Do I need to constantly maintain EndeavourOS?

General system Newbie
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Hi, I have been looking at switching to Linux for a while. I have tried other distributions like Fedora, Mint, Nobara, etc, however they never really worked out for me (Mint was too outdated, Fedora was actually decent but my system would stutter a lot and SELinux would cause problems, Nobara is good and I actually have installed it on a family friends computer but it is a bit of a hassle to deal with the different dependencies and feels a bit hacky).

Now, EndeavourOS seems like it’s perfect for my needs, I know how to use the terminal, I want new software and Kernel for gaming, and I also would like to use some stuff on the AUR (mainly r2modman as dealing with the r2modman AppImage and a steam Flatpak at the same time is REALLY annoying, they never seem to detect each-other). Now, I just want to know if I can just set all this stuff up with the command line and forget it. I don’t plan on doing really esoteric stuff like customizing GRUB or messing with the Kernel, I just want a fast, up to date, reliable distro.

I decided to ask you guys as EndeavourOS seems like the perfect distro for me, but I’ve heard extremely mixed things about Arch and arch-based distros. My main concern is about dependency conflicts, which seem really scary that apparently pacman can just go through with bricking your system if you install even a slightly out of date package from the AUR, is this true / common (assuming the package wasn’t malicious)?

Sorry if these are pretty dumb questions, I just wanted to make sure that I have the 100% right distro for me when I switch off Windows 11.

Tl;dr: I can use the terminal, but I don’t want to be constantly maintaining the distro, I just want to set some stuff up and forget about it.

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I’ve never had dep conflicts let me state that right away. I’m not doing podcasts of gaming with 100 people so I don’t know what happens when you open the joint up wide. My needs are modest.

these simple steps, once a month, is my maintenance. If you are good with the terminal and have 15-20 minutes to spare every 4 weeks this Guide should do ya.

this hasn’t happened to me/think its uncommon.
2 cents

EDIT: forgive me, welcome.

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Hi and welcome to the forums. @drunkenvicar has already posted a good guide by fbodymechanic of some maintenance steps, there are not too many of them and for me it’s similar to maintaining a good pair of boots or a car, keep the machine maintained and it will do the rest of the work for you. At least for me it’s not often I have had to do this and I used to be someone who just wanted to leave and set things. The other thing is to not leave the PC without system updates for too long, I usually update every Saturday but others here have left it for 2 weeks at a time or longer.

However, this isn’t for everyone and other distros with less maintenance are out there. What I will say is back in June EOS was my first linux OS for day to day usage and I never went back in to my Windows 11 install since and never encountered any issues. If a fast and up to date distro is what you need then EOS would work for that, update once a week (Or whenever suits you as long as it’s not too long) and everything should work, if by set and forget you mean install all your programs and that is it then this is the case with EOS as long as the updates are not left too long as I haven’t had to mess with any of my settings of apps since installing them.

Regarding dependency conflicts I have never encountered this, not saying it couldn’t happen though as I have never looked it up or read about it either. In terms of the AUR this is the unofficial repository (User or community uploaded and supported packaged) and installed via yay, and while it’s best to verify anything downloaded there I don’t have many software from there but haven’t had issues from AUR yet either. Downloading from the official repository (Arch Linux maintained packages) there should be little to no issues from there. I just wanted to mention this in case there was a confusion between AUR and YAY and the official repository and pacman.
However, some official 3rd party packages are on the AUR, if you go to a developers website or github for their software they may have AUR listed.

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@SuperRicky, EndeavouOS is definitely not a “set it and forget it” OS. But it is, in my humble opinion, the best Arch-based Linux distro, the best Linux distro period.

I made a “cheat sheet”, a more concise, version of the “Complete Idiot’s Guide To EndeavourOS Maintenance” if you, or anyone else, is interested. And yes… WELCOME to the Purple Family! :enos_flag: :enos:

EndeavourOS Maintenance / Update / Upgrade
[Frequency: Every 1-2 months, or user discretion]

UPDATE SYSTEM:
[Frequency: Daily, Weekly, or user discretion]
yay

SORTING PACNEW/PACSAVE FILES, WHEN PROMPTED BY TERMINAL:
DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff

UPDATE ARCH MIRRORS:
sudo reflector --protocol https --verbose --latest 25 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

ATER UPDATING ARCH MIRRORLIST, UPDATE SYSTEM:
yay -Syyu

UPDATE EOS MIRRORS:
eos-rankmirrors --verbose

ATER UPDATING EOS MIRRORLIST, UPDATE SYSTEM:
yay -Syyu

CLEAN JOURNAL:
sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=4weeks

CLEAN CACHE (All Packages):
paccache -r

CLEAN CACHE (Uninstalled Packages):
paccache -ruk0

REMOVE ORPHANS:
yay -Yc
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Welcome to the forum and to EndeavourOS!

Well, sadly, EndeavourOS is based on Arch, which can be high maintenance distribution if you go nuts and do a lot of weird stuff. If you just want to set it up and forget about it, you can do that relatively well.

This is a thread that should be a must-read, in my opinion, regarding running EndeavourOS, more or less, trouble-free. Obviously, things won’t always be sunshine and rainbows, so be prepared for anything, but following the advice here reduced a lot of issues I personally had with Endeavour. Remember a few key points:

So, to answer to your question, I think the answer is no, you don’t need to constantly maintain the OS to use it, but at the same time, be prepared for anything since this is a rolling release.

