Arch + XFCE on my desktop. Have been for a while now, and everytime i try something else, I always come back to it. For my laptop, I’ve been using Gnome + extensions (Arch as well. That way I don’t gotta switch gears and remember two different sets of commands) before i had to take it in for repairs. Was pretty good because of the mousepad gestures IMO.

I also do this, partly outta habit and partly to hear the sounds my mechanical keyboard makes when typing lol

Anyways, I’d say you’re golden if you wanna give Endeavour a shot then

Yet another “Time to reccomend EndeavourOS” reply.

Seriously tho, EndeavourOS is a pretty solid distro, and not that different from what you’re currently rocking (Manjaro is based on Arch) except well…it actually works as an Arch based distro should, unlike Manjaro. EndeavourOS’s a bit on the light side tho, and it comes with no GUI Add/Remove Software outta the box, but if you don’t like using the Konsole for that, nothing a “yay pamac-all” (or “yay pamac-all-no-snap”) and a bit of installing the packages you want/need can’t fix.

Theme: depends. I’m rocking Gnome on my laptop, so something like Otis looks good in it. Kripton or Jasper (what I typically use in XFCE) also look nice regardless of DE IMO. Just depends, but mostly, it’s a dark theme so my already meh eyes are spared a flashbang. Very original, I know.

Icons: Gruvbox Plus. Dunno, just always kinda feel it. Guess I like the designs? Also love me some Win10Sur and Reversal Icons.

Cursor: Bibata, typically. Oreo Cursors, if i feel like adding more pazazz and color…which is most of the time, honestly (also helps make my mouse easy to find. Not that my desktop is cluttered it’s just nice to immededly know where it’s at with a glance).

Different strokes for different folks mostly.

Arch is a rolling release, meaning everytime something changes in a package or dependency, there’s an update.

Mint is a stable release, and gets major updates every few months, with much more frequent security updates, but yeah, it’s not an everyday thing like with Arch

While I don’t like saying “this is better than that”, since Arch is a rolling release, it’s always up to date, and so you’re not going to end up in a situation like “my built-in laptop sound card isn’t getting picked up” (i mean, you might, but it’s rare. After all, Arch can break sometimes times, just like everything, really) like you sometimes can with Mint and other stable distros. Also, Arch–well, vanilla Arch and something like Endeavour–comes with just the basics and everything else, you gotta add. I personally like this because I like knowing exactly what I’m installing and having only what I’m going to use…and also not deal with messing with PPA’s. This isn’t a point against non-Arch distros or anything, it’s all just personal preference–but really, everything from “Should I do Arch with Cinnamon or something like Mint or Fedora’s Cinnamon Spin?” is all up to personal preference

None. I prefer native packages. AUR usually has me covered and hasn’t broken my system…ever, really. Yet, anyways. (Well, it might have broken my Manjaro install, but it is Manjaro, so i probably sneezed wrong)

…but, if I had to pick one? Flatpaks. Outta the three, they’ve given me the least trouble and just work right out the gate. Still prefer native packages tho