This has nothing to do with me. The default filesystem for Manjaro has up until now always been ext4, but now the Manjaro Team has decided that a fresh install with Manjaro 25.0.0 Zetar will be using btrfs by default, because this is also what the Summit edition of Manjaro will be using.
Nonsense. But btrfs snapshots are not backups. They reside on the same filesystem as the one that was snapshotted, and so if the drive dies, those snapshots are not going to save the day.
Backups should always be stored on a physically separate medium.
No, that was simply because of the fact that manjaro-chroot doesn’t work with btrfs. It was designed for ext4 only.
Isn’t going to happen. ext4 is an end-of-the-line filesystem. It has taken the ext filesystem family as far as possible, and even its developer says that btrfs is a much better and much more modern filesystem.
I do not know whether SSDs can enter a read-only mode in and of themselves, but mounting a filesystem — or in the event of btrfs, a subvolume — read-only is the same as you would do it with ext4, xfs, jfs, or whatever else.
Look, there is no way around it: people who are new to GNU/Linux — and especially so Manjaro or another Arch derivative — are going to have to assume a certain degree of responsibility. If they cannot do that, then perhaps they should stick to the operating system they came from.
There’s a huge difference between paying for an airplane ticket and flying an F-22 Raptor. In a Raptor, you hold the throttle and the stick, and there’s no stewardess coming to serve you coffee.
I really don’t understand where you are getting that misinformation, but misinformation it is.
btrfs is more robust than ext4 or even xfs. But every time you think you’ve made something idiot-proof, the universe creates a bigger idiot.
It’s simpler, but that’s all there is to it.