Downloaded endeavour os now I feel a bit lost and overwhelmed

[u/Gold_Cold5967]

I downloaded endeavour because I wanted complete customisation over my os and wanted to use my laptops specs to its full potential, endeavour is alot smoother and faster than windows but after downloading it I feel a bit lost on how to begin my customisation of it and more importantly how to learn it. I was going to use wiki as my main source but its down leaving only the forums which seem a bit all over the place with unfamiliar terms like scripting, hyprland, pacman, kernel/console/konsole/shell (i dont understand the difference) etc. i selected kde plasma as my desktop environment.

What I really need is some sort of guidance on how to go about learning my os, I have really high plans of how I want it to be customised. I want it to be mainly console based with a few files on the desktop, I want to be able to open any application or website from the console with custom commands like 'open reddit', I want the console to have some sort of built in ai chatbox (almost like jarvis from avengers) that can perform tasks nothing too heavy. I want to do so many things. So id appreciate help on how to go about this ty

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[u/JeiceSpade]

When first learning any kind of Linux, I recommend using the OS as is for a spell. After a while, you'll figure out where the pain points for your workflow are and start getting ideas of customization that you'd like to see.

Then start looking for the changes. The wiki and forums are very helpful, and there's often YouTube guides for specific looks or custom actions. Take a deep breath and to not get overwhelmed, remember that this is you machine and it's not necessary to meet the standard of what someone else is using.

You'll find your customizations in time. No need to race ahead when the wiki is down if you don't feel comfortable.

[u/xarop_pa_toss → u/JeiceSpade]

Honestly this is some of the best advice I've ever seen about using Linux in general.

To OP: don't feel rushed to do things. Just use KDE as it is and start noting down things you like, you dislike, and maybe just want to change. Linux is not Windows, and it doesn't behave like it either so just go slow.

It's a great idea to get used to the terminal, which can be whichever you want. Konsole is the default one in KDE, but there's many others like Alacritty, Kitty, Ghostty, etc. The terminal is not the same as the Shell you use of which there are many too like Bash (default one for Linux), Zsh, Fish, and others. The Shell is the program the Terminal uses to interact with the system. Just wanted to clear that up because I saw you mentioned it.

Make a to-do list for yourself and start by learning the basics of using your system via the terminal. Have a look online for anything + rice to find customizations, for example KDE Rice.

Everything is customizable, just takes time to learn. Do one thing at a time and whatever you do, always start by configuring some sort of system backup routine. Something like Timeshift or Borgmatic for example

[u/Rananecax]

Don't be afraid of all those unfamiliar terms and topics in the EndeavourOS forums. The EndeavourOS community is a very friendly community and you will find many friendly people who will like to help you.

So just ask the same questions there and you will get help.

[u/red-skylight]

KDE is very popular meaning that you will find tutorials about how to customise it independent of the distro.

I would suggest you to do some research on those terms and start to understand what people are talking about.

You don't have or need to learn everything in one week but you have to start somewhere.

Endeavour is based on Arch which has a extensive wiki, that is a good starting point.

Good luck and enjoy your journey.

[u/jeroenim0]

Have plans on customizing your install, then having an idea what you want would be helpful, what about watching youtube and then set your goals and work from there?

maintenance for your system is really easy, run the eos-update and it will take care of that without intervention besides putting in your password for auth.

Besides it just a working operating system that does not differ much from Windows.. it just works, if you start customizing you might inflict instability on your system, so do one step at the time. I'm assuming you have setup a proper backups setup, which you cannot do without, if you do not have this, hint....

Good luck with your new setup!

[u/evh5150ni]

You may just have to take your time on this one. Custom commands (often called aliases) aren't difficult, but they aren't for users who feel overwhelmed, either. Just use the OS for a while and when you feel more comfortable, starting looking into that.

[u/Zer0_Dark_Turdy → u/evh5150ni]

I second that! Just use your OS and when you find something you want to do, look up how to do it and document commands for it in a text file, just in case you need to reinstall the OS. So you get back to speed quicker.

You learn your OS by using it. It's learning by doing, the best type of learning! Have fun OP!

[u/LeePetra]

I started using Linux as my daily driver OS late last year. I tried out a few different distros, but EndeavourOS was the one that stuck-precisely because nothing came pre-configured, yet the installation process (with KDE) was straightforward. I sorted out some things via Google searches, but eventually, I started running many of my questions through ChatGPT specifically... and that was a game-changer. I defined how it should analyze my questions; I fed it config files and gave it a simple instruction: for every suggestion, explain the "what," "where," and "why," as well as exactly what the change does.

Now I have some excellent wrappers, some of which I can trigger via a locally hosted Hermes Agent (I build a "skill" layer for Hermes around them).

I can't write everything from scratch, but I understand what I'm doing. Practically any AI chat-even Google Search in AI mode-can explain concepts to you. Paid chats like GPT or Claude (though not necessarily Gemini, in my opinion) are great at guiding you through writing wrappers and Bash scripts, as well as configuring and understanding how the system works (for instance, I only realized about three months ago that EOS doesn't have a swap file by default).

I haven't given up on KDE, but I currently do the main share of my work in Niri with Noctalia v5.

BTW, sometimes it's faster to install a specific site as a PWA and launch it via the system search bar; sometimes it takes literally just two clicks.

[u/cherribomb64]

this might help:
when googling terminal and kernel related stuffs: you can search “arch” instead of endeavoros, because tbf it is just glorified ez mode arch.

[u/frankFerg1616]

This may be an unpopular opinion as there's a lot of unpleasant feelings towards AI, but when I was recently (a month ago) distro hopping from Manjaro to Endeavour I found Claude really helpful. The chat bot was able to answer just about all of my questions and was able to walk me through customizations I wanted to make. Like setting up Snapper and creating a Sway cheatsheet as a wallpaper (yes, Claude made that wallpaper with minimal input from myself). Of course, you lose the human element that you would get from forums, and you may not learn as much as you would through reading through arch wiki articles. But if you just want to get something up and running as quickly as possible, Claude could be a good resource.

[u/4t0m77]

honestly? cachyos is an even easier version of arch for beginners compared to endeavour. there are so many useful presets in cachy that I feel like were an afterthought on endeavour, gaming compatibility is also far better.

[u/romulorckz → u/4t0m77]

what are some of those in cachy?

[u/4t0m77 → u/romulorckz]

btrfs assistant, limine, shelly, secure boot compatibility are the first that come to mind

[u/SmallRocks → u/4t0m77]

Why not just boot into the CachyOs kernel? You can do that on any arch based distro. You can also install everything needed from the cachy repository.