Manjaro 19.0 Preview Images For KDE + GNOME Available For Testing

[Citan]

Well, thank you all for your replies. It was indeed off-topic so plz consider my question has been amply answered.

[Charlie68]

All these things can be done with arch too, it's just my belief that arch is a more sane distribution and the packaging quality is superior. Tumbleweed is pretty good, I don't have something against it, but for example in kate (kde's text editor) you cannot edit root files because opensuse maintainer has disabled it with a patch due to their crazy security "standards" (works fine in every other distribution). The crazy patching is what makes opensuse weird and not a sane distribution in my eyes (and all these -branding packages and the really limited repositories with many packages outdated/umaintained even in Tumbleweed with Packman repos).

Anyway, I just stated an opinion for a guy who asked, we are way out of topic here so let's agree that we disagree and stop this discussion

My comment was related to this sentence

Debian unstable, fedora rawhide and opensuse tumbleweed break easily too and they don't let you update partially packages but you have to update everything

your talk about Kate and other things is just your preference and I don't discuss it.

[ThanosApostolou]

I don't know how it works on other rolling distributions, I have been using Tumbleweed for 3 years without problems.
In Tumbleweed "you can't" have as you say partial updates (although it is not true, but it is not recommended) because it would be easier to break the system. Tumbleweed works on the snapshots and tests the snapshots that provide all the updates, if the snapshot fails, you can easily go back to the previous snapshot, effectively canceling the update. You don't know what you're saying, or I haven't understood the meaning of what you mean. If you do not want to update the kernel for example, simply lock it and it will not be updated. I don't think you've used Tumbleweed for a while ... or have used it with the Ubuntu mentality.

All these things can be done with arch too, it's just my belief that arch is a more sane distribution and the packaging quality is superior. Tumbleweed is pretty good, I don't have something against it, but for example in kate (kde's text editor) you cannot edit root files because opensuse maintainer has disabled it with a patch due to their crazy security "standards" (works fine in every other distribution). The crazy patching is what makes opensuse weird and not a sane distribution in my eyes (and all these -branding packages and the really limited repositories with many packages outdated/umaintained even in Tumbleweed with Packman repos).

Anyway, I just stated an opinion for a guy who asked, we are way out of topic here so let's agree that we disagree and stop this discussion

[Charlie68]

No contradiction. That's how things are done in all rolling distributions that I know. Debian unstable, fedora rawhide and opensuse tumbleweed break easily too and they don't let you update partially packages but you have to update everything (or even if they let you, that's a bad design because you'll end up with completely broken dependencies). So, that's a sane behavior. The only repositories with different behavior are the Fedora Modular repositories, but from my experience I've found that they are a complete mess and I don't think that anyone is using them seriously (and of course flatpaks and snaps which have completely different logic than regular repositories).

In my opinion, arch is more sane in other aspects as flexibility for custom packages and configurability (just try to use apparmor in Fedora or selinux in Ubuntu). Also in update policy and minimization of patches (see how often things break in Ubuntu and OpenSuse with outdated software and custom patches by each maintainer).

I don't know how it works on other rolling distributions, I have been using Tumbleweed for 3 years without problems.
In Tumbleweed "you can't" have as you say partial updates (although it is not true, but it is not recommended) because it would be easier to break the system. Tumbleweed works on the snapshots and tests the snapshots that provide all the updates, if the snapshot fails, you can easily go back to the previous snapshot, effectively canceling the update. You don't know what you're saying, or I haven't understood the meaning of what you mean. If you do not want to update the kernel for example, simply lock it and it will not be updated. I don't think you've used Tumbleweed for a while ... or have used it with the Ubuntu mentality.

[ThanosApostolou]

I take it you don't see the inherent contradiction in these 2 statements.

No contradiction. That's how things are done in all rolling distributions that I know. Debian unstable, fedora rawhide and opensuse tumbleweed break easily too and they don't let you update partially packages but you have to update everything (or even if they let you, that's a bad design because you'll end up with completely broken dependencies). So, that's a sane behavior. The only repositories with different behavior are the Fedora Modular repositories, but from my experience I've found that they are a complete mess and I don't think that anyone is using them seriously (and of course flatpaks and snaps which have completely different logic than regular repositories).

