I agree, also the holding back of packages just for the sake of waiting probably doesn’t make it more stable, despite what the devs say; also having 300+ packages updated at the same time might make it worse for troubleshooting in case something goes wrong.

As someone who actually started with Manjaro back in 2020 before moving to EndeavourOS after 9 months, I would say that there is indeed a steeper learning curve as you don’t get for example a GUI package manager (Pamac is awful and even as a newbie I used it for maybe three days before I started to use the CLI, but a Linux beginner might want one) and the fact it is a true rolling release means you need to do some more research and maintenance, so I wouldn’t call Endeavour a distro for absolute beginners, unless one is determined to learn a lot about how a computer works… but again one shouldn’t probably use a rolling release then; Manjaro just tricks you to believe it is easier, but it probably is only if you don’t use the AUR.

Maybe Garuda is more beginner friendly than EndeavourOS while avoiding most of the problems Manjaro has? Although I’ve never used it as I don’t see any advantage over Endeavour, and I’m not a fan of excessive out of the box theming and Chaotic AUR enabled as default…

Just a few days ago I had commented elsewhere that, disappointed with recent Brave Search results, I should have used a meta search engine instead. Thanks to your post I stopped procrastinating and started trying a SearXNG instance as default search engine (just tweaking engine settings a bit), so far everything seems good, results are on point and in multiple languages (last time I had tried a meta search engine a few years ago I had to change manually the language for each search, and it was annoying given that I often search the web in at least three languages, sometimes four) and the uncluttered UI is very nice. I’ll test it out for a few days I guess, but the first impression is good.

I use the following ones (on Firefox), except for uBO the others are just for conveniency:

• Bitwarden
• Gesturefy (for some time from early 2021 to late 2022 I used to use Vivaldi as my primary browser and now if I’m using a mouse, not having gestures in a browser feels odd…)
• LibRedirect
• Plasma Integration
• uBlock Origin (middle mode and with some additional lists)
• User-Agent Switcher and Manager (if I find a site that says it doesn’t work with Firefox).

• AntennaPod (podcast player)
• Authenticator Pro (2FA)
• Aves (gallery)
• Bitwarden
• Catima (for stores’ reward cards)
• Etar (calendar)
• Geometric Weather
• Infinity for Reddit… as long as it works
• Joplin (note-taking software, synced with the desktop client)
• K-9 Mail
• Kvæsitso (launcher)
• Mull (Firefox fork)
• NetGuard (works in the background as a VPN to block network access to certain apps, for example I use it to block every network connection by Gboard)
• NewPipe
• Simple File Manager
• Tasks.org

I have an HP LaserJet P1005 from 15 years ago which mostly works fine with Hplip except that every once in a while it asks me to reinstall the proprietary plugin needed. I’m taking note of how other brands seem to work better but to be honest I print so little since I digitally sign everything that once I run out of toner it’s far cheaper for me to have something printed in a shop than to replace it.

I started using Linux in October 2020 with Manjaro KDE (not including trying out nearly every major beginner-friendly distro in VMs before installing it on bare metal), then I moved to EndeavourOS - still with KDE - in July 2021 and am still on that same install.

probably under the influence of reddit, where this has become completely gamed–i can’t stand this style of information sorting.

I’ve actually noticed myself doing this by instinct as in the last few months I mostly read Reddit comments sorted chronologically. Part of that is because of the hivemind problem in certain subs, which frankly is even less tolerable the more trivial a subject is, as in, for example, subs for fans of a certain artist where other users jump to downvote people who dare say that not every thing the artist does is perfect. And what’s even the point in discussing things if everything is “how good this is”, “how amazing this is”, etc.?