But I’ve been wanting to tell people that I use Arch.

Biblically accurate arch user

EndeavorOS is my go to for arch based systems. But with the archinstall script I’d say just give vanilla a go

EndeavourOS. It’s like Arch, but a bit easier with a few automation and gui stuff builtin. It’s still heavy on terminal usage and it comes light out of the box. I switched from Manjaro to EndeavourOS, because Manjaro gave me some problems (especially their package manager and because of the AUR too, and I didn’t like the maintainers, no further comment). It’s my daily driver for years now. I use it for everything, daily usage, little programming, gaming on Steam and especially RetroArch too. I’m a huge RetroArch fan. :-) So if you plan to use base Archlinux or Manjaro, then I can recommend to use EndeavourOS a lot.

Cachy OS is probably a good choice too, because their focus on performance optimizations. But they do also have a bit more, let’s say bloat, out of the box and their branding is a bit strong it seems. It’s a bit farther away from base Archlinux than EndeavourOS is.

EndeavourOS is the way to go, btw.

Probably not a universal answer as you are optimizing for different things.

I will say that EndeavourOS is essentially vanilla Arch once installed. If you really love configuring everything yourself, vanilla Arch is what you are looking for. If you like Arch but just want to fire up a system with sensible defaults, EndeavourOS adds a lot of value without corrupting the purity of the base system.

So, my vote is for EndeavourOS.

Cachy adds the most additional functionality but also changes the base system the most. If you have a T2 MacBook, this is the best option for sure.

I would avoid Manjaro.

Garuda has fans. A bit much for me.

Wait…so you’re looking for a solution with zero problems because of…clout or something? I don’t get it.

If you like Debian, just stay with Debian. Especially if you’re not familiar with what running Arch really means in the deeper sense. Mostly that the guardrails are off, in a sense.

CachyOS puts a ton of work into adding UX helpers that makes it pretty user friendly, but it’s still going to have a lot of manual intervention required, but that’s a feature to some.

If you have an AMD laptop, maybe look into installing SteamOS and Kodi as a non-steam app. That could be your sweet spot.

Cachy

EndeavourOS is my first choice, CachyOS is my second choice.

I use plain Arch for desktop, but for servers I use headless debian. A media center is sort of in between, so up to you. In terms of resource usage on an older laptop, I expect the choice of DE would matter more.

I use cachy os for the optimizations on modern hardware and access to newer packages. I use it on ny pc for gaming and laptop for development. I find it more convenient than arch. But I can’t say if it is better.

For a mediacenter that isn’t on bleeding edge hardware, fedora or Debian would be my choice for stability. Performance will be similar regardless of distro.

I use arch on my desktop and laptop and Debian/Ubuntu on servers.

Hi, in my opinion, the best distro is always the one that everything builds upon. So if you want maximal control, etc. Just use arch. Its also great if you want to learn how to troubleshoot.

I use Artix btw. Pretty stable, I guess I have to fix something a few times a year.

SteamDeck, so yes.

On desktop, SBCs, servers, etc Debian.

I’ve always gravitated toward various Arch-based distros. Installed vanilla from scratch a decade ago for a college workstation, sunk a lot of time into tinkering the steam deck’s SteamOS, and my desktop’s been running CachyOS for just about a year now - the latter’s been so smooth that I opted to wipe my Deck and install their handheld edition just because, and that’s been pretty solid too.

I haven’t really distro-hopped enough to say much else, but Cachy’s been my go-to since I first set it up and it’d take a lot to move me off if it. All the Arch benefits with some extra bells and whistles.