But I’ve been wanting to tell people that I use Arch.

Biblically accurate arch user

EndeavorOS is my go to for arch based systems. But with the archinstall script I'd say just give vanilla a go

I was using Endeavour, btw. Needed almost zero tinkering and was good to go straight away.

But I run Linux on an ancient 2012 MacBook Pro, so eventually swapped over to Debian, btw.

EndeavourOS is the way to go, btw.

I prefer plain old arch

Stay away from Manjaro.

I've heard great things about Endeavor and Cachy, but personally use Garuda. Highly recommend it.

EndeavourOS is my first choice, CachyOS is my second choice.

i use cachyos, runs swimmingly for me. I'm not sure arch is good for your usecase tho.

Mediacenter/homeserver? I'd personally choose something like fedora, but debian sounds fine too

EndeavourOS. It's like Arch, but a bit easier with a few automation and gui stuff builtin. It's still heavy on terminal usage and it comes light out of the box. I switched from Manjaro to EndeavourOS, because Manjaro gave me some problems (especially their package manager and because of the AUR too, and I didn't like the maintainers, no further comment). It's my daily driver for years now. I use it for everything, daily usage, little programming, gaming on Steam and especially RetroArch too. I'm a huge RetroArch fan. :-) So if you plan to use base Archlinux or Manjaro, then I can recommend to use EndeavourOS a lot.

Cachy OS is probably a good choice too, because their focus on performance optimizations. But they do also have a bit more, let's say bloat, out of the box and their branding is a bit strong it seems. It's a bit farther away from base Archlinux than EndeavourOS is.

Wait...so you're looking for a solution with zero problems because of...clout or something? I don't get it.

If you like Debian, just stay with Debian. Especially if you're not familiar with what running Arch really means in the deeper sense. Mostly that the guardrails are off, in a sense.

CachyOS puts a ton of work into adding UX helpers that makes it pretty user friendly, but it's still going to have a lot of manual intervention required, but that's a feature to some.

If you have an AMD laptop, maybe look into installing SteamOS and Kodi as a non-steam app. That could be your sweet spot.

Just plain Arch, been using it for the past 5 years. Haven't told anyone unless askes though.

I use plain Arch, but if you are just gonna use it as a media center, use Debian or something like it. A media center doesn't need to be up to date if you're just using it for TV and retro gaming. However, how mediocre are we talking? Are you intending to run full steam games or are you planning on streaming them from another computer?

If the latter, I think Debian or even a healthy rPi running RetroPie might be up your alley because you can install Kodi and SteamLink on that.

I use Arch btw. It's quite touchy, definitely not the best distro. Do it

I use plain Arch for desktop, but for servers I use headless debian. A media center is sort of in between, so up to you. In terms of resource usage on an older laptop, I expect the choice of DE would matter more.

Probably not a universal answer as you are optimizing for different things.

I will say that EndeavourOS is essentially vanilla Arch once installed. If you really love configuring everything yourself, vanilla Arch is what you are looking for. If you like Arch but just want to fire up a system with sensible defaults, EndeavourOS adds a lot of value without corrupting the purity of the base system.

So, my vote is for EndeavourOS.

Cachy adds the most additional functionality but also changes the base system the most. If you have a T2 MacBook, this is the best option for sure.

I would avoid Manjaro.

Garuda has fans. A bit much for me.

For a mediacenter that isn't on bleeding edge hardware, fedora or Debian would be my choice for stability. Performance will be similar regardless of distro.

I use arch on my desktop and laptop and Debian/Ubuntu on servers.

I use cachy os for the optimizations on modern hardware and access to newer packages. I use it on ny pc for gaming and laptop for development. I find it more convenient than arch. But I can't say if it is better.

Used to be Manjaro, because it's got sane opinions and I'm not looking to make maintaining that machine a new hobby. I don't mind the curated "almost" rolling release, but they're getting worse about simple things (like maintaining their own certs) and I've decided to move on.

Just arch with gnome

Manjaro isn't recommended. They made lots of weird decisions and mistakes in the past, maybe still do. Wouldn't trust them. Endeavour or Cachy are the current recommendations for "easy Arch". If you're able to install and maintain vanilla Arch, I'd recommend Arch though. Cut the middleman.

I use Cachyos on my 13yr old system. Xeon e5, DDR3 ram, mix of SSD & HDD Sata. GTX 1070 ti.

it's excellent. by far the best linux experience I've had (started using Linux in the late 90s).

