Manjaro suitable for novices?

Referring a point made in Given rise in number of anti-cheats requiring secure boot enabled, is there any plan to add support secureboot to manjaro?:

The part about not being intended for new users, seems to contradict the Manjaro homepage and other documentation, so if true, should the docs be updated?

Related doc links

Manjaro homepage

Manjaro … is user-friendly and suitable for those new to computers

Wiki About Manjaro

Manjaro is suitable for both newcomers as well as experienced Linux users. For newcomers, a user-friendly installer is provided, and the system itself is designed to work fully ‘straight out of the box’ with

Wiki Using Manjaro for Beginners linking to Manjaro User Guide

Manjaro is designed to be accessible to newcomers

Using Manjaro for Windows users

Well, you’re in the same situation now: You’re a N00b again! Embrace it!

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"Suitable for newcomers " and “handholding” are not the same.
Ultimately it depends on the user.
I have very little problem conjuring in my mind some ‘new user’ that can easily use manjaro.
Heck, my partner couldnt manually partition to save their life … but uses manjaro daily.

The point, as I see it, is that manjaro will not stop a new user from shooting themselves in the foot … while at the same time the system itself comes in a usable state with approachable documentation.

Manjaro is ‘suitable for newcomers’/‘accessible to newcomers’ … provided those newcomers are responsible system managers or willing to learn.

(none of which is to say ‘targeting linux newbies’ or ‘idiot proof’ or some other moniker)

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Tbh as long as they read the announcement threads and take regular backups 99% of users will be fine.
I can certainly say I’ve hard far less issues with manjaro or any linux distro than i did with Windows

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This was a very good explanation of it. I really think that Manjaro should do more to make this clarification clear, as a lot of people come in here expecting it to be Arch-based Ubuntu.

@cscs is spot-on

That depend on the definition of new users. Any and all systems requires the user to be willing to learn and implement new habits.

Replace Unix with Manjaro in below quote.

Unix was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as that would also stop them from doing clever things.
— Doug Gwyn

You cannot apply your current computer knowledge on a one-to-one base - you will only get frustrated and have a bad experience.

Those who don’t understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
— Henry Spencer

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It’s not… well that’s a relief.

My partner also, as @cscs mentioned theirs, uses Manjaro, and like @cscs’s partner could not create a partition to save her life, but she uses Manjaro KDE daily. I occasionally have to remind her to check the updates, but that’s about it. The rest she works out for herself.

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So far with zero experience with manjaro I am using it successfully. The install process was really smooth.

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almost everything is said in the answers above. a little thing that might get to an impossible mission for newbies is the hardware. if you start as newbie with a computer which hardware is well supported you might feel very comfortable from the first moment. be aware that this can turn into nightmare if your computer is equipped with esoteric hardware that needs manual intervention. this will drive you mad especially as newbie. also keep in mind that manjaro is a rolling release that’s always coming with the latest stuff. this means it’s the good,bad and ugly at the same time. you have to deal with the fact that new software can fail or corrupt your working environment.
if you wanna use a distro like manjaro (rolling release) then get used to discipline yourself by making regular backups ! it’s the most important thing that you use a backup-strategy (there are dozens of possible solutions). if you take this advice serious you’ll never have a complaint with manjaro or similar distros even if a update/upgrade sucks and brakes. otherwise you’ll hate it more soon than late

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This isn’t quite true for the stable repo (maybe with testing repo its is more spot on).

I think Manjaro is very near the sweet spot of being “rolling” and “stable”. It is enough rolling and enough stable at the same time.

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I would say absolutely yes: I find Manjaro a very straightforward and user-friendly Linux distribution, ironic indeed given it’s based on Arch which is for experts. Especially if you go for the KDE Plasma version you pretty much have a free and open-source version of Windows without any of the crazy stuff! Like anything Linux it’s good to learn basic console commands which I did slowly over time, this helps with rescuing a broken system or automating stuff with scripts, but it’s not an absolute necessity at all.

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You guys have made this topic more useful than the simple comparison I started with. Thanks for putting so much thought into your responses!

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If you don’t have network shares, and stay with only ever using the base stuff, stable release, no AUR, then absolutely, yes.

This is my statement:
Imagine you had never touched a computer in your life, and you had to learn an os, learning windows, mac or manjaro (and some other linux distros) are the exact same burdon nowdays.

You can also take that statement as:
“If you are going to move away from one os to another for you completely unknown os, it would be the same amount to learn no matter what os you switch to”.

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About a year back I knew nothing about Linux. Now I can manage Manjaro quite efficiently, thanks to this forum. If a newcomer has a learning attitude they will soon be able to use manjaro efficiently. I think Manjaro (especially KDE version) is the best there is.

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Another aspect of this is how easy it is getting it to function with the hardware you got. My wife wanted something more “stable” on her second laptop that didn’t need updating so frequently.

So, I thought, why not try to install Debian 12. It proved to be totally impossible to get it to work with the Broadcom BCM43227 Wi-Fi chip, despite following the instructions to the point. Also tried to install OpenSuse Leap, problems were exactly the same. Then I gave up.

Manjaro makes this so easy and painless. Basically right-click, install and it just works.

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Agreed concerning The Forum: it is top notch. And let’s not forget The WIKI either. Absolute beginners should, by precaution IMO, look elsewhere for a first time “Linux Experience”…