no idea of arch wiki existing. they only know that this arch was recommended

I think you're missing his/her point entirely. Arch doesn't claim or pretend to be for everyone and does what it does for specific cases.

I'm sorry couldn't phrase it any better, it's already right :D
14 Sep 4, 2021
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Quoting: NoStAs I see it, Manjaro is a great choice for "regular users" that just want everything to work. On the other hand, EndeavourOS is perfect for power users and developers....
That's what's "advertised," but my own anecdotal experience doesn't match. I ran Manjaro on about 5 computers I touched on a regular basis, and the experience lead me to convert most of those to EndeavourOS. My main rig is Arch and I've had much fewer annoyances than Manjaro. I am hoping Endeavour doesn't get too opinionated in their custom packages. So far, so good.

I would actually say Manjaro is still for power users. I'm not sure any rolling release distro is for regular users. Something like Linux Mint and KDE Neon is for regular users, which have well-tested releases and a polished desktop environment.

Just my opinion.
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