Hi @all!
My name is Zausel (Martin), i’m 47yo and i am (not exactly) new!
I’m running Linux on my Desktop-PC and my laptops for roughly 9 years now. More precisely i stem from the Debian ecosystem. My first contact with linux was a Mint Cinnamon live edition and i was fascinated right away. My first intsall as a daily driver has been Crunchbang (until it got discontinued.) After that i had fairly long stays on Lubuntu LTS and Debian stable + LXDE.
You can easily guess how i chose my Distros. I was always going for:
stability
long term support
strong community
low hardware requirements
That’s because i have no professional link to hard- or software at all. Hence i didn’t even know the first thing about Linux and open source. All i knew was that i hated Microsofts’s monopoly on Desktop PCs and that i felt instantly intrigued by Linux (and FOSS) enabling and encouraging me to dig as deep and take control over as much as i liked.
Ubuntu LTS and Debian stable have been the right choice for me. But after a few years i became increasingly annoyed with using outdated software. I became more and more envious of other people being able to use “bleeding edge” versions of wine and dxvk (and others). On the other hand i felt intimidated by rolling release distros. I was terrified of running into a update-related problem that i couldn’t fix.
Well, after the SSD that my Debian was on crashed, i decided to take a “huge risk” and install EndeavourOS and guess what… I immediately ran into a problem that can probably be attributed to the “bleeding edge” approach. Occasionally my xhci-driver-module stopped working. That’s pretty annoying when your mouse and keyboard are connected via USB. Over weeks and months I did extensive research on the web but couldn’t find any fix or workaround. What a killjoy!
Fortunately some kernel update eventually fixed this problem. As a positive side-effect now i feel like nothing can scare me anymore.
My install is now five months old and i can say with great confidence that EndeavourOS is the right choice for me. I highly appreciate this distro, the work of all maintainers and contributers and this remarkably friendly forum!
You will rarely read me, but i will be around now and then as i plan stay with this distro for a long time!
Great story! I’m very happy to hear that you “stuck with it” even after experiencing some issues along the way, and the result is that you have “the right choice for you” in Endeavour OS. Congratulations on your success!
By the way, 90% of my early Linux experiences were with Debian too, but Slackware was the place I got started - WAY back around the time that Windows 95 came out; I remember that Microsoft was advertising with the Rolling Stones song, “Start Me Up” to promote their “brand new” menu system, and I bought my first personal computer, a Micron P100, put Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on part of it, saved space, partitioned the disk, and installed Slackware, building not one, but TWO 3 1/2" removable disk images on which to boot Slackware. I had old drivers because I got the image from a book, so I then had to look on the Internet for newer video drivers, got them on my UNIX workstation at work (after hours), fortunately had a 3 1/2 " removable disk, put the newer video drivers and got slightly better resolution and quite a few more “available colors” once I upgraded the drivers; did the research and the work, learned a lot, and had my own Linux system (which I used a LOT more than that Windows system)! I even worked at home on UNIX localizations on that Linux workstation, and built an automated script to populate and test the localizations while I was working at home during a Northeast snowstorm!
Yes! I feel like i can not emphasize this point adequately!
This distro provides the newest software, it is noob-friendly, it has a strong community, you can benefit from all the arch-related resources (like the AUR and the arch-wiki) and it provides a long-term-support of sorts.
I love it!
I was always going for:
