I’m rather skeptical if such version of Manjaro would work or that it would live long. The nature of Manjaro is to be changeable, and any versions that try to artificially solidify it come at a heavy cost. Such distro wouldn’t be Manjaro anymore. But that is my personal take.
I also maintain systems on various family computers, and decided to install Mint on my dad’s PC, because I also had issues after forgetting to update it for a longer time. Additionally, there were often some minor things to tweak or repair. Those are fine on my computer, but I don’t want to be bothered with them, when I’m maintaining someone else’s computer.
Mint is easy to update and doesn’t break easily, even if you forget to update it for a year or two. If you want the newest version, there are typically ways to upgrade it too, I made it several times and had no issues, but such upgrade is risky, so having a backup is a must.
Basically, you need an OS that is for dummies, and Mint is one. It’s a low maintenance system. Alternatively, you can use one of those immutable distros – those seem to be a good choice for grandparents and alike.
There is a Docker version of Manjaro which (as I understand it) is frozen between releases. The concept isn’t much different from having a curated or managed release cycle, in my opinion.
Before anyone jumps in to try and trash that comment, I’ll just say that I’m aware they are not stictly the same. However, a standard major release cycle isn’t much different, when you think about it.
Sure, it would probably need to be another stream rather than the typical Manjaro rolling release; but doesn’t Arch already do this to some extent with the monthly ISO release? With Manjaro, I imagine it would just need to be locked down a little more, and it would likely be a little less current, to maintain stability.
Debian has managed this for many years with varying degrees of success, and public criticism. I don’t see why Manjaro could not; albeit requiring additional resources to bring such a project to fruition.
At least in one of the previous forums we had a few sperlunkers that had been around a while and dug up old machines with old installs and tried to update them.
By and large they seemed to be successful.
I had an old netbook that survived something like a 2 or 3 year hiatus.
PS. It looks like sourceforge might be a viable option for those old ISOs:
It’s not worse than rolling release, it’s just different in where/how your time is spent.
For fixed release distros like Mint, every 4 or 5 years, you spend say 3 to 4 hours installing a fresh iso on your grandparents’ computer and setting it up the way they want. But remember, you get to choose and plan when you want to do it. And if you plan it correctly, [eg, you have placed all their data, media and document files in a separate drive/partition which is regularly backed up, make timeshift snapshots of their system, save their config files somewhere before you carry out the fresh install so you can copy them back after install], the fresh install will not be complex.
Normal day to day updates are generally click and forget. Your grandparents should be able to do that from Mint’s updater.
That time spent on this fresh install? Probably shouldn’t be much more than the accumulated time you spend over 4 to 5 years on Manjaro updates – checking the forum’s update announcements, carrying out any manual intervention, doing system maintenance (pacnew files, changes in file permissions etc), rebuilding say python packages or AUR stuff.
The download size of 1 Mint iso? Tons smaller than the Manjaro updates you download in 4 to 5 years!
IMO, an easy to use fixed release distro is a better solution when you are expected to maintain someone else’s computer and you can’t be there often.
“Manjaro was first released on July 10, 2011” – from Wikipedia.
Or, on the cusp with repect the dawn of UEFI.
Support was widely non-existent at the time for UEFI systems (apart from Intel’s excursion with Tiano core on Itanium, for example). I recall having a 6th generation system that supported UEFI via an experimental dualBIOS upgrade (which was flaky, at best).
I imagine Grub 1999 (or whatever it’s called retroactively) will produce better results.
Does anyone happen to know the first Manjaro version that fully supported UEFI?
As I understand it correctly, there would be issues with AUR packages on such distro and face it, if Manjaro would have no AUR, we wouldn’t be using it. This is why I am skeptical.
Manjaro allows the option to use the AUR, if only by virtue of its inheritance from Arch; even though its not officially supported. Using it with a hybrid (non-rolling) installation would be equally unsupported; moreso, if maintaining stability is an objective.
Granted, it’s nice to have extra options for software – the AUR, Flatpak, AppImage, et. al. – however, the traditional lack of software catering for every whim is hardly limited to only Arch-based distributions. The only distribution that comes close to having such a wide range of software available is Debian and by extension its dirivatives such as Ubuntu.
My point is, that like Ubuntu’s user repo’s, the AUR is an available option and not a reason, for choosing Manjaro. That said, I use the AUR myself for a (very) few applications and it can be convenient; but if software availability was my prime concern I probably would have chosen Debian (which I did, for another installation, but shh).
With this, I’m in agreement; but only from the perspective that the AUR already doesn’t play nicely with Manjaro (or Arch) in so many situations.
The use of the AUR via Pamac (GUI) is actively promoted by Users wanting an easy route; whereas problems are commonly introduced because of this choice; when the same software might already exist in the Arch repo’s.
Back on point. I’d like to see such a distribution, if only to encourage wider adoption in general. This could benefit new (and existing) Users greatly, giving them a platform on which to learn the basics; with minimal chance of them borking their systems. They could move on to a rolling realease when they are comfortable. I imagine this approach could potentially reduce the support overhead, as well.
Seriously, I like Rocky Linux too, but only with KDE. Enterprise Linux (EL) of all flavours are fine for their intended purpose; and official support does tend to be lengthy. Redhat clones are typically rock solid, until you throw a gui into the mix (Yes, I’m looking at you, Mr. Gnome); and the distribution suffers as much as all the rest if regular maintenance isn’t performed.
I have an old Dell laptop that is max’ed out at 4G of RAM and I’ve tried to use Manjaro KDE on it with very frustrating results. Most people I’m sure would simply dump the laptop but there are things that I like about it and have tried to make it functional. To that end, I’ve been running MX-Linux KDE on it and I find it really snappy (as long as I don’t try to run too many apps at once). The point is, MX is Debian-based and, unlike Manjaro, is a fixed point release. As @wongs mentioned, the occasional updates are nothing much to speak of and cause little if any problems at all. In fact, over the three years I’ve been using it, I can’t remember any major problems with updating. Last year, I did the one major upgrade from MX-19 to MX-21. It took about a week between the research, planning and actual upgrade (or really a re-install because I was shifting the install to a larger hard drive). Because I was willing and able to schedule the time and energy for the changeover, it all went smoothly.
This past Summer, another version was released but I haven’t set aside the time to do it (I’ve been too busy doing Manjaro updates … just kidding, … I think). Despite the delay in upgrading, I’ve had no problems at all when running the laptop and I still receive and install the handful of updates that come down for my existing install.
Overall @hagbrain21, based on my brief experience of a fixed point vs a rolling release, if I had to choose between a Manjaro install or an MX-Linux install for your situation, there would be no question but that the MX choice would be the least time consuming and the least disruptive of your day-to-day schedule.
If ever there was a Linux-for-Dummies then MX Linux would surely qualify; for example, Gparted is provided as the default partitioning option (or was, last time I checked); plus, with software availability inherited from Debian, there’s no need to stray too far to find whatever software is desired.
I did indeed find MX easy to work with – a definite plus for this particular “dummie” – and one of the real advantages for me were the terrific and helpful series of YouTube videos by one of the developers: Dolphin Oracle. Another draw for me was the ability to run the entire kit and kaboodle off a 32G flash drive, moving and running that same drive on different computers as desired. If I weren’t running Manjaro right now, I would most definitely be running MX.
