A very late introduction

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. :purple_heart:

13 Likes

Hello and welcome @anon47347018. Better late than never. :slight_smile:

5 Likes

Late welcome @anon47347018! :wink:

5 Likes

Welcome @anon47347018

4 Likes

Welcome back :slight_smile: I hear you on that sense of peace. It doesn’t feel stressful - partly because you’re not being dragged along by your OS, or forced to do things you don’t want to do. Having the choice, and knowing it’s your own, is priceless.

5 Likes

Welcome back @anon47347018 :enos_flag:

5 Likes

Hey @anon47347018 A late but very warm welcome to the :enos:-Family!

4 Likes

Hi, @anon47347018, welcome. As they say: better late than never.

Glad you got rolling again.

5 Likes

TLDR - so I didn’t

We glad you here :enos_flag:

Keep on Rockin in the Free World :wink:

4 Likes

I’m an INFJ, I must express everything and TL;DRs don’t exist :wink:

1 Like

Hi @anon47347018

I’ve only known you were around since the creation of your account on EOS. It’s been great having you around. Windows and Microsoft is why I switched too, I’ve been tired of them for a long time but grew tired of having to endure my OS and Microsofts antics lack of ethics and its methods of power abuse over it’s “customers”, which I know they have been doing for decades.

I have also recently delved installing Arch manually as well, via a VM, and learned quite a lot in the process and was great for my natural curiosity to see how things work. I was actually surprised how easy it was, I thought it would have been very daunting and fixing a broken system or reinstalling over and over but after 45-90 minutes to take my time, write my own notes and instructions, and installed it on my first time with no issues with Plasma etc and in working condition.
After the 5th time I can do it in 26 minutes now and configuring disks partitions and file systems, time/date and other stuff I can now do from memory (70+% of my own personal installation guide I wrote while researching it). But I mostly do it for learning reasons though and have learned a lot about Arch and Linux from it, but once I learn it all perfectly manually I will probably just use ArchInstall if I had to use Arch for anything as it’s the same steps as manual but only takes 16 minutes (Dependent on internet speed), or if for some reason EOS ceased to exist (which is something I considered so I wanted something to fall back on). And similar to you, manual Arch was easier as I have linux and Arch experience via EOS beforehand. And I am prepared to tackle elitist Linux users as they put off people trying Linux and the community is actually one of many reasons I went with EOS as my main OS.

And at least for me I have actually found Arch based distros to be stable too, maybe because I like to explore or tinker but I’m more likely to break systems that are too closed off as I end up trying to bypass them, or I get frustrated by the OS blocking me from doing something as I know what I want to do. But a fully open OS I am free to explore everything and just careful how I manage the files or edit them, I haven’t broke my system yet from my own doing other than a couple minor things that took 2 minutes to fix since I already knew what may happen.

3 Likes

Unrelated but unsure how many will know what those letters mean, for me I am always INTP

1 Like

On top of being tired of Microsoft’s antics, I recently became way more online privacy conscious and Linux was the only way.

I also have a personal guide I wrote for myself to assist with installing Arch in the rare case a complete OS reinstallation was needed (otherwise I have Timeshift set to make daily snapshots). I have every step outlined there, including what to do post-installation to set it to my needs and I backed up any configuration files I might need as well to my Icedrive cloud backup.

It takes me about 10 minutes to install Arch now. I practiced in a VM beforehand quite a bit.

Arch was stable for me both on EOS and currently in its pure form. I update weekly, every Saturday or Sunday, and I haven’t had a single issue. Using the linux-zen kernel, uninstalled the mainline kernel afterwards, and I keep linux-lts as a failsafe.

Every problem I’ve ever had so far was easily fixed with just 3 minutes of independent research or Wiki reading. And fixing problems on this is actually sort of fun, as I know exactly what went wrong and where to look. Windows is very vague in error handling, good luck figuring it out by listening to Microsoft’s “certified advisors” over on their useless support forums.

2 Likes

I hear ya. I haven’t used Windows on my home PCs and laptops in more than a decade. I got out long before the AI/Privacy nightmare.

I completely agree!

Welcome (back) to the Purple Family! :enos_flag: :enos:

3 Likes

Your preparation seems very similar to mine actually, other than Timeshift. The steps in a guide, outlined and everything, configuration files I have in cloud drive and an offline drive. And I also have a post installation guide and a pacman script to install everything I use in one go. I use borg to backup to an offline drive, and another internal backup SSD.

Even the weekly update and the days to do it is the same. Maybe this is trick to lack of issues :slight_smile: . I still have a lot to learn but I will get there piece by piece.

For me the support and guides here on the forums, EOS wiki and Arch wiki have been fine. I’ve had to deal with Microsoft website for work to set stuff up and it’s just a complete minefield on there to work out what to do and a lot of useless information for what I actually want to do and many links to other pages which also have their own links to other pages. Microsoft support forums is basically filled with SFC /scannow half the time or there is no solution on them. Response times on this forum and actual fixes is like premium gold standard in comparison.

1 Like

Oh a script might be a good idea. But I dunno, I just have a list of all the software I need in my guide. Something satisfying about typing that command out myself. I love how everything can be installed and updated from the terminal. If you update your system, you update your programs, and I adore that. On Windows, you have to open each program and update them one by one, which is horrid, especially from a security standpoint.

I only backup using daily Timeshift snapshots with Rsync to another internal SSD, haven’t felt the need for an external drive. I keep critical, unrecoverable stuff on the cloud as Icedrive keeps copies of all my data on multiple drives and that’s better than I could ever do. If my internal backup SSD fails, then I’ll know and switch backup location to another internal SSD. I have quite a few. If my main, OS SSD fails, I’ll just change it and restore the system from the snapshot using a live Mint USB, which is really good for this purpose as it comes with Timeshift. I think it’s a pretty reliable setup.

Keeping Arch up to date is the key, but it doesn’t need to be daily and excessive. If you wait until the end of every week, developers have time to fix any potential issues, regressions or incompatibilities, and you save a lot of potential headaches this way.

The fact that you choose to update whenever you want and there is no nagging is the best. It really is up to the user to keep their system up to date and in working order. Everything is up to the user. As it should be.

I completely relate to your “links upon links” description of Microsoft support pages. Nothing more frustrating than being hit by a Windows related obscure problem, and then scouring Microsoft’s maze of links for a solution is like looking for a needle in a haystack. You have to resort to other places to get reliable support. If you use EOS, you can go to its forums and get a timely, quality response, instead of a blanket “sfc /scannow” that fixes absolutely nothing in 99% of cases.

I’ve gushed about EOS and Arch quite enough but I can’t help it. I really feel like I’ve regained ownership of my PC.

1 Like

Welcome @anon47347018

5 Likes