I've already tried arch. It's currently on both my computers. I'd rather not install every single package manually though. I need a distro like arch but with pre-installed things. Preferably, a distro where I get to choose the desktop environment, display manager, and splash screen.
I don't really follow you here. Packages are essentially programs, so if you don't want to install every program you want manually you're asking for a distro that automatically comes with every possible package installed?
I don't see an issue with Arch, because if there's a program you want or need it's essentially two commands away.
pacman -Ss packagename to see if it's under a weird name that includes extra text, then
pacman -S correctname to actually download it. Once you've installed Arch onto your drive you've done 90% of the work, to get something like XFCE installed it's really easy:
sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-startx xfce4 xterm slim
sudo systemctl enable slim.service
echo "exec startxfce4" > ~/.xinitrc
chmod +x ~/.xinitrc
sudo reboot
But if you're set against Arch, you could try Manjaro Minimal Net Edition which doesn't come with a DE or WM. I've never used it before though so I have no idea to what extent it's like Arch where it doesn't come with necessary packages. I don't know of any other distros that are popular and don't ship with a DE, but it's always possible to disable the default one and replace it with one you prefer.
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