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
    1·
    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.

      • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
        11·
        8 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.

  • air_filter@lemm.ee
    1·
    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.

  • 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.