I’ve been here before, particuarly in late 2021, and you might’ve seen me around, but thought I might post this regardless.
I’m someone from a certain location in Europe. I prefer my details remain private.
The reason I switched to Linux was my growing frustration with Microsoft. I’ve used Kubuntu at first, but I experienced some issues (that in hindsight I could’ve resolved with my current knowledge), and decided to go all in, get on an Arch based distro as a newbie, and chose EndeavourOS. I was ecstatic with how easy it was to set up and use.
Unfortunately I had to go back due to some critical software not running in any way shape or form. I also didn’t have additional drives at the time to do a separate drive dual boot (the way I prefer it). So I went back to Windows.
And now I’m back here again, this time for good, due to their constant push of AI features I don’t care about nor need, some of them being downright privacy nightmares (e.g. Recall). And I trust not a word that they say about it being ‘encapsulated in VBS and local on device’. No one should trust a closed-source, blackbox OS. I don’t trust until I see the code. And VBS isn’t impenetrable.
So that was the final straw, and I’ve returned to EndeavourOS’s wonderful community. I say the community and not the OS because, while yes I used EOS for the past two weeks when I returned, I decided to go ahead and try installing pure Arch on my rig. So far it’s been a complete success with everything working nicely and any issues being remedied with a little Startpaging and wiki reading. If I don’t know something, though, I will resort to asking the community here. Yes, I don’t use EOS really, but it’s basically 99.9% Arch anyway, and EOS is still my distro of choice on other machines where I can’t be bothered to install Arch. And this community is my community of choice.
I want to thank everyone here for the help provided to me back in 2021 and lately when I made some posts asking for support. Everyone here is friendly and welcoming, and considering most Linux users (that I’ve encountered anyway) tend to be elitist and snobbish, the atmosphere in here was a nice change of pace. I don’t dare ask on other Linux forums, but I have no issues asking in here.
I’m here to stay this time. Windows was purged as my 11 IoT LTSC dual boot was gathering dust, and I can do everything I want on Linux. I feel at peace using this OS and I truly feel like it’s my OS, and no company dictates how I should use it or when to update.
In my opinion, EOS is shaping up to be the replacement for Windows. I have never encountered an operating system so easy to set up, so reliable, fast and smooth, and so customizable before. If me, a total Linux / Unix noob could get a grasp of how it works easily, despite it being based on a supposedly “hard” and DIY distro as Arch - then the team has done it right.
Very glad to be part of the purple fam, if you guys consider me that, as I (sort of) betrayed it by going to pure Arch lol. Without the things I’ve learned about how Arch works in EndeavourOS though, I never would’ve gotten my Arch install to be as good as it is.