I Was thinking about switching to full-time Linux for years, maybe decades. I’ve had Linux installed on side-computer (Ubuntu and Mint on my home server), but not on my main laptop. I made the switch on 23 March. I decided to install Omarchy, because it looked cool and it was a new and refreshing user experience. I thought I´d give it a try.

But I don´t love the fascist captain and I don´t love the bloat. Now I also hear that it is being build and maintained by AI.

But also, I love the way Omarchy works. I love the keyboard oriented aproach. I love the super-button. I love the menus. I love the nvim setup. I love the desktop layout. I love that it just works out-of-the-box and that it is (or appears) stable. I love that installing anything is so easy.

I appreciate Omarchy for being such a good gateway drug into the Linux world for people like me and I think it deserves some credit for that. But I also have ethical complaints that ruin the fun.

So what I’m really looking for is, how can I take all these features I like so much, and apply them on a proper distro?

The obvious solution seems Arch, but I want my computer to work without having to spend weeks learning how all the mechanics and fine configuration details work. I don´t even now what the configuration details are that make the things I like. Maybe that’s not an issue with Arch, but I don´t know much about Arch tbh. I haven´t had the time to learn about it.

Or maybe I’m just asking too much as an old man (though dhh is a decade my senior) and I should just go back to Mint…

  • sbeak@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    I really enjoy using EndeavourOS, in a nutshell, it’s Arch with a graphical installer and a few small tweaks that make the user experience a little better, like reminders to reboot after updating system bits. I also love that they are naming their ISOs (when they update what packages ship when you install) after the objects of the Solar System, like “Titan”, “Ganymede”, and “Mercury”. As a space nerd, I think that’s pretty neat, and the default wallpapers look cool too!

    And EndeavourOS, being Arch-based, will also support any sort of desktop environment or window manager of your choice that is available in Arch. If you want specifics, the ArchWiki is super helpful! You might like Hyprland (but apparently is has a toxic community), and there are plenty of other neat tiling window managers too, each with their own pros and cons. Alternatively, you could go with COSMIC for something with less config editing, but note that it is still in beta basically, so a lot of things will simply not work and you’ll experience graphical glitches.

    But if you are fine with something that doesn’t use tiling, you then have the option for GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Cinnamon for the desktop environment. For the OS, you have Fedora, OpenSUSE, one of the buntus, Mint (or LMDE?), Debian, Arch-based options, gaming-centric distros, etc., it really is options fatigue.

    In my opinion, if you like Cinnamon, go with Mint (or LMDE if you don’t want something based on Ubuntu), as it is stable and works well with most hardware. Fedora is probably the best option if you want something with GNOME or Plasma, but is owned by Red Hat and therefore IBM, a large American corporation. You might not want that, and in that case, I would point you towards OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, Arch-based distros (since you are comfortable with those), and some of the community maintained spins of Fedora (there’s a lot of those). If you’re okay with older packages, Debian might also be something to look at.