I’m currently a student and a newbie to Cybersecurity. I’m using Aurora DX (Fedora-based immutable) on my second laptop—a ThinkPad E14 Gen 2 (Intel). I daily drive this machine for programming and my cybersec activity labs.
While I love the “unbreakable” atomic nature of Aurora, the immutability is starting to feel like a hurdle. I’m constantly jumping in and out of Distroboxes for my tools and it’s getting pretty annoying. I badly want to switch to EndeavourOS for the AUR and the latest kernels, but I’m terrified of “ruining” my OS. Since I’m still learning, I don’t want to spend more time fixing a broken system than I do actually studying for my labs.
A few questions for the pros:
Is it realistic to use Endeavour as a daily driver for programming and labs if I’m not a Linux expert yet? I’m worried about “maintenance tax” taking away from my study time.
ThinkPad Compatibility: How is the support for the E14 Gen 2? I’ve heard ThinkPads are basically the gold standard for Arch, but does everything (sleep/wake, function keys, etc.) work out of the box on Endeavour?
Containers vs. Native: I currently run Kali in a Distrobox on Aurora. On Endeavour, is the “Arch way” to just install those tools natively via the AUR, or do you still recommend using containers for specialized security tools to keep the base system clean?
Hardware & Stability: I’m coming from a “just works” environment. Is it easy to make Endeavour “student-proof”?
I really want the power of Arch, but I need to know if it’s the right move for a student setup. Thanks for any advice!
Yes, a substantial portion of our user base are not Linux experts. For some, EOS is their first distro. EOS doesn’t require any experience, it requires a willingness to explore and learn.
You can do either or both. I think it really depends on your use case and personal preferences.
It is certainly possible to break it. You can delete the root filesystem if you really want to. That will definitely break your install.
At the same time, the idea that Arch-based distros magically break themselves is mostly a myth. I have never had that happen across the whole time I have been using Arch and many, many installs.
I never heard that before so you are teaching me. I’ve had Endeavour across two refurb’d thinkcentres and it was always my impression that they were lenovo-friendly
find a thread in the search box called ‘idiots guide’ which is what most of us use for monthly housekeeping. maybe 5 things to stay on top of….every 4-6 weeks.
a “student setup” I think you mean a ‘cyber-security student’ don’t you? This a perfect distro for noob and “programming”. All sorts of of cyber-security enthusiasts/pros here. I don’t know if Endeavour has a rep for pen-testing but unsure if that’s what you are asking.
You came from a VM and containers you can still run a VM and containers here. If you understand, as a student, how firewalld works and iptables, I mean, if you ran Kali you can make the same environment here. Or many places.
Welcome. considering everything that you wrote I think Endeavour is a fit
Yes, I’m no Linux expert but I can say, if it works it just works.. No issues.
For transparancy: my main PC is completely fine and trouble free. It’s just my laptop which over time became a mess. New kernel and nvidia driver seem to not like each other. But exact same kernel and driver work on my pc… My laptop is a bit special though, not a think pad. So I doubt you will encounter issues.
Just do how it works for you. I personally use both AUR and flatpaks. Depending on what works better for me.
Also about pen testing tools in general, if you want, it is possible on arch or arch based distros to add the black arch repo. This is a repo wich adds many tools for pen testing/ethical hacking like in kali. I once did it on Garuda Linux to test it as it was just a checkmark to add and that’s it. Idk how well this process works on endeavouros though, but very likely similar to base arch, there are many guides to it like this one
I recommend to try it out in a VM first though, before you accidentally make a mistake and mess up your system.
the repo seems to still be maintained, at least most of the packages (probaly also maintained from the community), there are issues yes, which is why i just mentioned the repo, not the whole blackarch install. and also to just try it out in a vm, as sometimes pacman can get messed up by adding a repo. but you are right that its not 100% maintained, some things are broken but not all. and it could be a nica addition of tools for them, if they need them.
