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this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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I have two go-to choices for Arch-based. EndeavourOS is basically what everyone want and expect from Manjaro, Arch with a GUI installer, no bloat, easy to use. You can even install Pamac and use it if that's convenient for you. Artix comes systemd-free, you can install OpenRC, runit etc. It's faster for my old laptop.
There is also Archcraft. It might look like a student project (maybe it is), but it's an easy way to use Arch if you're comfortable with their design choices. This one also has really nice small scripts here and there.
@muhyb I use EndeavourOS myself, but I was wondering if there's an Arch based distro that is a bit more stable and that I can recommend to people but still allows for using AUR without much trouble.
The vast majority of Arch derivates are still Arch with some candy on top. Endeavour for example is just an installer, a default package selection, a handful of non-essential packages of their own and some desktop eye-candy – in other words the absolute minimum so it can be called a distinct distro. But it's very much Arch inside.
Manjaro uses Arch as an upstream distro but modifies packages extensively, uses its graphical installer to actually autodetect and install everything a machine might need by default, has designed an user-friendly package manager interface on top of pamac, adds a driver manager with autodetect, a kernel manager and so on.
Unfortunately this puts Manjaro on the hatelist for two groups: a section of the Arch community who hate anything that makes Arch less hardcore, and Linux newbs that get tricked by Manjaro's self-claim of "user friendly" and end up bricking their system then go around telling everybody how much it sucks and how "it just broke".
Ironically, if you leave Manjaro the fuck alone and don't do dumb stuff like use a non-LTS kernel or switch to the non-stable branches or install critical system components from AUR etc. it tends to be super-stable. Unfortunately it tends to attract users for all the wrong reasons.
To answer your question, to recommend it to people it depends a lot on the type of people. I'm an experienced Linux user, I know what stuff to not do and what to not install from AUR etc. At the other extreme I have completely Linux-clueless family members using Manjaro perfectly fine because they don't have sudo rights and they can't fuck it up. But there's a type of Linux user that falls in between that's going to mess around and screw up and then blame the distro for things that if they did on Arch they'd get told to GTFO – and I think those people should not use Manjaro or any Arch distro because they're dumb and hateful and Arch-based stuff requires a bit of brain and a willingness to learn.
I'm quite happy with EndeavourOS and last time I had a problem, it was a GRUB problem and they changed to systemd-boot by default after that. Other than this, never had problems since. To be honest, I stopped recommending Arch-based to people unless they're somewhat experienced, otherwise I recommend Linux Mint. However, EndeavourOS is what I recommend if someone wants a GUI installer for Arch and I don't think there is a better option yet.