I’m Mao, a semi retired Filipino physician, seeking to reignite an old flame with Linux. Back in the late 2000s until early 2010s I’d mess around with beginner tuned distros, installing them in all the old hardware I could get my hands on, “fixing” my friend’s old laptops by swapping HDDs to SSDs and migrating them to Linux Mint and making sure the desktop environment is as newbie friendly as possible and they would have to barely use the terminal. I enjoyed it! I enjoyed “freeing” people from Windows and Mac, and dispelling some FUD about Linux. Being in a third world country, free, open source, and good software would be a boon for work and school.
Unfortunately though, as I had to give my full attention to med school, learning Linux had to take a back seat, and I never learned anything more than the superficial. And it has been like that until today! Now for health reasons, I sort of retired early, and to fill my idle time, I decided to try and reacquaint myself with Linux, bought a 5 year old thinkpad x270, and started distro hopping, as one does
Eventually, I settled on Arch (using archinstall of course, I’m nowhere near patient and/or competent enough) and inevitably ran into a few problems after poking around. I learned a lot, however, I found Arch’s community rather condescending and somewhat pompous. I found it funny at first, the situation of experiencing a meme, but it got tiring. Was on my way to hop into a different distro with KDE, but at the last minute was referred to your wonderful community by an acquaintance. I’ve lurked a bit in the forums, ran Endeavour for a few days, and decided that I’m here to stay! I’m nowhere near an experienced user, so I’ll be doing a LOT of reading here, so huge thanks to all of you for answering people’s questions very succinctly and kindly! Looking forward to learn!
Cheers!
Mao
Ps English isn’t my first language so please forgive my grammatical and/or syntax errors
Welcome to EneavourOS community! I switched to EndeavourOS several weeks ago because I wanted to run an Arch-based distribution because I ran Arch it the past. But then shortly after I ended up installing Arch again because I just wanted to see if I was able to replicate my EndeavourOS setup on Arch. However I’m staying here because of the EndeavourOS community so I’m sure you will feel quite at home here!
Greetings Cocomao7 and welcome back to both Linux and Endeavour OS. Your journey is much different than mine. I’m a retired former software engineer who was originally a mainframe programmer/analyst who wanted something different. Way back in 1982 I got my hands on some small “tower” designed computers, which were intended to be department computers. My company was experimenting with the PC on the desktop, department computers to connect with both the desktops and network with mainframe and other external computer systems, We used UNIX on those systems.
In the mid nineties I finally bought my first computer and put Slackware Linux on it. About five years later I became interested in Debian Linux, and that dominated much of my Linux use. Like you I tried Arch Linux, and really couldn’t see the attraction; it didn’t seem any faster to me, nor was it easier or more reliable, so I didn’t think much about it again until one of my geek buddies mentioned EndeavourOS and I gave it a try; since I multi-boot my systems, EndeavourOS is now a regular part of my collection of systems that I regularly use. I don’t take GREAT advantage of the features because I no longer need to do so, but it’s been the first Arch-based distribution that hasn’t been either “not worth the time and trouble” or lacking in reliability. For me EndeavourOS is close enough to cutting edge, yet solid and usable for every day use, so it’s a winner for me too!
Salamat, having lived and worked in Quezon City through the early 2000’s, I’ve yet to meet a filipino whose English isn’t miles ahead of my Tagalog! We’ve come a long way since your last stint with Linux, here’s hoping you find a place that fits! Best wishes on your health and ongoing journey!
Welcome to the forum, Mao! I’ve tried EndeavourOS before and it’s honestly my favorite “pointless” distro
Was trying out Debian 12 on a VM before on Windows, but 2 days ago decided if I don’t do it now to actually learn, then what is the point. So I nuked Windows and here I am!
Almost everything ran smooth as butter, which is incredible. Very pleased. Super fast, even webpages take less to load with the same crappy internet connection.
And the best about EOS is the community.
the community is probably the most important, yet most neglected, aspect. I’ve been using linux for a (now long) while, and have witnessed the rise and fall of many distros: in most cases, those who fall have a bad community.
We’ve come a long way since your last stint with Linux, here’s hoping you find a place that fits! Best wishes on your health and ongoing journey!