SteamDeck, so yes.

On desktop, SBCs, servers, etc Debian.

I've always gravitated toward various Arch-based distros. Installed vanilla from scratch a decade ago for a college workstation, sunk a lot of time into tinkering the steam deck's SteamOS, and my desktop's been running CachyOS for just about a year now - the latter's been so smooth that I opted to wipe my Deck and install their handheld edition just because, and that's been pretty solid too.

I haven't really distro-hopped enough to say much else, but Cachy's been my go-to since I first set it up and it'd take a lot to move me off if it. All the Arch benefits with some extra bells and whistles.

I’ve had great success with Garuda Linux. I’m running the KDE “Mokka” version.

It’s quite opinionated, so be aware of that, but it’s been very reliable on my HP laptop (it even has hibernation support!) and the built-in apps are top notch.

Just be aware that Arch-based distros tend to shun things like Flatpaks in favor of their own repositories and the Arch User Repository (AUR), and there aren’t any friendly point and click app stores like KDE Discover or GNOME Software. You will have to install apps using the command line or tools like Octopi, which is great if you know exactly what you’re looking for, but terrible for app discovery.

Since I mostly use Flatpaks, I installed Bazaar. You can install Discover, but it only works for Flatpak.

I used to run Manjaro, but after it left two of my computers in an unbootable state after an upgrade a few years ago, I moved on.

can someone who runs arch btw on weak hardware, like dual-core U-series i5 and such, tell me how they're handling AUR and friends? every time I bring that up I get downvotes as if I'm some MICROS~1 agent paid to besmirch arch btw's good name and whatnot...

the idea that I hafta build and compile shit on a puny dual-core in 2026 is fucking ludicrous to me, never mind the bloat and cruft from all the build tools and deps for every possible stack. so what obvious solution am I missing? like, how do you handle a full system upgrade, say you got like ten things from AUR in addition to regular packages, what does that look like?

Arch in the front, Debian in the back(end). I run Arch on my laptop and Debian on my homeserver. I've ran Debian on laptops before and if stable is getting older hardware support can be a struggle, much better on a rolling distro like Arch. And having all the newest toys on your desktop is very very nice. While on my homeserver I mostly want stability, everything else runs in (podman) containers anyway.

Cachy is a distro I would consider, because it'll theoretically give you slightly better battery life due to the optimised compiles, although I'm not sure you'll ever really notice. Manjaro has a reputation of breaking far more often than Arch does, so that one's a no for me.

I'm on Cachy myself, but I have put in a lot of time with vanilla Arch. Cachy has an easier installation process, although the archinstall script is also quite simple to use. Cachy takes better advantage of your specific hardware, so it's good for squeezing a bit more performance out of your machine. Arch is more bare-bones, the idea being that you get to and have to customize it yourself, from near the ground up. It's a matter of use case and temperament, really. Both are good, and the differences aren't huge in the end.

Arch if you want to do the install completely by yourself and/or have some setup that can't be replicated by the usual installers.

EndeavourOS/Cachy if you want a simple GUI installer for Arch, but you don't get bragging rights.

Don't use Manjaro

Hi, in my opinion, the best distro is always the one that everything builds upon. So if you want maximal control, etc. Just use arch. Its also great if you want to learn how to troubleshoot.

I use Artix btw. Pretty stable, I guess I have to fix something a few times a year.

Arch, on well supported hardware. That means no Nvidia. No Ultra 5 series CPUs.

I used to experiment around with various distros some years past until I got into Arch. Haven't distro hopped once since, I've completely erased Windows from my life and I'm gaming exactly as I would if I was on Windows. I never have trouble finding a package since almost everything exists either in the official repositories or in the AUR, and I get the latest versions with all the new features and fixes. Rarely some things do break because of the rolling releases, but it's almost always just a matter of a single google search to fix. For me it's worth it for having all the latest versions of everything.

