Manjaro 18.0 Released For An Easy-To-Use Arch Linux Desktop Experience

[aksdb]

I never had much luck with Manjaro. I used it for two laptops in the family that both ran into package conflicts from time to time or stopped updating (on its own) at all.
On the other hand my machines with Antergos/Arch, which update far more often, had not a single conflict in the same time. I have no idea what Manjaro is doing (given that the base packages are the same as Arch), but apparently it doesn't run well with me.

[mzs.112000]

> Except the part where it's compatible with all things Arch

That sounds like it implies you don't get compatibility issues like I described? It's effectively Arch for the most part, but the differences are enough that you won't get support from Arch communities majority of the time they're not too friendly about such users and consider the difference to be larger for some reason, even Antergos which iirc is more closer to Arch than Manjaro is.

I don't agree with Euler either, his comments would be better aimed at something like KaOS.

While I like ArchLinux(It is my second-favorite distro, after Linux Mint), I must agree here. The ArchLinux community(tribe?) is very hostile to what they perceive as outsiders(anyone who doesn't use ArchLinux and worship the ArchWiki as their new God). Heck, the Arch tribe is hostile even to insiders and users who happen to have differing opinions and ideas.

Though, I do think that Manjaro is probably one of the best distro's for new Linux users, the Arch base means it gets new package versions way sooner than Ubuntu-based distros, on the other hand because the Manjaro team does more curating of what gets sent out to users(that's why sometimes packages get held back for long periods of time) they do enjoy more stability(compared to Arch).

KaOS is also a great option, it does seem to be heavily derived from Arch technology and the Arch way of doing things, for lack of a better word. Though, IMO it's not the best daily driver(unless you like KDE-aligned software, and little more).

[ms178]

I've tried out an earlier release this year and I liked the sensible optimized Kernel defaults and the default desktop experience - no V-SYNC issues, media files were running great and their packages are kept up-to-date. On the other hand, there were quite a few issues which I did not experience with some of the bigger distros, e.g. the Calamares installer did not like my Intel RAID and simply refused to install. I could work around it, but It turns out that Intel RAID is still not supported yet in 2018 because the developers lack a system to test it (I've filed the Github issue on this). There were also some freezing issues with some recent Kernel releases that were quite annoying. I also had trouble to build my own Kernel package from source using their package builder, the traditional way worked out okay, but that way is harder to maintain. So overall there is a lot of potential but they need to have more rigorous testing and could improve the user experience even further (e.g. I like the powerful YAST tool of Suse where I have a centralized GUI to configure important system parameters and don't need to fiddle with several config files which are spread all over the place etc.).

[polarathene]

I never had much luck with Manjaro. I used it for two laptops in the family that both ran into package conflicts from time to time or stopped updating (on its own) at all.

I happen to have one of those package conflicts atm. I'm not on a LTS kernel currently(4.16 I think) and went overseas for several months, when I returned my system had updates naturally. My kernel was no longer supported by Manjaro and whatever setup they have for drivers(at least nvidia ones) refused to update. Meanwhile updating to a newer kernel refused to happen because of some conflict with the nvidia drivers... fun.

I've had similar in the past some time ago, I could update if I ignore the nvidia drivers(but that requires ignoring multiple packages each time) iirc, and there is probably a way to resolve the issue via CLI, I'm just usually not in the mood to invest time figuring it out.

I have had other issues, usually package related(not Manjaro specific issues though, probably same on Arch or Atergos), those I can handle myself but would make me wary of advising friends to use Manjaro who are less technically inclined to be hands-on about such with their OS(rolling distros are usually not good for them anyhow in that case). I am aware of AUR having an nvidia dkms package, can't recall the issue I was having with it on Manjaro, I know I didn't with Antergos years ago, but I was having an issue either with Manjaro or a custom kernel from the AUR that wasn't playing well.

AUR is great though, other distros I've considered using often lack some packages there that I like to have access to. ArchWiki is fabulous too and been very useful for any technical knowledge I've needed when troubleshooting things. Manjaro has a great community too, very helpful, active and friendly.

[polarathene]

KaOS is also a great option, it does seem to be heavily derived from Arch technology and the Arch way of doing things, for lack of a better word. Though, IMO it's not the best daily driver(unless you like KDE-aligned software, and little more).

