I am a Linux noobie and have only used Mint for around six months now. While I have definitely learned a lot, I don’t have the time to always be doing crazy power user stuff and just want something that works out of the box. While I love Mint, I want to try out other decently easy to use distros as well, specifically not based on Ubuntu, so no Pop OS. Is Manjaro a possibly good distro for me to check out?

  • foobarijk@lemmy.ml
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve installed Arch, Arcos and Manjaro (from the Arch based distros). Manjaro and Arcos are faster and easier to install and setup compared to Arch. Manjaro has nice GUI to select kernel, GPU drivers and install software (and does not automatically move you to the newest kernel, as opposed to Arch or Arcos). They had fucked up (I think 3 times) with renewing their SSL certificate, and for a short while their ISOs were unverifiable (not that big of an issue if you ask me). Since they delay their packages’ updates, running them in testing for a few months for extra stability, installing from AUR is bound to break.

    I’ve installed Manjaro on 3 computers, and worked with it extensively for about 3 years. It’s a decent distro that doesn’t deserve all the hate it gets.

  • air_filter@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve had more success with Manjaro than any other distro. I’ve gotten lots of software working because of the great package manager, all using a GUI. I think it’s really easy to use and at the same time really flexible and powerful. I’ve tried to install Arch twice and failed both times. I guess I’m an idiot. Manjaro is easy to install and you get all the power a flexibility of Arch’s package management.

  • blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk
    1·
    1 year ago

    I used to use it on my laptop and found it to be stable and solid. I never encountered any of the theoretical issues people brandish about. The GUI app store was really good (pamac) and frankly if it was included with EndeavourOS it would be perfect and I could recommend EOS to anyone; without the GUI app store EOS really are intentionally limiting how popular they could be. The default wallpapers were a little bland.

    I switched to endeavour as when wanting to move away from Ubuntu on my desktop Manjaro didn’t like my multi monitor setup (and nor did anything else I tried other than EndeavourOS and Ubuntu). If that had worked I might still be using it now.

  • wiz@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 year ago

    I was forced to switch from manjaro to fedora at work a year ago (we were forced to pick between Ubuntu or Fedora) and I miss it. Things break more often on fedora, I now even lag 1 release behind so that I don’t have to deal with breaking updates. I didn’t have any problems with manjaro. Still use it at home

  • bellsDoSing@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been using Manjaro (XFCE edition) as my daily driver, both on a laptop and a desktop system for more than 6 years now. I’ve tried many others beforehand: Ubuntu and its variations, Arch, Fedora, Tumbleweed, …

    But Manjaro was what made me stop hopping around. While it’s true that it has some pitfalls (e.g. cert issues, AUR incompatibility at times), to this day it’s working well enough for me that I don’t feel like switching away.

    I’m not just browsing web on it either. Software engineering, music production, image and video processing, etc.

    Then again, I don’t consider myself a beginner at this point and can troubleshoot a fair amount of issues now that I simply couldn’t when I started using Linux more than a decade ago.

    I also try to:

    • not overdo the amount of AUR stuff I use
    • read the official forum post BEFORE whenever I run a system update

    I also always appreciated the fact that I could get away with not doing a system update for like six weeks and then do a big one (as mentioned, in combination with reading their update announcement). That’s always something that didn’t quite work for me on Arch in the past (then again, I still was a beginner back then, so most “reinstall to solve this problem” situations back then were on me).

    What if Manjaro really would get worse enough so I’d want to switch? I guess EndeavourOS would be an option, because it’s very close to Arch, but at the same time, it seemingly offers a graphical installer that hopefully will set itself up properly on a laptop. Then again, I haven’t installed Arch in quite a while now. Maybe the install experience has gotten much nicer.

  • nieceandtows@programming.dev
    1·
    1 year ago

    I used manjaro for a long while before I distro hopped and I think it’s a fine distro. Never had any problems with it. People keep pointing to the couple of times when it had some certificate issues. I don’t think it’s very relevant, and I only had positive things to say while I was using it.

      • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
        11·
        6 months ago

        It does! But I recently gave Bazzite a try…yeah I’m not ready for this so-called atomic distro (it’s based on Fedora). I’m now, for the moment, settled on Garuda Linux (based on Arch). I’m liking it thus far, but if anything goes awry, I may head back to Manjaro. Garuda is much closer to Arch prime (running 6.8.9 linux-zen kernel where Manjaro is on 6.6.x still). And the chaotic-aur is actually kinda nice. Time will tell if I stick with it!

  • ZephrC@lemm.ee
    1·
    1 year ago

    What even is an unbiased opinion? That doesn’t even begin to make sense.

    That being said, my very biased opinion is that it’s a great way to install Arch without learning how Arch works so that when it inevitably breaks you don’t even know how to ask the right questions.

    • zarkony@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I disagree. Not everyone wants to spend the time to completely customize their system. Distros like Manjaro and Endeavor give people a decent “just works” install while still giving them experience with the Arch ecosystem. The forums are usually a good resource, and everything on the arch wiki still applies. It might just be because I had previous linux experience, but I’ve learned a lot running Manjaro.

      The average person is not going to jump straight into vanilla Arch as their first distro, but after a couple years with Manjaro, they might try it.

  • poVoq@slrpnk.net
    0·
    1 year ago

    Its ok, but the Arch repos are very limited limited and I can’t recommend using AUR much.

    Better try Fedora.

  • companero [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Fedora is nice, not based on Ubuntu, and it mostly “just works” out of the box. The only obnoxious part is having to manually install codecs to play videos.