EndeavourOS is a user-friendly Arch-based rolling release Linux distro that fits into a similar-but-different niche as Manjaro. It first appeared last summer. It is a new Linux distro that picks up where Antergos left off.
Antergos was one of the better Arch Linux options. It was a powerful and modern computing platform that was designed elegantly and brought power users almost all they could desire. It shut down in May, 2019 when its developer team members declared they no longer had time for it.
Bryan Poerwoatmodjo, project leader and founder of EndeavourOS, was the Antergos community forum moderator. His goal for the new distro is to make the terminal an integral part of the new OS while also providing a GUI for software installation as a small layer of convenience.
Initially, the team released the first version with Xfce desktop environment but today they support several other desktop environments.
EndeavourOS is one of very few Linux distributions that do not claim to provide easy to use GUI tools to learn Linux. Actually, the team promotes the distro as a terminal-centric distro that gives you your favorite desktop environment with a few basic utilities and active friendly community support.
Installation
Installing EndeavourOS is as simple as installing Ubuntu or Linux Mint. The distro comes with Calamares installer. You get an option to select one of their installation methods, offline & online. Offline installer installs EndeavourOS with a customized Xfce and online installer lets you select & install packages as per your requirements.
You do not need to go thru the hassles of installing vanilla Arch by following manuals. EndeavourOS makes it super easy with its Calamares GUI installer.
EndeavourOS is based on Arch so the default package manager is pacman. You can use pacman from the command-line to install & update packages.
Desktop environments
EndeavourOS comes with the Xfce desktop environment as default ISO image. The online package provides you options best of desktop environments. You can choose from eight desktop environments – Mate, LXQt, i3-wm, Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, GNOME, Budgie, and Deepin. Everything is available for you.
Even EndeavourOS claim that it’s a terminal-focused distro, they still have excellent GUI tools in the system that make managing an Arch Linux system easy for new users.
Bottom Line
If you want to run main-line Arch, Endeavour OS is absolutely the way to get going with it. They take the “Easy Plus One” approach to Arch by allowing you to install a minimal but very usable base and learn to use “genuine Arch” with all the triumphs and pitfalls.
A Linux distribution can be easy to use but EndeavourOS helps you learn Linux. You can try different packages, settings, and there is an active community to help you solve issues. The project is very open in saying that they will happily answer any questions. They have a community forum that you can visit here. There is also a wiki and Telegram group.
