I’ve run EndeavorOS on my Chromebook for quite some time, but instead of fixing a minor issue here the other day I thought I’d just do a fresh install as I can bring my data back in because I use Syncthing. Syncthing copies data between computers so you can have files backed up on multiple computers and even your cellphone. And I have a Docker Raspberry Pi 4B with USB SSD drive as kind of a central hub. All that to say, the install was quick and easy and only slowed down because I had it pull in updates during the install. And with some minor tweaking like moving the taskbar, using a Wyoming wallpaper, installing software and setting up Syncthing to pull in my files, and I was back in business with a fresh installation pretty easily. And it’s much easier than the standard Arch way of installing, though they came out with a new installer which is supposed to be somewhat easier. Consequently, there is no better way to run Arch Linux, with a secondary mention of Manjaro which is also good but delays updates to be a bit more stable than the rolling release of Arch.
This release ships with the Mesa 24.3.4 graphics stack and includes an updated Calamares graphical installer.
By Marius Nestor
The EndeavourOS team announced today the release and general availability for download of EndeavourOS Mercury as the latest stable version of this Arch Linux-based distro featuring the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
Powered by the latest and greatest Linux 6.13 kernel series, EndeavourOS Mercury comes with the KDE Plasma 6.2.5 desktop environment on both the live environment and the offline installation option, as well as the latest Xfce 4.20 desktop environment, which is available as an option during the installation.
EndeavourOS Mercury also updates the KDE Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, Budgie, Cinnamon, and MATE session to use a dark theme by default, updates the Xfce theme to be closer to the default Xfce setup, and updates the GNOME session to automatically set dark and light wallpapers by default.
Among other changes, this release adds a memory test for EFI systems on the live ISO, resolves the issue with the Legacy BIOS installations, fixes an issue with double entries for the EFI selection dropdown, and adds support for copying both ranked mirror lists before installation to the target device.
“In case the user changes the mirror list on the live session, these will be used instead, and not ranked in the installation process again,” said the devs, who also mentioned the fact that users should expect a somewhat irregular release schedule for now due to life circumstances.
Under the hood, this release comes with the latest Mesa 24.3.4 graphics stack and includes a newer Calamares graphical installer for a smoother installation experience. It also includes some of the latest Open Source apps, such as the recently released Mozilla Firefox 135 web browser.
EndeavourOS Mercury is available for download right now from the official website. Since EndeavourOS follows a rolling-release model where you install once and receive updates forever, existing users need only to update their installations by running the sudo pacman -Syu command in the Terminal app.