Please ask for help on here, especially about the printing issue. I believe that you can solve this one quickly. So start a new thread. There are people on here that can really help you. As for Gnome, start another thread, and ask about that. I have been using Manjaro since 2012 and have been helped many times.
So, what kind of printer do you have? Start that printer thread NOW! This forum can help and I want you and your mom to start enjoying the software experience.
Sorry, I did not see your response. But give us a try, start that thread. My dear mother taught me a very old saying:
Hi, I don’t do much in Python in my current job, but I often feel Spyder gets overlooked as a Python IDE. I think I mainly like it because it’s very like RStudio, and R coding is 99% of my job. I’ve only really gotten into RKWard in the last year, because I bought a Pinebook Pro and I can’t get RStudio to build on aarch64 Linux at the mo. If I ever do, I’ll shove something on the AUR. Having said that, RKWard is growing on me, although I do have a few niggles.
In a managed environment, absolutely, assuming the only software you need is a browser, a mail client, an office suite and of course solitaire.
As others have pointed it out there are software like Photoshop that don’t have an exact alternative, and don’t run on wine.
Gnome has a very distinct LAF compared to Windows. KDE or Cinnamon could’ve yielded a better transition experience.
Youtube - Freetube
notes - Standard Notes (full encryption)
email - Evolution (and in years still can’t find anything as a proper replacement this is so good)
password manager - interesting choices but i have always stayed with Keepass, and more recently Bitwarden for ease of use.
OMG and I have just posted it a min ago under the “printing support” thread… now what to do…? if I delete it than bec of spam algo it cannot be posted again… maybe an admin will move it if I am lucky
Ps.: Linux foruming is as hard to me as installing Arch or printing…
I am so happy for you. You are on your way? Be humble and nice to your mom. Start training her to use Manjaro. Rather than just rant, ask your questions and everyone on who will help you.
A word of warning, if these two machines are for work, then keep it that way. If you just want to play, then install a test system on another partition or better yet on another machine.
Just to add my personal 2ct. to the story: I would NOT choose Manjaro as a desktop system for a “professional” PC environment if this means that it’ll be installed for more than two desktop seats.
Why?
First off, its not about the system stability or reliability or general software support or because it may have or not more rough edges (I don’t think it has). For me Manjaro serves all my computing needs perfectly and the occasional issue that I have is generally perfectly covered by the fine Manjaro forum (or a solution is to be found for Arch elsewhere).
So now, then WHY not? For a “professional” environment I would rather choose CentOS (if I don’t want to spend money) or RHEL (if I have money to spend). I am saying this as an avid KDE Plasma user … The reason for that is, that for me if I run a business and the business relies on desktop machines, I want them to run like pocket calculators. RHEL (and the like) do just that, they get installed and then they only receive security updates. Period. NEVER will they have any kind of update incompatibility issues, they will not receive a monthly GB of updates (and potential issues). Once they have been set up to do what they should do they WILL do so until your office burns down.
If your software developer wants to network with your business with a laptop of his choice and cares for the OS (and the issues) all by himself, let him run whatever he wants (and Manjaro is one of the best of choices…).
LOOOL You are kinda convincing… why dont you apply for sales position somewhere?
…until the office burns down LOL
DOWNLOADING CENTOS right now! 30 sec to go! Gonna install it tomorrow in the office. Manjaro at home for bleeding edge on power PC and Centos in the office for zero hassle always on.
This sums it up pretty nicely. Manjaro can work as office workstation, but centos is actually built for it. In my experience, office workers hate change, and centos just doesn’t do that. I wouldn’t want to use it for my personal use, but if I need to manage 40+ systems for business, centos makes it easy.
At work I actually use Fedora, because most of our servers are red hat based, but I want to use something newer than centos.
Exactly my thoughts! Im willing to learn new apps and new tricks to get things done…but I can’t learn everything new all at once. And essentially, there are a few things that I need, like being able to access my LAN shares and printer support.
I received my new Pinebook Pro (PBP) just in time to start a new writing project, one that required a lot of research, time spent writing, and had a deadline. I used LibreOffice, which worked out fairly well–except for a complete inability to change the color of fonts–which only became a problem when importing text from other source docs. Then I ran into the complete lack of Printer Support, that really did me in. Finally, there were some strange behaviours of the LibreOffice app itself, like when I tried to save a copy of the document I was working on under a revision number, and only then got error messages that there was no document open. Those problems might have been idiosynchrasies of the software that I am unfamiliar with, i.e., maybe I needed to do things in a certain order, or something along those lines. I don’t know, but I eventually worked it out–but not before coming close to having a heart attack due to many, many days of work were thought to be totally lost!
And, I cannot access any of my network storage or Windows shares, not files, nor photos.
The bottom line is that Manjaro is basically a toy for someone to play with. I need to actually work and get things done, so I am not at all happy with it. Then, after reading everything I could find about it (and it’s certainly not all in one place!), I decided to “simply” download a different flavor of Linux to my Pinebook Pro, one that I could actually use for work. I don’t mind learning new apps to get things done, but I do need network access and printer support. But, after trying to boot a few other “flavors” of Linux for the Arm64 processor…well, so far none of them will boot, but I haven’t tried them all yet. Oh, yeah, and the “Pine64 Installer Utility” simply does not run on the PBP or Manjaro–I’m not sure which. So, yeah, I’m a bit disappointed.
I bought the PBP because I needed something lightweight to sit in my lap to write with, something that didn’t always need to be plugged into a wall. So far, I like the display, the keyboard, and especially the fact that it runs for a looong time on the battery! Still, I need to be able to accomplish actual work with it, and for that I need printer support and especially LAN/network support. I’m having to work around those limitations for now, but I think the inability to access things I have on my LAN (e.g., files and especially photos) on other machines and LAN storage is probably the biggest setback. So, I vote “NO” that Manjaro is NOT suitable for an “office workstation.”
Sad to hear that the “Pinebook plan” did not work out for you. But I think you mentioned a part of your problem yourself: Arm64. Printer driver support is I’d say “acceptable” for x86. Linux itself is an “orchid” and Arm64 Linux is a super-orchid. So your endeavour to have a serious work project done on an Arm64-Linux device -to me- seems like going to build a house with only a leatherman tool. I wouldn’t try that. I would also shy away from using a Chromebook for that, because I know how “good” desktop printing support for Android is (it’s a miss or hit and sometimes a mess or a sh*t).
Yeah, I agree regarding evolution. Especially now exchange protocol seems to becoming the de facto workplace email standard. Tried kmail on KDE, but I find that all KDE programmes seem to require huge amounts of faff/configuration.
I started with 1Password as my first password manager when I was using OS X & iOS. Back then you could just buy the products for each Apple OS and sync via iCloud for free. Sadly, things have changed to a subscription model, but they’re still very good, and offer cross platform support. I’ve always found keepass iOS clients to be a little flakey. I’d switch otherwise.
Also, CentOS can be frustrating from a software availability point of view. Some rpms that install on Fedora won’t install on CentOS. I also find it doesn’t have have the same community support for things analogous to user apt repos or the AUR. Copr is a bit sparse.
