I consider myself a novice, although I used linux for over a decade. Started the normal route Ubuntu, Mint etc… I’ve been on Marjaro xfce for about 2 years but thinking of changing.
I run 2 ten year old laptops and lately when I raised issues Manjro’s response is what do you expect, your equipment is old. Is that typical Arch distro opinion?
Given my preference for xfce and it being your offline DE, I thought this would be a good place to start.
I’m not afraid of the command line again limited knowledge. IMO an OS is to get your work done not spending your day trying to make your OS work.
All opinions greatly appreciated.
You just need to be ready to maintain your system, ideally learn about using pacman and terminal commands for that. Arch based distros are rolling release, more frequent updates. it depends on your level of readiness to learn.
To me it makes sense to use arch for newer hardware because I need the newest driver support. If you have older hardware, you are ok, but not things like 32 bit I think.
Here you adapt the distro to your liking, meaning eos gives you a nice way to get started but without additional stuff enabled by default because each users have different needs. Some users have a hard time to understand that, for example Bluetooth is not enabled by default. If you want everything to be ready and you have special needs (e.g. flatpak etc.) you need to install and configure yourself, else use something like Linux mint. However, arch wiki explains most of these things and then we have this amazing community. It’s pretty easy.
For me eos just works, use it daily at work, have configured my system and happy with that.
Edits: here is also a good read…
Welcome to the community! Btw I also switched over from Manjaro, right at the beginning of the pandemic 
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I’m a novice too. I started with Ubuntu, which I used for only 2 days before switching to Manjaro. I stayed with Manjaro for 2 months before switching to EndeavourOS in September. I’ve had a fantastic experience with EOS so far.
My Thinkpad is 9 years old. It runs fine on EOS.
I can’t speak for the community of other Arch-based distros, but the people on this forum are extremely knowledgeable and helpful.
It’s good that you’re not afraid to do things from the command line. Hopefully you’re not afraid to read a lot of documentation as well. From one novice to another, I can tell you that reading documentations is certainly one of the quickest way to pick things up.
If you learn how to use pacman (Arch’s default package manager) properly, it’s quite unlikely for your system to break. However, you do have to spend some time on system maintenance.
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@Cencar
I don’t think you’ll have any issues if you’ve been running Manjaro for the last two years. Xfce can be installed via the offline mode or the online mode.
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My PC is 14 years old, I never had a bad experience here when needing help.
What kind of issues were you having? What makes your old computer special and warranting a response to “what do you expect, your equipment is old.”??
xfce was chosen for the liveiso due to it’s tendancy for stability and infrequent major changes. It makes maintenance for our developers eaiser and allows them to focus on other things. There’s no preferred or suggested DE for EOS (pipedown you KDEvangelists)
Generally Arch and as well as Endeavour - you get a base simple setup, and after that it’s up to you. The upside is once you have everything setup the way you want, just keep on rolling. It is up to you to maintain it. It is up to you to not mess it up. MOST issues are self inflicted wounds. I know several folks with 5-10 year old installs still running strong. If you have a 10 year old ish laptop, as long as it’s not 32 bit, you’re in a great computer to keep rolling Endeavour for quite a while still imo.
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I know a lot of people will not agree, but in my opinion all Arch based distros are in reality distros primarily for tinkerers and Linux hobbyists.
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Tinkerers tend to gravitate towards Arch, that’s true. I mean, when all you get is a minimal installation, you kind of have to tinker to make the system your own.
Another motivation to use Arch is to gain access to the latest software.
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Also do not forget the fun and great satisfaction of tinkering. 
Firstly, thank you to every one who posted. Your encouragement has made it an easy decision to install EOS. In the time you have been posting, I have installed EOS [hp probook 470 g3]. So far, so good, no doubt I’ll be troubling you all in the near future for advice.
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It’s a shame those people answered you the way they did, since they have a reputation to maintain, not to build, out of offering a paid solution in the alternative.
