When I run pacman -Syu or yay I see the following repos
$ yay
[sudo] password for home:
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core is up to date
extra 1567.8 KiB 179 KiB/s 00:09 [--------------------------------] 100%
community 5.6 MiB 809 KiB/s 00:07 [--------------------------------] 100%
multilib is up to date
endeavouros is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
there is nothing to do
:: Searching databases for updates...
:: Searching AUR for updates...
there is nothing to do
So I can understand that the core, extra, community & multilib repos belongs to Arch.
My guess is the “endeavouros” repo is offered by the EndeavourOS team & people who are using vanilla Arch don’t have this repo.
I am using XFCE & I have to admit that the way the devs have tweaked XFCE its nothing but stunning. I had posted a screenshot of my EndeavourOS XFCE desktop on Facebook & people were quite impressed. Some of them couldn’t believe that its XFCE & they thought I am running KDE.
Is the endevouros repo added for theming only ?
So exactly which packages does this endeavouros repo provide ?
Like everyone else so far I have installed only those packages that I need without verifying which repo they belong to. The only exception being the browser Librewolf. I mean since you can’t install Librewolf using pacman so you know you are installing it from AUR. Now lets see if in future I need any package from the endeavouros repo.
A different question. I read somewhere that while installing a rolling release distro like Arch/EndeavourOS one must download a fresh/current ISO. If a user install Arch using an old ISO he will face breakage as soon as he updates packages for the very first time. Is this theory correct ? The reason I ask this question is the fact that I have the EO ISO which I used for my current install. I am going to use this install till this desktop lasts. Is it a bad idea to install using this same ISO 3-4 years from now ?
It depends. If it is an offline install it is definitely a bad idea as the iso is static and the image will be 4 years old and will have to apply all of the updates since that time upon installation. If it is a net install well then it’s a rolling image and will be current to that installation date. The only real difference would be if the dev’s made any changes to calamares and or certain features unique to EndeavourOS.
@Kristen@BONK
I cant afford to use the net install feature coz I am using a 4G connection with a daily limit of 3GB. I will just delete the ISO that I used for this installation. No point in wasting disk space.
I recommend keeping a bootable ISO on a USB key, in case your system won’t boot. By having this you can use the Live environment to get into your system. (Arch chroot)
Might wanna keep the old ISO until after you’ve “burned” the new ISO to that USB key and verified that it works, unless of course you have a free key for that and can keep the old one around.
So? Still a good idea to keep the old one until you, eventually, in maybe a hundred years or so, decide to download the then new one. I never mentioned time, it’s general advice.
I was using Debian before EndeavourOS. Debian do not have Etcher in their repos so I had to download it from their official website. The download size is 91.2 MB. I have used dd for many years before I knew something like Etcher existed. The only problem with dd is its really slow.
I found Etcher to be (a) much faster, (b) it shows the progress of the write process & (c) it also verifies the written data. From the security angle I trust Etcher coz its open source.
Again, the only issue with dd is its just ridiculously slow.
You might want to take a look at mintstick for the purpose. Much less bloat, no doubts about its sole purpose (write ISOs and format USB drives) and fast too (even compared to Etcher). It’s in the AUR (of course). After install, shows in menu as USB Image Writer and USB Stick Formatter - and operates with the simplest imaginable GUI for avoiding dd-style destination errors!