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Okay thank you guys so much for the help!

I think I might dual boot EndeavourOS and Windows 11 for now, but I feel much more confident with using Endeavour now.

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@SuperRicky welcome to the forum. :purple_heart:
The others already answered your question.
Just a side note from me. I am running approx. 10 PCs/laptops with EOS in my family, the oldest installation with more than 5 years old. Normally I do updates once a week on the weekend. Updating all PCs/laptops needs the same time as updating Windows 11 on one of the laptops that have Windows 11 as dual boot.

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If it still works, then it’s old, but not outdated. :wink:

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  • The above quote, plus the title of the thread: Do I need to constantly maintain EndeavourOS?

I’ll just restate what I eluded to above… EndeavouOS is definitely not a “set it and forget it” OS. But it is, in my humble opinion, the best Arch-based Linux distro, the best Linux distro period. If you’re willing to put in the little bit of work required to keep things running smoothly and keep the OS updated.

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Not even Debian is a “set it and forget it” OS. No OS that you use daily should be a “set it and forget it” type deal. Heck, even Windows isn’t that, in my opinion.

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Actually Windows was the easiest one to handle as my daily driver. :bomb:

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The closest to a “set it and forget it” OS in the Linux world would probably be Ubuntu or Mint. Pretty much everything is automated to a degree after initial setup.

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It is something that is worth mentioning though. While all operating systems will need some maintaining, the amount for MacOS and Windows 11 is very different for end users compared to Linux and Arch based.

And I do think that judging by almost 100% of Windows users, both in the companies I worked at and people i know, they just leave it and ignore it, windows forces them to update otherwise they will never update and they do not maintain their devices at all, in my jobs I have to tell end users all the time to do basic things that is causing their performance issues.

That being said I have maintained all PCs I have had regardless of the OS because that is the best thing to do. Also this message is just in general, I’m not describing superricky in particular since they have already used Linux anyway. But I feel it’s best to set expectations for people otherwise it will just become another linux distro that failed them. With the information new users can make a more informed decision if it’s right for them.

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Yes, Windows is such a system, because I have already completely forgotten about it … :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Generally speaking the only constant maintenance you need to do is frequent updates. You don’t have to update every day, you don’t even have to update every week, but every month is a good bare minimum.

I update almost daily myself, most of the time i update before i shutdown, I do it before shutdown to avoid headaches which can occur from updating certain packages that require a restart to be resolved. They’re not common, but it’s been known to happen.

The reason this is important is because of how rolling release works. On arch, sometimes an update will break ur whole system, and to avoid that you have to read the arch news (which warn you of it) before updating, or do so after you broke your system in order to learn how to fix it.

EndeavourOS endeavours (pun 100% intended) to prevent such situations; but if you let a very long time pass between updates, the odds of something going wrong anyways increase.

The stress-free endeavouros guide is good overall and mostly everything lines up with my experiences.

only points 12,17 and 18 i disagree with. None of it is really out there, it’s just…

12 should be to warn you to only use 3rd party repositories with extreme caution. Sometimes there’s a good reason to use them, it’s exceedingly rare, but there are cases. Asus-Linux packages for instance; the 3rd party repo is the optimal way to install and update them.

for 17 that’s just bs, there’s nothing wrong with multi-booting. I’ve done it for over a decade on many, many different machines. Setting up multi-booting can be complicated, it’s not something absolute beginners will have an easy time with (and EFI only managed to make it more complicated), but once it’s set up, then it’s set up, no more attention needed. As for 18, just seems strongly opinionated to me, I rarely had issues with os-prober, but systemd-boot is default anyways so it’s mostly an unnecessary point.

But many other points made me go “YES! THAT!” lol, osme of it stuff it took me years to learn. like points 1, 3, 8 and 10. Especially 10.

For the final point though, I should probably add, just because hardware is common and mainstream doesn’t mean it has good linux support, if ur buying new hardware, and you use linux. Always research how well supported it is, and be very careful about buying anything you can’t find support level information about.

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I’ve nestled this away in my handy dandy notebook thank you :smile:

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I feel like I probably should have phrased my post better, but I mainly wanted to see if things would break out of the blue or unexpectedly that I would need to maintain and fix. Like, if my computer could just randomly brick itself from something that wasn’t my fault. But judging by you guys experiences, it seems like the only differences between Arch and other distros is: Rolling release (you get new software nearly straight as it comes out and you should update frequently), and it’s very hands-on (not necessarily in a bad way) where it won’t force you to update (like Windows) or force you into pretty much anything. This level of system maintenance feels fine, and I will probably end up running EndeavourOS on my primary machine and getting my other machines setup with Bazzite or something similar as I might not be using them frequently enough to keep them updated.

Again, thank you guys for the help!

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This isn’t completely untrue, as if you’re building a new/current AUR package on an old outdated package set - likely it mostly just won’t build. I doubt you’d brick anything, BUT this is very simple to remedy, and a good point to be made about all things on your computer.

Never install anything new prior to updating. If everything is up to date - you’re good!

instead of pacman -S <package> why not just pacman -Syu <package>

Problem solved. . .

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