I am currently using Windows on an older HP Laptop, which I intend to replace with a Framework 16 by next summer, but my Desktop PC at home has been running EndeavourOS, my first ever Linux distro, since last summer, so I have some Arch-based experience.
As a learning experience I’d like to install raw Arch, but I’m wondering if it makes sense as a primary OS on something that should be a stable system, since I intend to use the laptop for university. I am planning on using btrfs and timeshift, so it shouldn’t break too horribly, even if something goes wrong (and I don’t wanna jinx it, but so far my EndeavourOS pc has been entirely fine too, so I didn’t even run into such an issue yet), but depending on who you ask Arch is either the most stable distro they’ve ever used or bricked their pc ten seconds into the install process.
So now I’m curious on if you all think this is a stupid idea or if it should be fine. Should I try installing Arch and then for actual use replace it with another distro like Debian LTS, NixOS or something like Mint on a machine which fulfills a more critical role than my PC at home, or should I be alright rolling with Arch on my uni laptop?
As a side note, what’s your take on using Arch vs EndeavourOS? It’s roughly the same fundamentally, so is there any point in using Arch apart from the learning experience and being able to say “I use arch btw”? My reasoning for actually wanting to use it and not just wanting to set it up for the learning experience and then switching off to EOS or something entirely different is “I think it’s neat”, which is hardly a good reason long-term.
I use my laptop for work all day every (week)day. It runs EndeavourOS and I haven’t had any problems - if anything I’ve encountered fewer annoyances than with any other distro I’ve tried to date (Pop, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, Debian). I don’t use Btrfs but I do use Timeshift as well as Syncthing to back up files to a file server at home.
I haven’t felt the desire to install Arch, and TBH I’m not sure what the benefit might be because I’d just configure it to be basically the same as EOS anyway.