Thank you, I appreciate it 
I like your approach, I’ll definitely be taking some of these methods into account for my own setup!
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A couple of comments here just reminded me of an old saying, if it doesn’t exist in 3 places it doesn’t exist
First of all, welcome @azxr to the wonderful world of EndeavourOS.
Ok, just to start, I will say it again, since I started Linux in 2000 I never found anything like Arch Linux and EndeavourOS in particular.
I am on EndeavourOS for almost a year now and never had an issue (other than the issues I made with my own hands) but even those I found amazing support here in this wonderful community. Being a rolling release does not mean in anyway it is not stable. It is perfectly stable generally speaking.
The good thing about a rolling release is you just install only once, so you save yourself all the hassles of installing a new release.
For backing up data I have tried a few but found a backup app called Kopia, which does incremental updates. I satisfied with it, though I never needed to restore, but it is a backup as a rule of thumb. (plus some cloud storage of course for some files, I personally prefer pCloud for privacy and features.)
For your other worries, and if something would probably break up, no, don’t worry it does not break up (unless you are naughty like me and break it up yourself). My personal points of view according to my own personal experience - assuming I will make a fresh install:
- I prefer to install online, KDE Plasma
- I select defaults as a rule of thumb
- I would select BTRFS and systemd-boot not Grub (this is another story you can read about here)
- Generally speaking (though I have absolutely no actual experience), as far as I read generally it is better to use a laptop that is not NVIDIA, better Intel graphic cards. I read that sometimes it does not play well, but I read if it is NVIDIA, better use the open source drivers. I repeat again, this just my personal understanding and it might be wrong. I am sure many users already have NVIDIA and it is working OK with them.
- For data backup as I mentioned I use Kopia
- Once installed I suggest you install later on Snapper and BTRFS Assistant these create snapshots of your system so if something breaks you can roll back to a working system (I do not remember how I did it once with the support I got here after I broke it with my own hands when I was playing around and trying things)
The most important thing, I have to say, the support I got here over a year was amazing. I could get support for non Arch/EndeavourOS apps much faster and much better than I got from the developers themselves.
Summarising all, go ahead just do it, follow defaults, BTRFS, systemd-boot not Grub
Above all, the community and support you will get here is enough plus as I said it is very reliable and stable.
Just do it and start enjoying.
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Thank you for your reply. I also don’t really trust cloud services and would prefer to have complete control / privacy over my data.
Note that i use tar and 7z this is because 7zip does not store permissions
That’s very good to know, I’ll look into that and maybe start to back up using tar or 7z instead.
If desktop environment or display manager fails to start or shows black screen, you need to use TTY to access your system to fix something.
If your system fails to boot, you need to use a Live USB to arch-chroot to your broken system and then fix something for example: Reinstall or downgrade Kernel, repair bootloader or remove bad kernel modules, etc… except complete corrupted filesystem and hardware failure.
You need to prepare a good backup solution before corrupted filesystem or hardware failure.
There are many different backup programs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Synchronization_and_backup_programs
Restoring a snapshot or backup will help you after accidentally deleting data or recursively change data by your mistake.
Do not forget to enable REISUB that ist useful for safe shutdown when your computer freezes.
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Wow 
May I ask if this is just a private/personal use case or do you run a business or so?
first things first: welcome @azxr 
then, if by “system backup” you mean only the operating system itself and not the content you create along the way, my method is a simple as it is effective and, over the span of around 25 years, it has saved my bones plenty of times. I’ve been using it in different flavours but the core concept is always the same: use a full backup software and put the resulting archive in more than one external units.
In the specific case of EndeavourOS, I use Timeshift + two mechanical hard drives.
Usually a snapshot every month is sufficient once your packages have “stabilized” (you reach a certain point in which you know what you need with sufficient accuracy and minimize installing new packages)
Thank you very much! I agree-- part of the reason I’ve chosen EOS is for this helpful & lovely community. I appreciate the advice and I’m going to take it into account when I make the switch to EOS on my main computer. I’ll be installing it on a Thinkpad so NVIDIA issues won’t be a problem thankfully. Kopia seems quite interesting, I’ll have a deeper look into it!
This is really great information. I’ve never looked into these more advanced trouble shooting methods as I’ve never had these issues happen to me yet. Thank you!
Thank you! I like your simple approach and I’m definitely going to implement Timeshift into my setup. I’m going to take snapshots more often until I reach that point where, as you said, I’ll have a good understanding of what packages I’ll need on my system.
That is for my personal data.
The failure rate on drives in my house is significantly greater than the rest of the world. 
I used to keep my data on a local server with a raid array. 2 drives failed at the time.
Then I kept my data locally and backed it up to a server raid array. I had failures both locally and on the server at the same time.
I have learned that there is some data you don’t want to lose and that it is worth protecting. You cannot go back and take pictures of children again if you lose the pictures.
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You have to have an approach to backup. A solid plan and a solid commitment. As I stated I use a few scripts to backup all my data to local external drives that are only connected for the backup and for the test. Yes always check and make sure your backups are good, finding out at the time of a restore is not desirable.
Backup of data does exceed the computer. People have phones, camera’s and tablets just to name a few devices that store data. These need to be placed as part of your backup plan. I for instance have a script that backups my data from my phone as well.
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The only thing I would add to your approach would be off premise backups for God forbid catastrophic events such as fire, flood, tornadoes, etc.
About 1 1/2 years ago, and about 25 miles from me, the Marshall wild fire destroyed 1004 homes. Anything and everything in the houses was a total loss. For a lot of people, what ever data was on their cell phones is all they had left.
Pudge
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That’s great! So, I can assure you will enjoy.
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I use Restic to make nightly backups, works great and has saved my but more than once when I deleted something I realized I wanted later. I also use BTRFS and snapper to make snapshots before and after updates.
I backup most of my /home and /etc once a week with rsnapshot and that about it. For important stuff like family photos I sync with syncthing between my devices. I don’t use clouds at all these days.
If my system breaks then It breaks and I fix it or do reinstall. If I plan to do something exotic I replicate my system on virtual machine test thing there so I won’t break my system just because I am too stupid
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Photos/ important stuff. One backup on a 4tb drive. Second drive in off site location I get and use a drive duplicator every few months.
System? I don’t bother. It’s so easy to install or fix Linux these days it’s not worth the physical drive space to backup
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I lost so much to katrina I just don’t use the cloud as I don’t trust others. I actually had a drive in a safety deposit box at one time (Katrina still destroyed it) but I don’t have a need to keep that secure of backups anymore as i am disabled and no longer a member of the work force. I have my back up next to me for easy grab to put in my togo bag. If I’m unable to go then backups are the least of my issues
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2 hard drives are better than 1.
During the installation, I provide /home as its own independent hard drive. Your home dive is where all your photos, documents, downloads, personal settings, browser cache, etc… are stored.
Right now, I could wipe and reinstall my whole system, pick the same username and password as before, and lose nothing. I would even still be logged into Gmail, for example.
Additionally, anything I truly want to be sure I do not lose in the rare instance of hard drive failure, I back up to the cloud and a USB (always better to have 2 copies if it is that important).
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If I do not want to edit our original photos and camera recordings, better copy and burn them to multiple CD/DVD/Blurays. They stay in CD book. Their lifespan is longer than any hard disks except writing on stone.