LeFantome

As a fellow poor communicator, I just want to say that I appreciate your self-awareness.

I have actually done this more than once. It works but you can end up with a few rough edges if you remove the Manjaro specific stuff. Nothing serious.

If you want to make the switch completely, there are quite a few steps: https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/howto-convert-manjaro-to-endeavouros/5954/97

One thing I am curious about is what happens if you just add the EOS repos to Manjaro.

My biggest gripe with Manjaro is the way they hold packages back and the issues that causes with the AUR. If you had both, I imagine you would mostly just get the EOS packages for anything that was not Manjaro specific. If you also migrate the kernel to an EOS ( actually Arch ) package, most of the Manjaro damage would be contained.

Adding the eos-hooks package would make it report as EOS as well.

I might just give it a shot just to see what happens.

I have always hesitated to chime in on this because I do not want to imply that Arch distros do not take knowledge to configure. And while EOS adds some great tools, there are fewer GUI tools out of the box.

That said:

• EOS is as easy to setup as any Linux distro
• For my taste, the defaults are great and take less fiddling to be useable
• EOS has been the most stable distribution I have used
• the very few tools that EOS adds on top of Arch are handy and well thought out

I had WAY more problems on Fedora and RHEL back in the day. SELinux still confuses me.

I had WAY more stability and packaging problems on Debian, Mint, and Ubuntu. This was aggravated by the fact that I either had to add software that was not managed by the package database or had to add PPAs and third-party repos. Arch and the AUR have completely eliminated that problem. I imagine Flatpaks help on those other distros but I love not HAVING to use Flatpak on Arch ( or EOS ).

After a couple of years of loving Manjaro, it had a number of major problems. After moving to Arch, I realized that most of the issues I associated with the AUR were just Manjaro too. It is now the only distro I actively advise against.

I have been using Linux since before kernel 1.0 so there are many more distros. Slackware was stable but requires WAY more config which meant I broke it all the time.

EndeavourOS has been my main distro for a few years now. It has been rock solid for me. It is the most stable distro I have used.

On EOS, I make major changes ( like moving to Dracut ) without fear. I have a computer in use for real work that I run updates on almost every day ( including kernel updates ) and I never worry about it being broken. I do not have to run updates. I just like having the latest stuff all the time. I look at version numbers like I am reading the news. Often I look up the release notes after seeing a change just to see what I have now.

I have had to deal with “keyring” issues which I really wish the system handled better. These are very rare though and only in systems I have let get badly out-of-date ( like laptops that did not get used for a year ).

I understand the “theory” as to why a rolling release is “not stable”. My experience has not been that at all.

EOS uses standard pacman and the kernel is the standard Arch package. It is identical.

Choose the OS you want and then use Distrobox to create a CentOS or Fedora environment for Resolve. It will see all the packages it likes.

Absolutely do not use Manjaro.

My favourite on your list is EndeavourOS. You can use pacseek to manage your packages if you really hate pacman ( though you should be use yay on EOS anyway ). If your really want a GUI, use yay to install pamac ( yay -S pamac or yay -S pamac-gtk probably — I cannot remember the package name and I am on my phone ).

If you like Debian, use Debian. The packages in Debian 12 are not old yet. Regardless, the package problem is solved by Distrobox.

I have debated using Debian as a base with access to Arch packages via distrobox myself. I may try VanillaOS for that. You would need to pick a different package source if you do not like the pacman commands.

What DE do you order? An alternative to Debian would be LMDE. That gives you the Debian stability and compatibility with some of the friendliness of Linux Mint and a more up-to-date desktop.

What you are describing is the commoditization of the desktop market. What follows from that is a lack of profitability. What follows from that is a lack of corporate investment and a lack of corporate leadership. That makes the cycle repeat but faster.

Microsoft already knows the desktop market is lost. It is still a cash cow but they are not investing in it. Azure, 365, and AI are all much more important to them.

I use Microsoft Teams on Linux every day. You can say I just click the icon and do not care what OS I am using. What you miss is that Microsoft does not care either.

If I can “not care” what OS I am using, I can choose Linux. If I do “‘not care”, it is very hard for Microsoft to monetize me. If they cannot monetize me, they do not care either. They will stop investing in keeping me on their OS. At some point, Linux is better and the obvious default.

The question is not how long it takes Linux to grow. It is the inevitability of it and the fact that the trend will be one direction over time. Once large numbers of people switch ( even if Indian office workers or Greek military ), most of them will not switch back.