In my opinion, arch is more sane in other aspects as flexibility for custom packages and configurability (just try to use apparmor in Fedora or selinux in Ubuntu). Also in update policy and minimization of patches (see how often things break in Ubuntu and OpenSuse with outdated software and custom patches by each maintainer).

[Spooktra]

I believe arch is the most sane distribution. The only drawback is that it breaks kinda easily and it doesn't support partial updates

I take it you don't see the inherent contradiction in these 2 statements.

[ThanosApostolou]

Back on topic, to people who are into trying all distributions? For an upcoming new computer in mid-2020, mixing both personal and professional uses, is that kind of distro stable and reliable enough? Or would I better grab a Debian and spent as much time as needed to get a polished yet nice KDE environment?

Well I distro-hopped this summer again after I was disappointed by the latest Fedora release. I tried for a while latest Kubuntu but it got really buggy (lots of segfaults of applications in default repositories). So I returned again to arch. I believe arch is the most sane distribution. The only drawback is that it breaks kinda easily and it doesn't support partial updates so sometimes you have to update your whole system even if you just want to install some packages for some specific task (e.g. if glibc has been updated and newer packages have been built against it). So, I have at my top of /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist the lines

## Latest
Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2020/01/07/$repo/os/$arch
## Previous
# Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2020/01/06/$repo/os/$arch

and so I get all my packages from the archived repositories. I update the date only when I have free time (usually weekends) and revert back to my previous date with pacman -Syyuu (all the packages will be in cache) if I find any problems. The only problem is a bit slow download speeds (at least from where I leave).

Manjaro is also good (I've used it before and I've contributed to some community editions there), but only if you stay in stable branch (testing and unstable tend to break more often than arch).

[Charlie68]

I like Manjaro and have it used it extensively in the past, but like all rolling release distros I have ever tried, it's prone to breaking with just an update. Arch breaks all the time, as do all the Arch derivatives I have ever tried, as does OpenSuse Tumbleweed, if it's rolling, then it's unreliable,

The rolling release versions have their advantages and disadvantages, just like the fix releases. It always depends on the user's needs to understand what is best for him.
Personally I have been using Tumbleweed for 3 years and I have never had problems, with rolling releases it is better to avoid the proprietary drivers as they always update late.
However if it happens that an update breaks my system (Tumbleweed) I would restore it with a click, thanks to the snapshots, so it would not be a problem.

[HaydenMk2]

Fixed that for you.

Back on topic, to people who are into trying all distributions? For an upcoming new computer in mid-2020, mixing both personal and professional uses, is that kind of distro stable and reliable enough? Or would I better grab a Debian and spent as much time as needed to get a polished yet nice KDE environment?

I use KDE Manjaro on my main machine, it's decent, but KDE still can be unstable at times. Don't even bother with Wayland yet. But the default set of applications (Dolphin, Konsole, the shell itself) is quite decent and good looking.

I also use AUR a lot, central community repo is such a good idea (for example chromium patched with vaapi support is just a git clone away). I suggest you give it a spin and see for yourself.

[Spooktra]

Back on topic, to people who are into trying all distributions? For an upcoming new computer in mid-2020, mixing both personal and professional uses, is that kind of distro stable and reliable enough? Or would I better grab a Debian and spent as much time as needed to get a polished yet nice KDE environment?

I like Manjaro and have it used it extensively in the past, but like all rolling release distros I have ever tried, it's prone to breaking with just an update. Arch breaks all the time, as do all the Arch derivatives I have ever tried, as does OpenSuse Tumbleweed, if it's rolling, then it's unreliable,

I also don't trust the none LTS Ubuntu variants, as I have had them break fairly easily as well.

For pure stability, which I need for my main desktop, I only use Ubuntu LTS variants, usually with MATE, but I like KDE and Budgie as well. It's the only distro I have seen that is reliable enough that I didn't have to worry that it won't boot up when I have a deadline to meet.

For my older laptops that are basically toys, I use Manjaro XFCE because it's nice and lightweight or Calculate :Linux for the same reason or when i want to test the latest Fedora or OpenSuse Leap offering.