Endeavour OS first impressions

I've been an Arch Linux user for about a decade now. There is so much to like about Arch, from the rolling release schedule to the no-nonsense approach to administration to the excellent wiki. Recently, though, when I was performing a fresh Linux installation on an old laptop. I was in the mood for something different. What else to do but check out distrowatch.com see what the cool kids are using these days? One distro in particular that stood out to me was Endeavour OS, so I prepared the installation media on a USB and began the process. I've been pleasantly surprised with the experience so far!

What I like so far:

• Arch-based: Arch Linux is nearly a perfect distribution for me, so it's great that Endeavour doesn't stray too far from its roots.
• Easy installation: The installer walks you through everything from partitioning to time zones to mirror selection to desktop environments, and you get a usable environment with very little extra. No need to manually install wifi drivers any more!
• Quality of life features: Although I use sway on a desktop, I gave xfce a try and it's been great so far. Things that tend to take a lot of tinkering, like application runners, power menus, and nice-looking login experiences in sway come for free. While I still enjoy the spartan appeal of sway, i3wm, and similar DEs to an extent, there's something refreshing about having a DE experience where so many things just work.

One note for posterity: my hard drive initially wasn't recognized by installer, so I needed to switch the hard drive mode from RAID to AHCI in the BIOS.