It wouldn’t make a difference since we have the two (arguably) best distros based on Arch, but neither is Arch itself. It depends more on your expectations and needs. Go with what is more comfortable. It doesn’t have to be Arch or whatever based on it. Some people have settled for Debian although it tends to be behind in technology. Others were put off for a silly reason by Arch but must have rolling release, and therefore sold themselves to Fedora.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that Arch, and anything based on it, supports 64-bit architectures only. I’m also on a 10-year-old laptop handed down earlier this year. Any older and the risk is run of originally having 32-bit Windows or something else, and/or a very slow hard disk about to suffer a SMART failure. “The latest and greatest” isn’t going to make those old systems faster and better. That’s why there are quite a few distros that still offer 32-bit support. The trade-off is that the user of one of those systems cannot think about “rolling release”.
The time will come when either this computer I’m using breaks down, or the technology has gone ahead enough that would leave me behind unless I get “better” equipment.
The “Welcome” app is one of the greatest advantages of EndeavourOS. But you have to look out that you don’t spend more time upgrading than actually using the system!
← should stop distro-hopping, make a NYD resolution for it.
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Regardless, do check out the excellent guide to system maintenance written by @fbodymechanic. It’s also a good idea to read through pacman’s Arch Wiki page. In my opinion, gaining a firm understanding on the package manager is a vital first step in your journey in Arch Linux.
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What computer are you using? If you don’t mind me asking.
I see they could add another solution to their standard solution: RTFM 
First of all, a 10 years old machine is not a serious issue. I have 2 Laptops that age or more running seamlessly with KDE Plasma after I upgraded RAM.
My experience after distrohopping for a year Arch based are the best. EndeavourOS is the best of the best for many reasons, including:
- no bloat
- best forum/ community ever (on Linux since 2000). I could even get support here for apps not EndeavourOS specific better than I could get from the developers.
My advice to be sure you will have a smoothly running system, it is much better to have at least 8 GB of RAM.
Less than that it will be hard to run more than one app or open multiple tabs in browser.
Furthermore, if you get 8GB of RAM you can seamlessly use KDE Plasma.
I hope this helps.
My hardware:-
Hp Probook laptop 16gb Ram 1TB sata HDD circa 2015
Asus laptop 16gb Ram 1TB sata HDD circa 2012
The reason for hostile attitude was, I needed to rollback the kernel to 5.15 not 6.1. That’s on this rig Asus.
I thought adding my post was to help any one who had similar issues. The 6.1 kernel froze every thing. Browsers, Libreoffice etc…
However, I have installed EOS on my Hp which can handle the new kernel no problem. It’s going to take some configuring but that’s what I imagined. This, IMO, is how all distros should be configured. You add what suites you. It seems a lot of linux distros are going the way of M$, bloatware.
Why is it necessary to roll back? Isn’t the latest LTS kernel 5.15? You can install multiple kernels on Manjaro as well, right?
Hi @Cencar
This is more than perfect.
I do not know your system details, bootloader…etc.
But it is generally recommended to use the LTS Kernel. Try it and see how it goes and let me know.
I am sure the experts here can help you have the kernel you need, but it will get updated anyway! So, again, maybe LTS would help. If you are going to reinstall give KDE Plasma a try. You already have enough RAM.
Maybe post inxi -Fxxx output can help.
Slow down guys all is well
anthony93: you are correct LTS is 5.15 but the manjaro v22.0 iso loaded 6.1 which I did not pick up immediately. That’s why I posted, to help others that where having problems system freezing etc…
limotux: and to answer your question. Yes after I have the HP up and running, I will delve into the problems of Asus.
I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot by polluting this Newbie category. I’ll try and post tech questions in the right category, when needed.
I see. Sorry for misunderstanding. I guess I got a little confused when you said you had to downgrade to 5.15.
Even older laptops support 64-bit architecture. I have a functional HP Compaq 6730s entry-level business laptop, which is not a modern day product, but has 64-bit support. I use it for testing purposes, including Manjaro Linux stable and openSUSE Tumbleweed, and it runs Linux Mint. I think I could easily install EndeavorOS on it as well.
If you have used other Linux distributions, I think you have become familiar with the basic Linux commands that can be used in the terminal. When using EndeavourOS, there are actually other Arch-specific commands that are slightly different from the Linux commands you know so far, and pacman is probably the most used of these, so it’s worth getting to know it more closely. I admit that it takes some getting used to for those who, for example, mainly used the apt command until now. Thus, EOS will be just as good a sheep in your hands as, for example, Linux Mint.