My opinion would be different for a server or a work laptop where stability is much more important. For servers I would pick Debian for sure, for work laptop I'd consider Fedora probably

i use arch but garuda and endevor are also good to look into

aight let me tell you MY arch experience. itll be a long one.

i first installed arch with the install script and later manually, i ran this setup for quite some time, and as time goes, small erros cascade into bigger ones. it got to the point where i was reconfiguring system configs every week to fix something that broke from an update. the thing that ultimately caused the most trouble was converting my existing ext4 system to btrfs. this caused all sorts of issue primarily with gaming performance (i had to disable cpu boosting in order to not have constant lag spikes for example). this old system was a mess held together with duct tape and hope, it broke with EVERY update, and not at small scales. at some point i had to reinstall grub everytime i changed something in my boot order. Ultimately i decided 2 days ago it was time for a reinstall. i tried installing it normally, i followed the official install instructions and got greeted by a grub shell. i fucked something up during the install, so i decided fuck it, i will use archinstall script again. then it took me legit 6 hours to get my system running in a way i could use it, tgen the next day an additional 3 to get everything set up so i can game with proper OBS recording and all.

now i have a perfectly functioning Arch setup. and a lot more performance (even tho the setup should be the same, like i really dont know what was wrong with my old setup)

arch WILL be a hassle at some point. in turn you get bleeding edge packages, no bloat, complete customisation, a great learning opportunity, the AUR, and (if properly set up) great performance.

i like arch. i wouldnt use anything else.

Cachyos has a meta gaming package which will install steam, Lutris and a couple of launchers like heroic games launcher. Should have some extra optimisations as well. Lutris can install emulators too, as well as showing games in your steam library. I'm not sure if it can go full screen like retroarch and use a controller to select games, maybe it can.

Manjaro is the best, but you'll have to see it for yourself.

Don't trust the "wisdom of the crowd." It does not exist.

I tried it, liked it, bricked my system, and now I enjoy EndeavourOS because it's simple and easy.

Debian+KDE for workstations and servers, arch+kde for specialty needs and playtime.

Hell yeah I use Arch btw. It's been a really solid experience and nowhere close to as sweaty as one might assume.

Artix

I don't have much experience with Arch but I did briefly use EndeavorOS in a virtual machine. While I didn't use it enough to form a proper opinion on it, it did seem pretty good and it'll probably be what I use if I need an Arch-based distro (which I think I might but I don't remember what it was I needed Arch for).

I use Arch. I haven't tried Endeavour or Cachy as Arch just works for me. That's not to say I had an easy time installing it as my first Linux distro after leaving Windows, but after reading through the wiki and installing it a couple times in my PC, I like how much control over my system it gives me.

The only Arch distros I know that are solid are Arch itself, Steam OS, and Cachy OS. The latter 2 have meaningful optimizations for their intended use which is really the only excuse for a new derivative IMO besides things like different release schedules.

I just found out that what I pictured was EndeavourOS was ElementaryOS. I was so confused with the Endeavor recommendations because i thought it was based on Ubuntu 💀

Ahhhh more I gotta at least check out EndeavourOS now x_X

I see there is a lot of concern(hate?) over Manjaro. I have used it on three machines continuously for the last 6 years without any major issues. Some updates would break some packages but going to the forum gave me answers.

I know about the issues they have had but I don't agree with the negativity.

artix, and honorific mentions to parabola and hyperbola (hyperbola is moving towards becoming a gnu + kopenbsd thing, like there was an attempt for a debian gnu + kfreebsd effort though this one got dropped)

garuda is the easiest arch for new people, endeavour is pretty much just arch plus calamares and cachy is notable bc of its kernel.

If you don't want to spend your time larping sysadmin I'd recommend one of the uBlue images as Kodi, Retroarch and Steam are available from Flathub. If you want to spend your time keeping your media center alive (and possibly learn something about Linux in the process), go ahead with Arch or any of its derivatives. I use Aurora, btw.

I used to use manjaro for four-ish years. Good times.

I now run Guix btw.

If you're going to use Arch you should use Arch. One of the biggest advantages for Arch is the AUR which can cause many issues on Arch based distros that are not Arch.

That being said, for a media center, if you're not used to, I wouldn't go with Arch, Debian is a much better choice since you're already used to it and should be good for that use case.

Vanilla arch

In no case manjaro

Check out the Fedora Atomic distros Silverblue, Kinoite, etc. You can just run arch in a distrobox for your arch needs while keeping a clean and stable core.

Use whatever you're comfortable with, and what you know works.

On that note, Manjaro and CachyOS don't work. You should avoid them. They both make changes that harm reliability, and both frequently make avoidable mistakes (especially Manjaro). If you need something like those two, EndeavourOS is a better option, or just base Arch Linux.

Arch Linux itself is a good distro, but made for a specific target audience. If you want to tinker with your system and learn along the way, it may be a good option for you. If you want to "set and forget" your media center PC, a stable-release distro like Debian or Rocky might be better options for you.