Hi all, and to devs of endeavouros!
I’ve been using EOS for almost 3 years now, and I absolutely love it! Which means, i love Arch…btw! I was a typical switcher from Windows, though I’ve had a bit of experience with llinux in the past, and running different servers, like Ubuntu and Freebsd.
I’ve been wondering if it would make sense to make an installer profile for completely new linux users, eg. windows or macos, who hasn’t got any - or very little - linux experience before!
I’ve been researching a bit using different AI tools, with my own experience as starting point, and found, there are several important points to address:
Let New Users test their hardware for linux compatibility, maybe using live-environment. This is sort-of already the case, but could be more formalized.
Use forced BTRFS- / ZFS-based system install, to address users’ fright of doing something wrong, making them able to easily switch to earlier snapshot, and enable better and easier management of storage and backups. This is one of the biggest gamechangers for me!
Install and setup default backup system
Make it possible to migrate users’ files to new linux Home.
There are many other/more points of interest to add. I don’t know if this should or even could be an endeavouros project, or it should be an individual Calamares / general (Arch-) Linux effort. Please, dont hesitate and comment on this, give your input and/or experience as a new user!
I have researched a little regarding mindset of new users, i can fill you in if you are interested!
Cheers,
MadGabZ
Honestly I think it should stay the way it is. Users need to learn to adapt to the OS they CHOOSE to use. If they find it to complicated then maybe they should be using something else.
One should never Force their WAY on others. Arch/Endeavouros are Build it Yourself Distro’s which assumes the user has an understanding of Linux.
EndeavourOS is for Linux users who want an Arch experience with various helper tools and utilities supplied and designed by the EOS Devs. And I believe, with these tools and this forum, EndeavourOS can be relatively newbie-friendly. Everything you describe in your “proposals” seems more for the complete newbie who needs hand-holding just to get things going. In which case the best place to start to gain Linux experience would be Mint, Zorin, Ubuntu or some such distro that is already “newbie-friendly.”
OK, maybe i wasn’t clear enough: I mean to make this a separate ‘I am a New/Inexperienced Linux User’ install profile, you can choose IF you want, or you can use regular profile as it is! Whenever you choose to use EOS, you actually already get ‘forced’ to use the options already set by the EOS team, there’s nothing new about this. Whether this is within the Arch-‘way’ or EOS-‘way’ is up to you! My point of this is just to make an alternative to other ‘noob’ distros, which, imho, don’t really cater to the mindset of a switching windows/macos user, unless he/she is an explorative/tinkering type of user!
I’m not trying to suggest forcing the user to do anything, if ever you can just not use the option, or the entire distro at all
On a more serious note people that want to switch from Windows to Linux wouldn’t have a clue where to start and will go for the obvious choices like Mint or Ubuntu …etc.
This reminds me about old thread in which user wanted to create new installer. This one has similar attitude, insinuating that there’s something wrong with the current installer/installation method.
I’m going to say same what I said on that thread: Calamares is best installer that I have encountered and it is good choice for distro like EOS, because it keeps things simple and you are able to decide what already barebone options you choose or not.
If you want to get this thing forward, then you should “sell” it in different way.
And this is nothing personal. Simply what got into my mind about this.
No beginner friendly especially those who target complete newbie (users coming from Windows) distros provide btrfs by default for some reason. And such users don’t care about btrfs/zfs.
IMO Arch/derivatives can never be a complete newbie targeted distro who just want to get their work done on an OS, without ever fixing at-least small things which can be time consuming depending on your background knowledge or interest in linux/technology.
We often see people giving up EOS after asking half-baked questions (without providing logs or reading wiki or simply interact more on forum) which is fine.
Arch/linux just like Girlfriend demands both time and frequent-attention.
That’s not true at all. The installation process is very customizable.
In addition to the fact that there are a number of choices presented in Calamares itself during the installation (filesystem, DE choice, bootloader choice, disk layout, what packages to install or not install), EOS supports even further customizing the installation process with custom scripts that run before and/or after the rest of the installation routine.
With all of these options, no one should feel like they are being forced into any choices. The possibilities for customization are essentially unlimited.
Doesn’t Garuda already do this? A “newbie” worried about doing something wrong should probably start with something other than an Arch Linux based system. Sure, it’s fine for a newbie who is willing to learn, but someone gripped with such fear and loathing of of learning how to administer their system might be better served by LMDE.
Huh? The option is already present, not just “sort-of already the case.” What would a more formalized option be?
I am sorry. I should’ve reconsidered an extra time, before posting here! It’s quite obvious from the comments, that I truly don’t understand what EOS/Arch philosophy is, Again, my apologies!
Please, Close this request!
