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?
It sucks.
I’ve never used Manjaro, but I’ve used Arch (I don’t currently use it) enough to know where it went wrong. Basically, they’re trying to make a snapshot based distro out of a distro that’s not snapshot based, and they run into issues because of it. On Arch, if you have an issue, you revert and wait a couple days. On Manjaro, if you have an issue, you revert and then wait, a week? Two? Is there any reasonable assumption that the next snapshot is good? I don’t think they have the manpower to ensure snapshots are high quality, so they’re merely whatever existed at the time, perhaps with obvious issues fixed.
I currently use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, which is snapshot based by design, while also being a rolling release. The way OpenSUSE works is by having all snapshots go through openQA, which means all snapshots (near daily) go through an automated test suite. So if something breaks, they’ll write a test and the next snapshot won’t have that issue.
So my opinion is to go with something release based (e.g. Mint) or bleeding edge (e.g. Arch), but don’t try to go somewhere in the middle unless you have a larger team. So either trust your user or your dev team, there shouldn’t be a middle ground.
This makes so much sense… I used Manjaro like 2 or 3 years ago and really loved it… Until it just died one day a couple months in. I spent a good amount of time troubleshooting and when I couldn’t fix it I gave up on it.
Figured since Manjaro came so highly recommended, Linux and I just weren’t enough on the same level yet and to give it some more time… But from reading all the comments in this thread, it sounds like I had the typical Manjaro experience.
Man, I kinda wish it wasn’t as commonly recommended. Hell even I’ve recommended it as I had a really good experience with it before it died and I assumed that was my fault; after all, so many people recommend manjaro that it’s more likely I alone was the problem, not the distro…
Yeah, and that’s the problem. It’s kind they gave all of the elitism of typical Arch users, but without the general stability to back it up. They try to make Arch more stable but holding back certain updates, but that just creates more problems because they don’t have the manpower to actually test that combination of packages.
If you want a “stable” rolling release, use Tumbleweed, they have a decent team that prioritizes testing. If you want a super customized setup, use Arch (or Void). If you want Arch, but don’t want to install it manually, use EndeavorOS. But don’t use Manjaro, it can break in unexpected ways because of how they manage their package repository.
But if you’re new to Linux, you should probably use Mint. It works really well out of the box, there are lots of flavors, and it’ll be easy to find guides and support.
I’ve been using Garuda, another arch based distro, for several months now that have been smooth sailing. If I start tumbling into trouble town again though, I will heed your advice and switch to mint. :)