I do not know where else to drop these concerns, please move to the correct forum category if applicable.
Galileo is coming. I understand that, so nothing I say here should be applied to this current revision. I am a patient man, but in my opinion basing your software around current linux and having updates to that that hold release back is making this option for Arch-based distro less appealing to recommend.
Shifting priority to make everything work with linux-lts and having people pick other options at their own peril would probably be the better approach. Replicate the bootloader selection screen with four options instead of two, have those options define the kernel in use, and making linux-lts default for Galileo Neo would ensure that you’ll always have plenty of time to work around issues for next LTS,
If some new backend software happens to be released during the interim between future major revisions, then a new ISO can be released to ensure users have the latest Linux with linux-lts in the meantime, which means no new kernel features until they make it to LTS. It would be a better state for novice users to be in, using Ventoy and updating their copy of EndeavourOS every so often than where we’re at right now with a woefully-outdated ISO and novices wondering why a good bit of the software they try live isn’t working.
Don’t be confused by the names, “Galileo” is not a new version of EndeavourOS. EndeavourOS does not have anything what could be called a version, only individual packages have versions. “Galileo” is just the name of the ISO.
On an installed system, you can use any kernel in the official Arch repos (officially supported kernels), and a bunch of other kernels, as long as they are compatible with the current version of glibc and other packages.
The reason ISO is not on the LTS kernel is compatibility with new hardware.
It is a hardware issue. If we base the ISO off linux-lts, people with newer hardware won’t be able to boot it.
There is too much time between LTS releases. Honestly, we would love to use the LTS kernels if we could. It would make it so much easier to get new ISOs out.
Inclusion of the linux-lts package on the ISO would increase its size by some 120 MiB. I don’t see that as a big problem, but I haven’t really thought about it.
I am aware of how rolling release distros work. But, if the rationale — one of them — for the Galileo release to be held back is New kernel dropped, gotta fix things before commit then I can’t understand how linux-lts should be the kernel that ships by default.
For @dalto’s concerns, there could be a “For newer hardware” option in the GRUB / SystemD menu for live, and EndeavourOS could ship with two kernels at expense of bloating the image size up. If the Too much time between releases thing is an issue, then the team should consider a staggered release period and be like Ubuntu — have the LTS release, promote the LTS release, and provide latest Linux when it is available.
The issues I am having with EndeavourOS at the moment is because not everybody has 16GiB of RAM to spare. I only have 6GiB available in my newest computer. Any time I run pacman -Syu to fix software launching issues with software as important as gnome-disks then my whole system locks up. Yes skill issue, I understand, but this is part of my novice testing — if the software does not work, the first things people are going to try based on recommendation is mirror refresh, catalogue update and software upgrade.
This locks my machine. Not a great novice experience IMO.
Assuming users read the installation guide and this is explained in it, I don’t see how it would be confusing at all, but okay. I’m fine with the current situation, personally…
This is happening in the live session. Installed, no problem because it has as much disk space it needs to perform tasks. This always happens when I try to do a major software upgrade in live systems. Yes I know you’re not suppose to do that, you’re just suppose to install the system but the thing that concerns me is other people having a like experience in live, and leaving the project — as well Linux itself — with a bad impression based on I tried to do something and my computer stopped functioning!
Of course, this is entirely unavoidable with certain software such as Wine or Steam. Idiots are going to try installing those in their RAM-limited machine and encounter problems just like me. The thing I am whinging about is when I end up needing to install a heap of deps just to run something basic like a disk partitioning tool because mesa got an update.
Yes, the current ISO is very old, unfortunately, but that is an exception rather than the rule. Usually, EndeavourOS ISOs are released much more frequent than this. This makes it tempting to try to update it while it is live.
Don’t do that, if that freezes your system up.
Besides, why are you concerned about what other users might do? You know not to do that, and therefore you should have a good experience.
I just don’t want to have people receiving a bad impression about Linux et al because of a bad experience with something I recommend others check out to avoid the noise from Canonical and Red Hat. This shouldn’t be an issue when Galileo is released, and I express my concerns to prevent potential issues in the future.
Speaking of things to do in the future I have tasks to mind. Apologies for any undue inconvenience I’ve caused.
You can rest assured that such people are very, very rare and if such a minor thing causes them to lose interest in Linux, I think we are probably better off without them.
in addition to the issues already mentioned in the thread that speak against using LTS on ISO’s (Arch is bleeding edge rolling, new Hardware is not supported by LTS making booting with it impossible):
The Arch LTS kernel maintainer focuses on using the LTS kernel in servers and similar systems and therefore has some configs set that are not optimal for desktop use. One of those options was only recently discussed here: Why did 6.1 longterm branch change the CONFIG_PREEMPT setting?
TL;DR - Arch is not for new to Linux users. That is what Debian and/or Ubuntu is for.
This (kernels) is way outside my Linux knowledge level, but from my experience, NO NEW TO LINUX USERS should be using anything Arch-based.
Yes, EnOS, Borkjaro, Arco, etc. make it easy to install Arch, but without the years of experience I had using Ubuntu (et al.), Linux Mint, openSUSE, Antergos, etc. I would have a really hard time dealing with Arch-based systems, simply because when something is broken, it’s either you use the command line (and wiki) or reinstall.
Of course, this is just my opinion, but it is one based on experience and based on the fact that the majority of device users (globally - and for any device) are device/system illiterate. And most of them are that way simply because it is more convenient to not know (period). “Ignorance is bliss” and what not.
