Reinstalled EndeavourOS

[raymac46]

Since I am going to rebuild my neighbor's old Broadwell i5 and I'll install Mint there, I have reinstalled EndeavourOS on my Linux friendly Levovo Flex 15-2D. It is mostly AMD A8-6410 based with Atheros wifi.

I know EndeavourOS isn't pure vanilla Arch but it has a nice Xfce desktop if you want to roll that way. The installer Calamares works fine. After installation you can update using pacman and you get yay installed if you want something from the AUR.

EndeavourOS does have a repo but it's mainly for some scripts and icons for the desktop. I'd say 99.9% of its packages come from Arch. The default install is very light and lightning fast.

Certainly not for purists but I like EndeavourOS a lot.

Edited May 19, 2023 by raymac46

[raymac46]

About the only problems I have with EndeavourOS is getting a wireless printer installed and configured. You have to install CUPS and HPLIP and Avahi, make sure a bunch of services and daemons are running, and then configure the firewall to permit connection. It took me a while but I got it working. I don't do this often enough to make it second nature. With something like Linux Mint the whole process happens automagically.

[raymac46]

EndeavorOS works for me because it has a quick and efficient installer and afterwards i get pretty much what I would have wanted had I used the "Arch way" of installation. The DE is Xfce by default and I usually choose that. It has a bit nicer theme and icons but that is OK. I get Arch repos, AUR, pacman and yay.

The installed system is pretty much your expected stripped down Arch setup. I can choose my own office and photo management programs. I did not install Libre Office, just Abiword and Gnumeric. Obviously things like Samba and a printer take some tweaking but you can use the Arch Wiki to sort through it.

EndeavourOS is a bit prettier and installs easier than vanilla Arch but you still need to know something about Linux to make the most of it. Not a beginner's distro.

[raymac46]

Well about the only thing I had left to do with my EndeavourOS install was to set up a simple Samba client to access some files on a NAS drive i have connected to my router. This is far simpler than setting up a Samba server and I followed ArchWiki to the letter.

After I had everything installed, I tried connecting to the NAS. I put in its IP and I got the login screen, but as soon as I tried to connect Thunar crashed. I checked the firewall, triple checked that I had all the packages installed right, but no joy. I even tried installing PCManFM but that didn't work either. In desperation I resorted to Windows to check the Settings on the router.

Turns out I was typing my UserID wrong. Doh! Once I put in the proper accreditation everything worked like a charm. Often your problem lies between the keyboard and the screen. 

[securitybreach]

50 minutes ago, raymac46 said:

Well about the only thing I had left to do with my EndeavourOS install was to set up a simple Samba client to access some files on a NAS drive i have connected to my router. This is far simpler than setting up a Samba server and I followed ArchWiki to the letter.

After I had everything installed, I tried connecting to the NAS. I put in its IP and I got the login screen, but as soon as I tried to connect Thunar crashed. I checked the firewall, triple checked that I had all the packages installed right, but no joy. I even tried installing PCManFM but that didn't work either. In desperation I resorted to Windows to check the Settings on the router.

Turns out I was typing my UserID wrong. Doh! Once I put in the proper accreditation everything worked like a charm. Often your problem lies between the keyboard and the screen. 

 

Gotta love those moment when you beat your head against the wall trying everything and its something simple. Like when I am not getting dns, I try everything before remembering that I need to reboot my RPi (pihole).

[raymac46]

[ray@ray-20377 ~]$ inxi -Fxz
System:
  Kernel: 6.3.3-arch1-1 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.1.1
    Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20377 v: Lenovo Flex 2-15D
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: Lenovo Flex 2-15D v: 31900058 WIN
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO v: 9FCN27WW date: 06/11/2015
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 17.3 Wh (95.6%) condition: 18.1/30.1 Wh (60.1%)
    volts: 8.0 min: 7.2 model: SANYO L13S4A61 status: not charging
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics bits: 64
    type: MCP arch: Puma rev: 1 cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 2 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1000 min/max: 1000/2000 boost: enabled cores: 1: 1000
    2: 1000 3: 1000 4: 1000 bogomips: 15974
  Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Mullins [Radeon R4/R5 Graphics] vendor: Lenovo driver: radeon
    v: kernel arch: GCN-2 bus-ID: 00:01.0
  Device-2: IMC Networks Lenovo EasyCamera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    bus-ID: 1-1.4:4
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.8 driver: X: loaded: radeon
    unloaded: modesetting dri: radeonsi gpu: radeon resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
  API: OpenGL v: 4.5 Mesa 23.0.3 renderer: KABINI ( LLVM 15.0.7 DRM 2.50
    6.3.3-arch1-1) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Kabini HDMI/DP Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:01.1
  Device-2: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:14.2
  API: ALSA v: k6.3.3-arch1-1 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.70 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Lenovo driver: r8168 v: 8.051.02-NAPI port: 1000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
  IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter
    vendor: Lenovo driver: ath9k v: kernel bus-ID: 03:00.0
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0 driver: btusb v: 0.8
    type: USB bus-ID: 2-1.2:4
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 3 state: down bt-service: disabled
    rfk-block: hardware: no software: no address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 8.51 GiB (1.8%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS500G2B0A size: 465.76 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 456.41 GiB used: 8.51 GiB (1.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 998 MiB used: 312 KiB (0.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 47.5 C mobo: N/A gpu: radeon temp: 47.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 186 Uptime: 30m Memory: available: 6.71 GiB
  used: 1.46 GiB (21.7%) Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: 13.1.1 Packages: 892
  Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 inxi: 3.3.27
[ray@ray-20377 ~]$ 

 

[raymac46]

Well after a couple weeks I have to say that EndeavourOS is one great distro. I get all the things I like with Arch Linux and my favorite DE (Xfce) is beautifully configured and with an excellent look and feel. I suppose if you want to run a WM or a different DE like GNOME it'd be best to just install Arch - but I beleieve I am getting the best of both worlds with EndeavourOS.

[securitybreach]

Good deal