I’ve been using linux for 6+ yrs by now, most of which was Arch and EndeavourOS
One of my friends decided to drop windows for his new laptop which he is to buy in a month, and I wanna help him get around. For this reason I think to advise him to get some arch-based distro (since I havent used Mint for a while, and never used fedora/opensuse) and I wonder whether to recommend him Endeavour or CachyOS. I never tried the latter (since its a relatively recent distro, and I dont distrohop anymore) but I hear a lot of praise to it, especially in regards to its use with gaming (pre-configured tweaks, packages compiled for recent hardware, etc) - which is one of the planned usecases for my friend, the other would be making videos. I also dont know which od the distros has more activity/ bigger community, so if someone knows to compare in these questions, I’d be thankful for the info.
As someone who has made a lot of mistakes providing distro advice to others, I would share a few core things:
What kind of person is the target user? I have too many times in the past selected a distro based on what I like/need vs what the other person needs. For example, all Arch-based distros require a user who is willing to learn about how things work. If your friend views their computer as a tool and just wants it to work without worrying about understanding anything, Arch-based may not be the right choice.
How much are you planning to support the user? If you are planning to provide heavy support, it may be better to select a distro you are familiar with.
Try to start with user with a DE that will at least be vaguely familiar to them. If they are coming from Windows, don’t set them up with Sway with a custom tiling config. They are already being forced to learn new tools and a new OS, don’t push them too far at once.
As for CachyOS vs EndeavourOS, they are both based on Arch are not all that different. If you determine Arch-based is the way to go, it might be easier to suggest EOS simply because you know exactly how it works. That being said, either one will work fine.
If your friend is more of a casual user, consider Bazzite. It is great for someone who does a lot of gaming. It puts all the gaming tools front and center, is dead simple to use and hard to break.
I thought of bazzite, but due to its immutable nature, I wont be much help if the need arises, plus my friend is willing to learn the stuff, so thats another reason why I decided against it.
I understand that these distros are very similar, its just the question of whether it would worth it to try and recomend smth which might be better in terms of performance (i.e. cachyos) , even though I’m not familiar with particularities of it.
Regarding the DE, surely I wasnt about to recoomend him DWM right off the bat XD.
I’ll go safe with KDE - both because its easy to use, and I used it a lot myself
In my experience, the performance isn’t all that material in most applications. I don’t think that would be the reason I would choose one distro over another unless I had some specialized use case.
Some differences between EOS and Cachy:
Uses mkinitpcio instead of dracut
Supports even more bootloaders than EOS
The repos are compiled with higher optimization levels
Offers their own set of customized kernels
Has prebuilt kernel modules for things like nvidia and zfs
I start people coming from Windows regularly & Mint is my go-to….Let the new user get comfortable with Linux first….then talk about other options. I have several people who just wanted a system that stayed out of the way & did not require a tech guru to keep running….Mint fits that need.
My wife just wants to do email & surf….so Mint works just fine for her…
If your friend starts to be inquisitive, then just point the way to more advanced options. But be sure to allow him/her to experiment on their own…just help when asked.
Since he’s gonna buy a new laptop, I think Mint being based on ubuntu LTS might have some issues with newer hardware - either not support them, or provide inadequate performance
Plus, as I said earlier, it would be more difficult for me to provide support for mint, since I havent used it in years, and smae goes for Cinnamon.
Zorin I never used at all, but I’d imagine it has the same potential for problems as IIRC it is also based on ubuntu LTS
In this case, I’d actually recommend the KDE AHS version. And if you’re helping them set it up, then you can give them a nice theme (from kvantum) to go with it.
I too do not like MX Comfort, nor Greybird.
You may also wanna give them the latest Nvidia driver during that setup. The 550 drivers will get things done, but gaming performance improves with 580/590. That is, if they are going the Nvidia route (forgive me if I did not see that this is not the case).
I honestly think the recommendation to use things like Linux Mint for casual users is outdated thinking. Some of the newer immutable distros are simpler to learn and much harder to break.
That being said, you have already identified that this user is the type that enjoys learning and technology so I think there is nothing wrong with starting on an Arch-based distro if that is desired.
I have said this many times over the years but “beginner” tells you almost nothing about a person and shouldn’t be a strong factor in choosing a distro. What is far more interesting is other things such as their interests, technical skills, background, etc…
We have seen lots and lots of “beginners” start with an Arch-based distro and be totally happy and successful. Why? Because they were curious and willing/able to learn about the system.
I would say it depends on the the type of person your friend is, which so far seems to be one who likes to learn.
I personally started Linux as a beginner in June 2024, straight to EOS and then moved to Arch after 7 months, and still on Arch now and tinkered with OpenBSD. I haven’t had any issues and have a huge amount of notes of everything I learned or found so far without any raising support threads so far (There is still time for that to happen). And currently delving in to parts of NixOS.
I guess what I am saying is, depending on the person, a beginner could start on EOS (Arch based) relatively easily and work onward, EOS ultimately started my Linux journey (But I also tested 10+ distros and 5+ DEs to narrow down to EOS as my pick). But I don’t know this friend you have so only you and them can know what is good or not for their use cases as well as the help and support you are fine with doing (if any support is required), others here have already mentioned other distro options, this is just my thoughts without repeating some of the options already mentioned.
I agree. There is a very little chance that even arch based distro will break on its own within a year. That is pretty long time for a “beginner” to become “intermediate” if they actively try to learn.
Also, KDE or XFCE can feel familiar to someone who knows only Windows. Or Gnome for someone who used only ChromeOS or Macs. But frankly I do not see many differences between various distros since they all use systemd and can instal any DE. In the end the major difference that remains is the package manager. And for a beginner writing pacman -Syu vs. apt upgrade makes very little difference (they would probably use gui tools anyway).
That’s the right question. Is the switch something they want to invest time into? “Beginner” and similar terms apply if they even consider it a curve. Some people just need a tool to get baked bread or move between locations. They are not interested investing time into the toaster community or learning about car maintenance. It’s just a tool for them which they expect to work. And that’s fine. Just figure out that part early.
Aurora and Bazzite are both ublue-based so they are quite similar(But not identical). I think either will work great for the use-case described in the OP. Bazzite puts all the gaming stuff front and center and has more of it pre-installed but they are both great for gaming and are both built for that.
