Hey fellas friends. Sorry to create yet another post on this topic (maybe we should have a sticky for this?).
About 2 weeks ago I decided it was time to move on from Windows and installed Manjaro. I would consider myself a newbie-intermediate level linux user.
Though I’ve used Windows most my life, we use Linux servers (no GUI) at work, managing them is part of job description. I also own a late 2011 Macbook Pro with vanilla Arch Linux. I barely ever use it but boy, Arch really brought it back to life!
I’ve been reasonably happy with Manjaro so far, feels easy and intuitive to use but the community has made me aware that Manjaro is maybe a questionable choice. Since I don´t plan on distro-hopping a lot I want to get it right sooner rather than later.
Here’s what I’m looking for:
- Rolling distribution, preferably. Though this machine is also used for work, our environment depends mostly on remote servers anyway. I’d rather have a distribution that provides the most recent packages for whatever I want
- I don´t mind running a distribution that forces me learn new things or do things in a different way, I kinda embrace it. I just don´t enjoy complexity for complexity’s sake.
- KDE is my preferred Desktop Environment so far, though I guess that’s not very relevant. I’d love to run Hyprland, but you know… Nvidia :(
- I play games on Steam but from my understanding this doesn´t matter either. Everything I tried worked great, I don´t think I want a ¨gaming focused" distro or anything like that
- No Ubuntu, please.
My hardware, in case you feel is relevant!
OS: Manjaro Linux x86_64
Kernel: 6.5.5-1-MANJARO
Shell: bash 5.1.16
Resolution: 2560x1440, 2560x1440
WM: KWin
Terminal: konsole
Terminal Font: MesloLGS NF 10
CPU: 12th Gen Intel i7-12700K (20) @ 4.900GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Lite Hash Rate
Memory: 23313MiB / 64087MiB
Based on your requirements Arch Linux or OpenSuSe Tumbleweed is what you want
Run away from Manjaro.
I can recommend Tumbleweed. I’m far from linux pro, so I really love the easy rollback function. It was a life saver couple of times for me. Now rolling for 2,5 years and can’t complain at all!
I’m on AMD, so not sure how’s nvidia.
Or alternatively, there’s always Hannah Montana Linux…
Fellas?
I was under the impression that fella was a gender neutral adjective to describe people with the same interests or group. TIL.
Endevour OS, 100%. Is Arch but without the hassle. I did the same as you, Manjaro then Endevour. Couldn’t be happier. Also we have similar hardware (nvidia 3080) and kde+wayland is working really good here. If you would like to try something else, Nobara is great, based on fedora but with some gaming patches.
kde+wayland is working really good here
That’s nice to read. Do you also have 2 monitors? I have this issue where a screen starts to flickr randomly, apparently it’s related to multiple monitors.
Yeah. Well I have 2 + tv. I get some flicker on some xwayland apps, but right now my only remaining xwayland app is Reaper, afaik, at least the only one that flickers. No flicker on native wayland apps. Also, this workaround is worth at least trying to get rid of visual artifacts in kde:
- Search in krunner or similar for “Plasma renderer”, under “rendering loop” select “Threaded”. Then reboot, not relog, reboot.
Anything but Manjaro. I won’t get into the reasons why because it’s easy to find, but suffice it to say that it’s an amateur distro that makes dumb mistakes.
If you want rolling, Arch, Tumbleweed and Endeavour are the first places to look. Maybe even Fedora because it updates very fast, although it’s not rolling.
I’ve been using Manjaro for years without issue. I fully understand the arguments against using it, but it’s never been a problem for me and I’m too lazy to distro hop for no good reason.
Are there problems with Manjaro? Yes, of course.
Are they bad enough that “anything but Manjaro” is good advice to give to someone? IMO, no.
I’m just like you, newbie-intermediate Linux user who recently jumped from Windows to (Ubuntu then) Manjaro. What’s wrong with Manjaro?
I’ve seen this link going around quite frequently: https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
Thanks. Guess I’ll have to look into EndeavourOS too, as commenters seem to be saying.
Those “issues” were one time things that got fixed. Other than that, people seem to get a bee in their bonnet about “AUR compatibility”.
There’s no such thing. AUR stuff can and will break unexpectedly because it’s compiled at one time against a transitory system state. It will happen whether you’re on Arch or Manjaro. There’s absolutely nothing in Arch that will prevent it.
Pasting an old reply of mine from another thread answering this same question:
Manjaro is…tricky.
I’ve called it an Arch based distro that kinda sucks at being an Arch based distro before, and I stand by that. You can’t treat Manjaro like you would EndeavourOS or Vanilla Arch Linux because of how Manjaro decides to do things: essentially, updates are held back by a couple of weeks for better and worse instead of being released as they’re made avaliable. While that means it can catch disastrous things like the GRUB issue another user pointed out (Manjaro was unaffected by it IIRC), it also means the system is prone to breaking itself more often. And you can forget about using the AUR if you’re using Manjaro–or well, you can, but the AUR and Manjaro are nortorious for not playing nice with one another because of the latter’s tendencies to hold back packages, which, natrually, leads to even more breaking.
Personally, I wouldn’t recomend it. However, If you don’t mind being extra careful with what you install (really that’s standard practice for any distro, but hey, I’ve never found a WIP package that messed up my system anywhere other than when using Manjaro, so make of that what you will), are willing to tolerate constant mild to severe breakage, and just using Flatpaks and appimages over the AUR, then give Manjaro a try, but otherwise? Go with EndeavourOS, or Garuda, or literally anything else.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I haven’t had any issues in my few weeks with it, but I don’t want to wait until issues do show up.
Honestly I was just in love because the wifi just worked somehow without me having to port over drivers via USB dongle from my laptop.
I’ve been using Manjaro for years with zero issues. Far fewer than using Arch for example.
I can only speak to my expierence with Manjaro, and it was…not good. It pretty much found a way to uniquely break itself every boot from me…just treating it like I would Arch (i didn’t find out how you’re maybe supposed to use it till later, when i moved on to another distro). And in every Manjaro post or comment, there’s several anecdotes that are similiar to mine: somehow, someway, Manjaro freaked out and died…and then there’s a couple that are like yours: “I’ve used it for several years with zero problems” and i gotta ask: how? Legit curious. Is “waiting 14 days to update + not using the AUR at all, if possible” sound advise or am I waaaay off the mark?
