cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6028275
After being extremely annoyed with how Microsoft was trying to force me to use their worthless Outlook programme, and learning that Windows 11 (which they've also been pressuring to try) is polluted with advertising, I decided that it was time to migrate to another operating system. Somebody recommended EndeavourOS to me, and after backing up my valuables and following these instructions, I am finally trying a better operating system.
If I'm being honest, my first impressions are... not good.
One of the first things that I notice is that I can't easily modify the /usr/ directory. I tried to install Java there but the OS would not let me because I lack the permission. How do I get the permission? I don't know. I am guessing that it has something to do with Terminal Emulator, and the fact that I have to use this program so much immediately tells me that this OS was made for programmers in mind, not ordinary users. On Windows, I could click an executable, click a few more buttons and be done with it, but here the OS wants me to mess with a ~~DOS prompt~~ terminal.
Then there is the scaling. I managed to adjust the scaling while keeping the resolution so that everything on my screen didn't look microscopic. The problem is that when I open certain tabs or windows, they stretch out so far that the monitor can only show part of them. Here's a screenshot so that you can see what I mean:
This is just lousy design. I can shrink the window, but not by much.
I want to uninstall a font. How do I do that? Well, I read on the EndeavourOS forum that I need to run 'pacman' (meaning the terminal) to uninstall a font. Nobody elaborated on that. So after entering the terminal, typing 'su', then my password (another annoyance), then entering "pacman -R /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", the terminal spits out "error: target not found: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", even though I am 100% certain that it is there. I would just remove it by simply clicking it and deleting it, except that the OS refuses and tells me "Error removing file: Permission denied".
Speaking of which, I actually find this more annoying than Windows' worthless 'administrator' function. At least I could simply click the administrator function and be done with it. The process here looks much less straightforward.
I want a calendar with scheduling, which is part of the reason that I am quitting Windows. I downloaded the Orage application hence, then I clicked on 'orage-4.18.0.tar.bz2' in my downloads folder. My cursor spins like something is loading, and... nothing happens. I don't even get an error message.
There are some other things that I could mention (where's the color filter?), but these are the worst offenders. I'm not calling it quits on EndeavourOS, and I am sure that eventually I'll get the hang of things, but so far this has been unenjoyable.
I think EndeavourOS (or anything based on Arch Linux) isn't a great distro to start with for a beginner, experienced users like to pretend that it's totally easy but it's really not, it generally relies more on the terminal and manual configuration than other easier distros
I agree with that other comment in this thread saying that a different distro would be a lot easier to learn, and I also agree with them about Fedora Kinoite being easy to understand as a new user (the distro I use is a variant of it), though I also understand that a lot of people here aren't fond of Fedora due to their connection to Red Hat, and Fedora's Atomic variants like that have some quirks that make them different from most other distros
I also agree that XFCE isn't a great choice of desktop environment, a big part of it being "lightweight" is because it lacks a lot of useful features that other DEs have, and if your PC can handle current Windows then you most likely will be fine with "heavier" DEs like KDE Plasma or GNOME, they still generally run better than Windows these days
I'd recommend trying KDE Plasma (Fedora Kinoite comes with it, but you can get it on most other distros too), it's very flexible but still pretty easy to use, its UI scaling works better than in any other DE I've seen, and it also has color blindness filters if that's what you mean by color filter (and if you mean blue light filter, it has that too)
Agreed: Endeavour is not for beginners.