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What is your unbiased opinion on Manjaro?

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?

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  • 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.

    • "Unbiased opinion" is an oxymoron.

    • As an Arch user this is how I feel about Manjaro as well. Installing Arch not only allows you to customize every aspect from the shell to the DE and more but also teaches you how to maintain and fix your OS when it breaks.

      The best Arch-based distro is Arch.

    • Personally, I think the idea that you can't ask the right questions because you haven't installed Arch manually is a silly notion that's borderline gatekeeping. It's why Arch users have the reputation that they do and why Arch itself has a reputation for being difficult even though it really isn't.

      Over the years, I've moved from Manjaro to Antergos to Endeavor, and then finally the official archinstall tool. I probably will never be arsed to install Arch by hand, but it doesn't mean that when something breaks I don't know how to consult the Arch Wiki and fix it myself.

      Do users of other distros not know how to ask the right questions? Are Arch users the only ones who know their system inside and out? I don't think so. Every person has their own threshold for how much investment they want to make into learning about their system, no matter the distro.

      • The reason Arch users all end up like this is that we've all tried to help someone, been run around for hours, and then finally figured out that the problem is caused by some stupid thing that Manjaro did despite the person insisting the whole time that they're using Arch and there's literally nothing we could do to help, only to be called an elitist gatekeeper for trying to point it out because "It's the same thing." Fuck that, and fuck you for calling me a gatekeeper.

        If you want to use Arch use Arch. You are welcome to use it. It's not actually hard. If you can read a wiki, you can install Arch. It's not a fucking herculean task that only super-geniuses can manage. I get it. Some people's brains don't mesh with the wiki style of information presentation, and that's okay. That doesn't make you inferior or unintelligent, but if you think the Arch wiki is good for other things then you can just install it in an afternoon. I promise. And you'll learn more in that afternoon than you learn in a year of using Manjaro. Seriously. I'm not kidding.

        If that's not what you want, there are almost certainly other distros that are way, waaaaaaay better for you than any Arch-based distro is. I can't actually stop anyone from using Manjaro, or Endeavor, or whatever else they want to use, and I wouldn't want to be able to. I'm not in charge of your life. If you want to do something stupid you should be able to make that choice. I just want to point out how stupid it is. Is that so wrong?

    • 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.

      • If you don't want to spend the time to completely customize your system just don't use an Arch based system. Seriously. Arch has some neat things about it, but it's not the magical be all and end all of distros. If you don't want to use what it's good at use Mint, or Debian, or PopOS, or Ubuntu, or Fedora, or if you want something bleeding edge use OpenSuse Tumbleweed. You don't have to use shitty imitation Arch if you don't want to use Arch. You also don't need experience with Manjaro to use Arch. I jumped straight into Arch after using Mint for years and it was fine. I still use Mint on my laptop and as a backup on my old drive I moved to my new computer just in case I do something stupid in Arch. Mint is great. I just like playing around with completely customizing my system. Why would you want something Arch based if you don't care about the main thing it's actually good at?

        • To answer your question: AUR. Aur is something that I love about Arch.

          Also please stop gatekeeping. Installing Arch by hand instead of using something like EndevaourOS doesn't mean anything. I used EndevaourOS after using arch simply because it was way faster and easier to configure. It still has all the functionality of arch (since essentially it is arch).

          If you don't want to spend the time to completely customize your system just don't use an Arch based system

          Thats the thing. You can still customize everything and anything. I mean what's stopping you from using a tty and changing things? Also even the installer helps you customize a lot of things...

          • I'm not gatekeeping. Arch isn't fucking magical. Do whatever you want. I just actually don't get it. What's the point? I don't even use the AUR. It's not that good. It's an inconsistent mess of janky conflicting build scripts and trust me bro binaries, and you can get basically anything there in almost any distro nowadays. Hell, most of it's on Flathub. You can also customize anything you want on any distro. Arch is just the easiest one to start from a very minimal system and build something up that's totally yours. Why use a distro that only takes that away and adds nothing?

152 comments