I think when a project lead tells you to “go fish”, it’s time to move on. Good to have you with us @RegularBloke 
9 Likes
emoji button jammed.
4 Likes
Welcome aboard!
2 Likes
Welcome !!
3 Likes
Manjaro was my first try of an arch-based distro it is very beginner-friendly… after using it and learning the terminal commands for pacman I wanted an arch-based distro in which I can configure a system with my imaginations. I want to learn more and prefer a distro where I can tinker and build my own system…
3 Likes
Maybe there will be a change in the managing staff at M*? I know, stupid thought …
1 Like
Welcome @RegularBloke!
2 Likes
For Arch-based distributions, I’ve followed exactly the same path as you. As you gradually learn the specific commands, you will increasingly need to be able to configure it yourself. For this purpose, the EOS is an excellent choice.
3 Likes
As a former Manjaro user i can tell you that i like EndeavourOS because it’s closer to Arch. I consider it to be more of a real Rolling release because the updates come down directly from Arch. Manjaro is always behind kernels and other packages. I liked Manjaro a lot until they started changing some of the packages. I was a cinnamon user and really like it until i found Antergos. Things changed and i saw a difference in the two and Antergos became my home until EndeavourOS. This stopped my distro hopping and now i just try to learn as much as i can and enjoy EndeavourOS because it doesn’t get much better than this. 
12 Likes
When I started using Manjaro (which I still use today) and then Antergos two years ago, I didn’t think the latter’s successor would be as mature as it is now. For distrohopping, I am also old, I have become comfortable, I need permanence and a stable system.
5 Likes
I have been using Manjaro for the last couple of years…until about a week ago. Other than getting it setup due to hybrid graphics, I had no problem with Manjaro. I did feel that it was getting a little heavy.
A friend recommended EOS and I liked that it was simpler/lighter. I was also really disappointed when I lost my account and all the posts I had made when the Manjaro forum went down.
At first, I wasn’t used to installing everything through the terminal, but it is helping me to learn more about how things work. I am still struggling with hybrid graphics, but other than that I like it. I still need to figure out how to install an additional kernel.
I though the online installer was fantastic. I was surprised how many names I noticed once I moved over here.
12 Likes
Personal experience only
I have found the community here much more friendly and helpful.
I also enjoy the control I have over the installation process. Much more fine-grained.
6 Likes
There is a package akm:
pacman -Qi akm
Name : akm
Version : 2.4-1
Description : Arch kernel manager.
Architecture : any
URL : https://github.com/endeavouros-team/PKGBUILDS/raw/master/akm
Licenses : GPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : bash yad eos-bash-shared
Optional Deps : None
Required By : None
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 8.13 KiB
Packager : EndeavourOS <info@endeavouros.com>
Build Date : Tue 25 Aug 2020 01:39:15 PM MDT
Install Date : Wed 26 Aug 2020 08:32:29 PM MDT
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Validated By : Signature
It is in menu>system
Name : akm
Version : 2.4-1
Description : Arch kernel manager.
Architecture : any
URL : https://github.com/endeavouros-team/PKGBUILDS/raw/master/akm
Licenses : GPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : bash yad eos-bash-shared
Optional Deps : None
Required By : None
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 8.13 KiB
Packager : EndeavourOS info@endeavouros.com
Build Date : Tue 25 Aug 2020 01:39:15 PM MDT
Install Date : Wed 26 Aug 2020 08:32:29 PM MDT
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Validated By : Signature
Or you may have to install it. It offers the Arch kernels to install.
5 Likes
To install via terminal just install the kernel and the header package of your choice.
For example:
sudo pacman -S Linux-lts linux-lts-headers
5 Likes
Nowadays, I am increasingly confronted with how many new packages are being withheld at Manjaro from the stable repo for up to weeks due to proper testing. An example is Firefox. So far this has not occurred to me. The EOS is much fresher, but still just as stable. Regardless, Manjaro is still a stable, well-assembled system.
I think you can easily get used to using the termial. And you’ll find a lot of help on the Arch Wiki, and if you still have questions, feel free to ask in the forum here.
2 Likes
This is a thing that I’ve always seen as curious:
In my rather extensive experience with Arch based systems over the last 2.5 years Manjaro has been the least stable despite the holding back and testing of packages.
In fact the last 6 months I used Manjaro I switched to testing because it was, to me, more stable than stable.
The most stable was pure Arch and distros utilizing the Arch repositories directly such like EndeavorOS.
9 Likes
You are not the first to write this. The installation process is really very sophisticated. For example, you can install your favorite desktop environments, or even the LTS Kernel, at any time later.
6 Likes
You literally articulated what I also noticed after 2 years of using Manjaro Linux. Despite the fact that the packages have been held back for a relatively long time, this is not so noticeable in the increase in stability.
4 Likes
At the beginning, Manjaro stable was really the only way to reliably use an Arch-based distro. There weren’t many testers, so the Manjaro testing branch was only that in name. Two things happened: one, the community grew and more people started using testing, and then unstable. Two, Arch stable actually became more stable (e.g. you couldn’t run GNOME on Arch a few years ago - it would just break).
This meant that I ran Manjaro unstable for years without major issues - any breaks were small and fairly easily resolved.
The side-effect of this was that other people running Manjaro on testing and unstable easily fixed their own small issues before they appeared in stable, but then the combination of many small breaks ended up being a far larger problem in stable, especially when it was marketed as being “stable” and “suitable for n00bs” (YouTube etc.).
Now I’m running Arch stable and it’s essentially no different to Manjaro unstable - I get packages frequently and breaks/regressions are small and quickly spotted and reported. An extra benefit is that reporting to Arch is now possible because the packages are the same as vanilla Arch, and replicating bugs is actually useful. It’s also much less likely to annoy Arch devs.
I’m very happy with how Arch is evolving.
18 Likes
It happened again and again that after an update (which always turned out to be quite large, due to the withholding of the packages) something did not work again. This was especially bad with the KDE version. When I finally switched to the Xfce version it got a bit better, but I wasn’t around long enough to find out more about it.
Nevertheless I have a stick with the latest Manjaro_Xfce here, just in case Endeavour/Arch gets over my head.
At my age one is no longer as willing and able to learn as it used to be … 
2 Likes