My goodness, how in the world do you remove XFCE?

If you know you don’t want to run XFCE4 from the start, IMHO this is the cleanest way to remove XFCE and give the user a clean as possible Arch base install. IMHO the only thing cleaner would be to install Arch base the Arch Way, but then you wouldn’t have the EndevourOS components that Joe included.

Install EndeavourOS from the latest stable release. Be sure to set both user password and root password. After install is finished, poweroff computer and remove installation media. Reboot and hopefully EndeavourOS comes up for you.

When you get to the Lightdm login window, DO NOT log in. The next steps need to be performed totally outside of XFCE for the cleanest removal. Instead, press Ctrl-Alt-F2 and bring up a Console window. Note that a Console window is not like a Terminal window.
To log in, for user type in “root” followed by root’s password you assigned. Then enter the following:
# pacman -Rnsdd xfce4 xfce4-goodies kalu

let’s look at the pacman options. The following are direct quotes from man pacman
-R, --remove
Remove package(s) from the system. Groups can also be specified to
be removed, in which case every package in that group will be
removed. Files belonging to the specified package will be deleted,
and the database will be updated. Most configuration files will be
saved with a .pacsave extension unless the --nosave option is used.
See Remove Options below.

-n, --nosave
Instructs pacman to ignore file backup designations. Normally, when
a file is removed from the system, the database is checked to see
if the file should be renamed with a .pacsave extension.

-s, --recursive
Remove each target specified including all of their dependencies,
provided that (A) they are not required by other packages; and (B)
they were not explicitly installed by the user. This operation is
recursive and analogous to a backwards --sync operation, and it
helps keep a clean system without orphans. If you want to omit
condition (B), pass this option twice.

-d, --nodeps
Skips dependency version checks. Package names are still checked.
Normally, pacman will always check a package’s dependency fields to
ensure that all dependencies are installed and there are no package
conflicts in the system. Specify this option twice to skip all dependency checks.

Again, to review
# pacman -Rnsdd xfce4 xfce4-goodies kalu

When pacman finishes removing xfce, reboot the computer
# systemctl reboot
At lightdm, Do Not log in as there is nothing to log into. Hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 for console window.
# pacman -Syu (update what we have left before installing new DE)
# sytemctl reboot
At lightdm Ctrl-Alt-F2 for console window
then install DE of choice as per EndeavorOS wiki or Arch linux wiki. In my opinion, If you install Gnome 3, do not install gdm (Gnome Desktop Manager) so as to give all DE versions conformity across EndeavourOS as to the Desktop Manager.

Please excuse the length of this post. Just wanted to be concise.

Pudge
User Error: Replace user and try again.

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