Endeavour does it for me.
No nonsense arch setup without any bells and whistles.
Yeah, I get that. I do, however, really like how FireDragon comes with a lot of the extension I’d like to use, and with searx as the default web search. It also takes almost no time to switch to a much better KDE layout as opposed to the seemingly script kiddie dr4a6onized default.
I wouldn’t use firedragon. It is a very outdated fork of librewolf, which is hardened even more. While librewolf is only a few days behind regular Firefox, firedragon sometimes is months behind making it a horrible choice for security.
Edit: seems to no longer be the case
EndeavourOS ftw imo
In any case, I end up wasting all that saved time on the semiannual rewrite of my neovim config anyway.
Same until I started using helix, where my only config is adding another language server and setting a theme
Those two days aren’t really spent configuring, they’re spent learning.
Idk, install arch, then pull make files and dot files from git, wham bam, done how I like it on no time flat.
If you actually try to understand what’s happening, I think it’s one of the best ways to learn how a system is composed, at least if you install manually. What’s a partition, file system, what does mounting do, chroots, you name it.
I don’t use Arch anymore but still think it’s a great distro to learn the basics while still having the luxury of new binary packages. Manual Arch install abstracts basically nothing away from you, for better or for worse.
Currently on NixOS, I’d say while its engineering is better overall, the things you learn there are much more distribution-specific or maybe concept-specific and often not applicable to other distributions.
I guess there are also probably ways to install e.g. Debian manually, I’ve never seen instructions for it though as there was always the focus on the installer, and frankly I’m not a big fan of apt and all. It always seemed to be much more convoluted than pacman plus it does a lot of stuff for you, whether you want it or not was my impression.
The vast majority of people want to start by using Linux, they don’t want an in depth lecture about Linux. It’s like making someone take a course on bicycles instead of letting them get on the bicycle.
It appeals to a very specific niche who are already familiar with Linux and want that in-depth lecture. It’s not a good approach for beginners, and it’s not a good approach for experimented users who just want to install Linux fast.
What about just using archinstall?
I mostly appreciate the pre-installed browser that takes many less steps to harden than a fresh install.
That’s like reaching the top of Mount Everest with oxygen and fixed ropes. You can only brag until you talk to a /real/ climber.
I was once checking out Garuda, because the name popped up a handful of times. Outside of the absolutely repulsive front page, the moment i saw unmarked and unexplained “fun scripts” in the installer, i unplugged the installer
Very fair. I’m a far cry from an advanced user - I know just enough to be dangerous to myself, and didn’t see that. As I said in another comment, though, I do like that the default browser is somewhat hardened and uses a decent searx instance as the default search. It does seem to be marketed towards teenagers, though, unfortunately.
It’s not even really about how advanced you are. Using something more trustworthy, and something you can depend on, is always better. For arch(-based) distributions, i would always recommend Endeavour. Plain Arch will just do it too, if you can follow instructions as listed
Also archinstall sets you up with a DE of your choice and other basics for day to day use
