I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with EndeavourOS; however I now desire to move on to greener pastures and try out Artix (mostly because there is a keyboard bug (CapsLock is permanently backspace and AltGr doesn’t work correctly) that prevents me from kmonad-ing in an extend layer, and because choosing non-default WMs from login is currently impossible). How may I do this whilst maintaining both my /home stuff and my programs? (I have mostly pacman stuff, with 2 yay installs and 3 Flatpak) I may reconsider if someone provides me with a fix to both aforementioned problems.
You didn’t reply to this:
Did you try it?
Also, what makes you think switching to another Arch-based distro will solve this hardware/firmware-based software problem?
- As for the login issue, I assume you are using SDDM. Is this correct?
- If yes, was the login issue always the same even before the Plasma 6 update?
- Were you using KDE Plasma 5 before with no login issues?
- You said non-default WMs. Which ones?
From an outside perspective, it would look like you are giving up without actually trying.
Additionally, if you can’t fix an issue on what is considered regular Arch Linux, you probably won’t be able to fix it on Artix - Arch Linux for advanced users who really know what they want and what they are doing.
Fair point. My case is that I’ve been down the Linux rabbit hole way too much times for it to be healthy, and am just internally and externally tired. I’ve heard good things about Artix, and I figured that redoing Arch may alleviate some of the bugs the way a Windows reinstall would. I have only found a wide colemak-dh extend layout in kmonad, hence why I only use that. I don’t know how to edit the /etc/default/keyboard file meaningfully. I didn’t get to test out Hyprland on KDE Plasma 5, and it was only shortly after installing Plasma 6 that I realized that I forgot to set the theme to Breeze. The system I run has quite a bit of past mistakes in it that I don’t really know how to reverse, and mostly redoing my setup seemed like the natural best option to me.
You said you’ve been down the rabbit hole too often, but what I just read seems like you are still quite new to Linux and Arch. I’m referring to this in particular:
Hyprland is a WM (window manager), more specifically a window compositor for Wayland. It is not tied to KDE Plasma, which is a DE (desktop environment) that can use either X11 or Wayland.
Also, the theme you choose has nothing to do with whether you can log in or not, unless there is some very poor configuration.
As for these parts of your reply:
Reinstalling EndeavousOS or any distro may indeed fix your issue, BUT if you keep your configs from a previous installation like you mentioned in your initial post, you may end up having the same issues. Sometimes (often times actually), the issues are based on your user configs.
In most cases, you can test this out by simply creating a new user. If the issues no longer exist, then it’s just your configs causing problems.
However, in your case, you said you are having login issues. You didn’t actually answer any of my questions. Please do.
In addition to the above, I’d recommend that the only /home stuff you should keep are your personal files — documents, images, etc.
Based on what you’ve described, you are very likely to have the same issues if you reinstall while keeping everything in your /home directory. So instead, please make a backup to an external storage device, partition, or cloud service before you do anything else.
I do use SDDM, I never actually bothered to switch WMs before the Plasma 6 update do I can’t say for sure, I had no issues with logging in during Plasma 5 and still have no issues now, and I refer to all non-default WMs (Wayland KWin, Hyprland, Sway, and herbstluftwm to be specific, as those are the only other options I have listed aside from X11 KWin; note that whilst others show me a terminal cursor on a black screen before booting me back to login, herbstluftwm has a green background and doesn’t boot me back)
Well, this is hilarious. I now see what the issue is. Please review this link. In particular, read point number 4.
You simply need to select an X11 session and log in. Wayland doesn’t seem compatible with your system as yet. All the non-default WMs you just listed are Wayland-based.
Apart from Herbsluftwm, which is why it didn’t log you out. It’s working, but you need to set it up before logging into it.
PS: Not laughing at you. I’m just laughing at the fact that I thought there was some serious issue regarding logging in. But it’s a very simple issue.
I didn’t seem to see this in full. Now I’m confused a bit.
- Are you able to log in to Plasma 6 X11 or not?
- If yes, why were you trying to use another WM?
If you’re looking to try something new (meaning another DE) to fix your keyboard issue, Cinnamon DE would be better or Gnome. I don’t like Gnome personally, but pretty much only these three have all the necessary built-in settings for the average user to configure. Someone else may recommend trying Budgie, but from my experience, that is missing a lot — it’s like a simplified Cinnamon.
Anything the recommended three don’t have, you’d try to find from the Official Arch Repos or the AUR (or another package database).
Format backupdrive with ext4.
Save everything you want to save.
Install Artix
Transfer backed up files to appropriate folders.
Continue making backups.
$$$$
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Yeah I’m about satisfied w/ your answer.
X11 Plasma does work (and always has) but some part of me wanted to give something new a spin, to give tiling a test run, and possibly due to seeing nearly everyone online using custom WMs and feeling like I’m not a “true Linux user” unless I myself also do what everyone else is doing. I guess for now I’ll just try to get herbs working. Thanks for the help.
Also you can ignore the point about kmonad issues; I’ve concluded that this is likely due to certain keys just not lining up with what the defsrc specifies (Specifically CapsLock and AltGr), and currently see no good way to resolve this.
FOMO — fear of missing out
JOMO — joy of missing out
As an adult (sometimes also as a kid), never do something just because others are doing it.
Do it because it’s something you like, want or need.
Or if it’s law, but even that can be questionable sometimes. 
But also, seriously. 
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Regarding this, Herbsluft is simple, however, it is not as simple as i3, Bspwm, or dk. You may want to try one of these first.
That being said, Hebrsluft is well-documented, so if you’re willing to read through their very detailed and extensive documentation, do your thing.
Sadly I only have one drive with >64 GB capacity, and it’s used w/ my Wii so it has to be in FAT32. Also just to be sure, most files and programs I care about should be in $HOME and /usr/bin right?
Joe Mo too
What does that mean? The Joe of missing out? 
Then step 1 would be replaced by purchase drive and continue following my other steps.
That feels like it could be suspicious when I need to go back to China every now and then to visit relatives (I was already pushing it w/ 2 drives, not sure how airline security would feel about more)
To be clear, the drives I have right now are:
A 16 GB SMI USB Disk used for Ventoy (I have yet to get Haiku working; E2B on Ventoy just ain’t doing anything for some odd reason (I did copy all the files)) that I want to upgrade to 32/64 GB soon.
A 128 GB Samsung USB drive for Tails OS (turns out, though, that I can’t use normal Tor bridges in China (Same w/ BridgeDB and emailing); however, the Telegram bot’s bridges don’t seem to actually work)
Step 0 -move to a more free country.
You can’t use a lot of things in China without a VPN. . . And then then, who really knows
You can easily hide x2 FIT Plus USB 3.1 Flash Drive 256GB masquerading as USB cable…and you can have multiple USB cables, can’t you? 
I guess it’s the only way to not alert airport security…unfortunately they can do whatever they want in any part of the world and you won’t be able to do anything about it, except hiding in plain sight as USB cable.
Try new webtunnel bridges, they should work in China, Russia and Iran without problems (sometimes they expire so you need to get new one though)