Manjaro 25.0 Zetar Release Review

[philm]

@Kobold

I have no idea why this changes are made, without asking the community first… Manjaro is still made to welcome the unexperienced people or not?

It is aligned with the fact that Manjaro Summit is based on BTRFS as well. The user has still the option to change to ext4 or other file systems in auto partitioning.

[Kobold]

@philm

The user has still the option to change to ext4 or other file systems in auto partitioning.

I personally don’t have any problem to change the partition if i would reinstall my system.

I wrote this only for one reason, because i had the unexperienced Windows to Linux switcher in mind… who maybe press auto install.

@Aragorn

Sure it is. And it has lots of advantages over ext4

Yeah im aware there are some Pro’s but there are many con’s also or maybe did that changed in the last 12 month’s. You may remember a few topics where we was talking about the Pro’s and the Con’s from BTRFS?

Maybe i miss something? I remember slightly where you disagreed with me that BTRFS is not the standard for a Manjaro install (i had mistaken the install procedure with nobara distro at this time) but where you agreed with me that BTRFS shouldn’t be default install for Manjaro… maybe around 2 year’s ago? What changed your mind or maybe i cant remember correctly?

I remember slightly where several people in this forum could easily lost their files, where a partition mistake happen and no one could help him in this forum.

That some snapshots because of BTRFS are weaker than Rsync. And additional the BTRFS snapshot’s was very difficult to rollback in some cases.

I remember also a guide from yourself, where you point in one of your help topic’s… what for additional steps the BTRFS user has to do if he don’t use ext4, when he run into errors that he have to fight first the BTRFS hurdle.

Are this con’s are all history? Then maybe my viewpoint are total outdated about the dangers from BTRFS… that made me evade this filesystem in the past (no matter what). Even if i like the Pro’s and wished that some of them introduced to ext4, like the autochecksum check… which sounds really nice but the write protection for partition looks very confusing… where i don’t know if this is now the BTRFS feature or is my SSD dieing and went into write protection.

@Aragorn

Do I really have to post my essay again? Have you even read it?

I saw you posted it countless times

@Aragorn

or you’re a die-hard hardcore gamer, then GNU/Linux is not for you, and then Manjaro in particular certainly won’t be

Not alone that i’am a die-hard hardcore gamer and Manjaro is the right distro for me… i also think that Manjaro itself presented himself in a total differend light as you see what Manjaro is or should be.

@Aragorn

The fact that we’re still getting reports from people unable to update their systems because they still haven’t removed community.db from their pacman configuration, even though community.db was emptied two years ago — which was announced at the time — and has been deleted from the mirrors more than two months ago, should tell you all you need to know about just how technically savvy “the community” is.

For exactly this people it worried me this BTRFS changes… and yeah, i remember when i did this pacnew changes 2 year’s ago.

But in which errors did this unexperienced people run from their unmaintend pacnew files? Nothing that comes close as a BTRFS Partition… where you can face a horror case if you use it blindly… and this won’t happend with ext4.

I think that ext4 is much more consumer friendly.

[philm]

BTRFS is the way to go. We introduced auto-snapshots on major pacman -Syu cmds and updates with pamac. So everyone gets an easy way to roll back to a working install when using BTRFS. That is why it will be userfriendly in the end.

[Aragorn]

@Kobold

I remember slightly where you disagreed with me that BTRFS is not the standard for a Manjaro install (i had mistaken the install procedure with nobara distro at this time) but where you agreed with me that BTRFS shouldn’t be default install for Manjaro… maybe around 2 year’s ago? What changed your mind or maybe i cant remember correctly?

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.

@Kobold

That some snapshots because of BTRFS are weaker than Rsync

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.

@Kobold

I remember also a guide from yourself, where you point in one of your help topic’s… what for additional steps the BTRFS user has to do if he don’t use ext4, when he run into errors that he have to fight first the BTRFS hurdle.

No, that was simply because of the fact that manjaro-chroot doesn’t work with btrfs. It was designed for ext4 only.

@Kobold

Even if i like the Pro’s and wished that some of them introduced to ext4, like the autochecksum check…

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.

@Kobold

which sounds really nice but the write protection for partition looks very confusing… where i don’t know if this is now the BTRFS feature or is my SSD dieing and went into write protection.

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.

@Kobold

@Aragorn

The fact that we’re still getting reports from people unable to update their systems because they still haven’t removed community.db from their pacman configuration, even though community.db was emptied two years ago — which was announced at the time — and has been deleted from the mirrors more than two months ago, should tell you all you need to know about just how technically savvy “the community” is.

For exactly this people it worried me this BTRFS changes… and yeah, i remember when i did this pacnew changes 2 year’s ago.

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.

@Kobold

But in which errors did this unexperienced people run from their unmaintend pacnew files? Nothing that comes close as a BTRFS Partition… where you can face a horror case if you use it blindly… and this won’t happend with ext4.

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.

@Kobold

I think that ext4 is much more consumer friendly.

It’s simpler, but that’s all there is to it.