I can't personally vouch for KaOS myself.

AUR compatibility isn't supported and they warn caution if you want to use the AUR community repo that you'd get with Arch, Antergos, Manjaro and any others. They have their alternative community repos specific for KaOS, which was not all that appealing to me and I doubt it would be any better now(been about 2 years since I looked at KaOS) as I'd doubt it to have the large active community that maintains and supplies packages for AUR.

A review article from a while ago also pointed out a lot of UX changes KaOS did from upstream KDE beyond just theming which made it confusing or less comfortable to the reviewer and myself, some choices to to their DE customization(including the layout of some apps like Dolphin) seemed perhaps tailored for middle-eastern users with right to left preferences. While that's an interesting niche to cater to, it conflicts with the main appeal of KaOS to me and others that it was specifically focusing on a KDE pure and optimized distro.

They also were strict at the time about choice. If there were multiple choices they would tend to favour only one with only a few exceptions such as web browsers iirc. This also included packages that were deemed too niche for the majority of their user base, such as Synergy for letting your mouse/keyboard be used across multiple systems(or VMs). They supported virtualization tools for VirtualBox and VMWare so those on macOS or Windows for example would be able to evaluate KaOS in a VM, but were against supporting Linux's own QEMU / KVM offering iirc. I can't recall if it was spice guest tools or some virtual graphics adapters, but KaOS was against the request citing they supported enough choice already or something.

They would of course whenever possible avoid GTK, focusing on Qt(5 only I think) packages/apps. Even to the point of Snap/FlatPak which would not require them to maintain the packages or affect their repos for apps installed this way. That was another big drawback to me as some apps I rely on are GTK based, Qt alternatives might have existed but they were not preferable or as capable. A select few GTK apps were supported such as web browsers I think? Since then I believe they're supportive of Flatpak now?

It's a cool kind of distro, but not practical for users like me

[Kivarnis]

> Except the part where it's compatible with all things Arch

That sounds like it implies you don't get compatibility issues like I described? It's effectively Arch for the most part, but the differences are enough that you won't get support from Arch communities majority of the time they're not too friendly about such users and consider the difference to be larger for some reason, even Antergos which iirc is more closer to Arch than Manjaro is.

I don't agree with Euler either, his comments would be better aimed at something like KaOS.

It's close enough where literally nothing that matters to a new user is of any consequence at all. It's Arch, with a shiny paint job and a bit removed from roll out, that's really it. And that's the point, it's new user friendly Arch, it's almost like that is the title of this thread almost, dang.

[skeevy420]

Except the part where it's compatible with all things Arch, and requires all Things Arch when it comes to packages to work, don't start debates of semantics dude, it's pointless.

It isn't compatible with the AUR. Specifically, kernels in the AUR. Marjaro has a kernel/hardware manager that only works with Manjaro repository kernels and GPU drivers. Installig kernels that aren't supplied by Manjaro is not an easy experience. It's the direct reason I switched from Manjaro to Antergos a few years back (needed to compile CIK enabled kernels for AMDGPU and Manjaro did not make that easy or user friendly).

[skeevy420]

It's close enough where literally nothing that matters to a new user is of any consequence at all. It's Arch, with a shiny paint job and a bit removed from roll out, that's really it. And that's the point, it's new user friendly Arch, it's almost like that is the title of this thread almost, dang.

Saying they're "close enough" is like debianxfce saying Debian and Ubuntu are "close enough" so it's OK to use Ubuntu PPAs on Debian. They're close, but there are enough differences that treating Manjaro as a 1:1 replacement for Arch or Antergos is not recommended, especially for new users.

Antergos is "New User Friendly Arch". Manjaro is an easy-to-use Linux OS that happens to use similar tools as Arch.

[varikonniemi]

One other advantage used to be the BFQ scheduler by default(the kernel they ship has few extras/differences),

This version has BFQ again.

[polarathene]

This version has BFQ again.

It's always had it afaik, that's not what I meant by "advantage used to be" with BFQ. The single queue scheduler was patched into the kernel they provide while others didn't. But since it became available as a blk-mq scheduler in mainline, it's less important of a selling point for Manjaro now :P