“Nobody cares” is how Linux will eventually win on the desktop. It becomes viable for most people when they no longer “need” whatever they were using before. As Linux is free, it will win when it becomes “good enough”.

Office use dominates desktop use everywhere in the world at this point. So, nothing in India sounds unique per se. In wealthier countries, Windows can be purchased because it does not cost that much and so it just makes sense to reduce risk and go with the flow. Compared to India, there is a reduced incentive to ask if Windows is needed.

In the USA in particular, there is a wealthy creative class that props up the macOS numbers. MacOS having 25% share in the US is an anomaly driven by software development, media production, and lifestyle. Economically, this is more of a hardware choice than an OS decision. The prevalence of Mac laptops drives these numbers.

Outside of office use, the next biggest category is gaming. Again, if money is no object and you are buying the latest NVDIA kit, Windows still has an advantage. This is changing though.

The Linux gaming tech stack is rapidly improving and NVIDIA specific issues are finally being addressed. I see the next 24 months as pivotal. Linux gaming is likely to be the vector that drives Linux adoption in the first world. That will be sticky adoption. Developers will follow. In the US, this will create enough exposure to push Linux to the mainstream. If Linux becomes mainstream in the US, the barrier to adoption drops all over the world. See first paragraph.

I would not use an old version of macOS. Not only insecure but more and more apps won’t work with it.

You could use a “modified” version of macOS to install a newer release on your machine. The performance may not be great.

I have a 2008 iMac, 2009 MacBook Pro, 2012 MacBook Pro, and 2017 MacBook Pro that all run Linux.

Linux on old hardware flies. You may be surprised. Also, you can run totally up-to-date versions of everything. My 2008 Mac is running the version of Firefox released 4 days ago.

Unless there is some Mac only software you absolutely must have, get macOS off there.

[Edit: You did it say what hardware you have but, if you are on Yosemite, your hardware must be 2009 or older as well. I run XFCE on EndeavourOS for what that is worth. ]

Sorry to hear that. Also on EOS and it is working great.

Linux fan here. I run Linux on and old 2008 iMac, a 2009 MacBook Pro, a 2012 MacBook Pro, and a 2017 MacBook Pro. EndeavourOS mostly.

Linux works amazingly on this hardware. Old Apple stuff is great gear and still looks pretty good too.

I have upgraded RAM and storage as much as possible which makes a huge difference. I actually found the 2009 unit sitting on the intake shelf at my local recycling centre. It needed a new battery but has been awesome. I keep it downstairs at home as my other computers are upstairs. I take it with me on trips where I would worry about wrecking a computer ( camping road trips for example ). I can access my Proxmox server to hit a few remote desktops and the beautiful screen and awesome keyboard make it a joy to use.

Where is macOS bette? If we are being honest, any serious macOS user will have accumulated use cases that are not as well met by Linux. Media related especially like photo and video editing. I cannot even find programs like “subler” for Linux which you would think Linux would have. Niche proprietary tools as more common on macOS. So even reading a PDF signed with a certificate can be annoying on Linux ( without Adobe Acrobat or Reader ).

If you are a developer, I would argue Linux is better.

I am a Linux user though so I am the opposite. If you give me a machine running macOS, I want to get Linux on it. For me, Linux is so much better and 10 minutes on a Mac and I will be frustrated with what it cannot do.

Even for a Mac user, Mac hardware becomes much less usable after it falls of support for thee latest macOS as so many apps will quickly become incompatible after. As I run Arch on my 2009 Mac, it has all the software I use totally up-to-date and current with the latest releases available. You just cannot compete with Linux for that.

Distrobox on Debian Stable?

For a while, I have been thinking of trying Arch via Distrobox on Debian Stable. Feels like it would be the best of both worlds.

Whether you like Systemd or not, let’s not spread disinformation.

All these things still exist with Systemd. They are just called Systemd dash something. Also, while Systemd is feature rich, it is pretty heavy relative to many alternatives.

Distros that avoid Systemd typically do so because they consider it bloated and possibly insecure.

If you are a fan of Systemd, it is probably because you like the standardization and the integration across previously disparate services. That makes sense. If you think it is making your system faster or lighter, you have not explored the alternatives. Obviously Systemd was a big leap forward in init. Other systems have appeared that also work really well but they are probably too late to matter mainstream. The “market” has spoken and Systemd is the winner.