There are now arch-based distros that are quick and easy to set up, like Ubuntu. I'm currently running endeavourOS, and I am eager to try Manjaro.
Don't be put off by the Arch-based nature of the OS - since both Endeavour and Manjaro have installers, they bootstrap your system's drivers, and all.
I've found maintenance to not be too overwhelming, and Arch's wiki is top-notch. When I used other distros like Gentoo, I sometimes found myself reacing the Arch wiki...
Package management isn't too different from using apt, synaptic, or the app store if you use the right tools:
Command-line:
- Pacman: for precompiled official packages
- Yay : Automagically compiles community-ported third-party applications
GUI:
- Pamac: Look it up - it's a lot like Ubuntu's "App Store"
The caveat here is that I'm an experienced Ubuntu/Debian user that moved to Gentoo for a while.
While using Gentoo, I got tired of the systemd migration nightmare and returned to Ubuntu to find the nightmare of Snapd and poorly-sandboxed applications in their community repo.
I've only used Arch for about a month, but after using Gentoo and Ubuntu, I think I'm staying here for a while. The kernels are brand-new and the GPU driver performance is at least 2x what I was getting in Ubuntu. With the derivatives, there's no reason to bootstrap an Arch system from the kernel framebuffer, like the olden days of Gentoo and Slack.
Arch itself has install script (archinstall) these days which streamlines the install process a ton. Not sure how stable it is though (I hear it is still considered experimental) but it certainly made my recent install on my thinkpad a breeze.
Don't be put off by the Arch-based nature of the OS - since both Endeavour and Manjaro have installers, they bootstrap your system's drivers, and all.
I've found maintenance to not be too overwhelming, and Arch's wiki is top-notch. When I used other distros like Gentoo, I sometimes found myself reacing the Arch wiki...
Package management isn't too different from using apt, synaptic, or the app store if you use the right tools:
Command-line:
- Pacman: for precompiled official packages
- Yay : Automagically compiles community-ported third-party applications
GUI:
- Pamac: Look it up - it's a lot like Ubuntu's "App Store"
The caveat here is that I'm an experienced Ubuntu/Debian user that moved to Gentoo for a while.
While using Gentoo, I got tired of the systemd migration nightmare and returned to Ubuntu to find the nightmare of Snapd and poorly-sandboxed applications in their community repo.
I've only used Arch for about a month, but after using Gentoo and Ubuntu, I think I'm staying here for a while. The kernels are brand-new and the GPU driver performance is at least 2x what I was getting in Ubuntu. With the derivatives, there's no reason to bootstrap an Arch system from the kernel framebuffer, like the olden days of Gentoo and Slack.