I personally use a few distributions of GNU/Linux with one being arch. Arch works very well for me and generally just listens without moaning and only cries if I make it by accident. Arch can be very nice. What I am trying to understand is why would someone choose manjaro? Ignoring the blatant being ease of install though arch isn’t so difficult to install if you read a few wiki pages, what makes manjaro better? I don’t mean this post in an offensive way as we all run a version of the GNU/Linux OS which I respect so just curious.
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Well, I was going to install arch, but I use LUKS and I honestly wasn’t willing to do the disk partitioning via command line.
In the end, for me, it’s all about ease of use. I want to learn more linux and be good at it, I’ve already progressed a lot since I started with Ubuntu. However, I need a working computer RIGHT NOW. I don’t have time to troubleshoot a bad installation, fix the GUI, and stuff like that. For me manjaro gives access to Pacman and AUR without the risk of something going wrong on an Arch install. If it breaks and I know how to fix it or can easily learn how (like with the terminal this week), it’s cool. But if it breaks and I can’t fix it easily, it will either stay broken or I’ll just go back to Ubuntu.
It takes me 5 minutes to install Ubuntu, Windows 10 and Manjaro. I spent more than 2 hours watching people install Arch and I’m still not confident enough to do it myself. Whenever somebody does something I’m like “Is this really necessary or is it something that I don’t need but will install just because I’m following this tutorial? What are the other options available? etc.” Meanwhile, Manjaro (Ubuntu, Windows 10 and other distros) make all of those choices for you. You may disagree with them, but they will cover most important aspects of normal computer use for regular folks (you will have a browser, text editor, GUI, etc) and be ready to use after just a few clicks.
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Have you used Manjaro? If so I’d be interested to hear what you think. I was a user of Ubuntu variants and then decided I wanted to try Arch but was put off by the apparent difficulty of installing it and the risk of it breaking. I haven’t tried so I don’t know what it’s actually like.
But just to try and answer your question another way, Manjaro is supposedly more stable or has the potential to be more stable due to the two week delay of Arch updates and the testing that’s done on them before releasing to Manjaro users. But again, I don’t really know how true that is from experience.
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Well, when I first came to linux, I searched for “Simple Linux”. It gave me arch. But after I booted it, i was very disappointed. The term “simplicity” doesn’t mean easy-to-use in arch, it refers to the barebone(ness) of arch. But now that I can call myself “intermediate”, I fell in love with arch. It didn’t feel too hard for me. But throughout the few weeks of arch, it forced me to learn (or revise) everything again in a week what took me months too learn with other distro(s). The thing I loved most is that nothing happens without my notice. It does anything I want it to do without refusing. But when I wanted to use it for daily tasks, I thought of some another distro which will do a few tasks for me so I can work on my work. I didn’t consider ubuntu or something because it seemed “too stable” for me. I tried using fedora and opensuse, but they didn’t work for me. It seemed to me that there could be no second option to arch. Then when i gave up my hopes, i was just blindly wandering and saw manjaro as the trending distro of the month. After I clicked it, boom! (Sorry, i was trying to be sarcastic but it didn’t work). Just the distro I was looking for. I have been using manjaro ever since. Since that it’s based on arch, i could access anything I could from arch. It just wasn’t about the installation but everything else. Everything was “easier” out if the box. It didn’t get in the way, did as i told it to do and take over when i don’t have the time. It was a bit more tested and thoroughed than arch. But most of all, I loved the community. On arch, everything was user-centric. Everyone was advanced users like me. But here, everyone is rather “community-centric”. I could teach noobies things they didn’t understand. I could ask for problems to even advanced users like me. Believe me! I spend most of my time in this forum!
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A comedian.
If Arch is so great, then why are you using other distributions?
I could understand if you installed Garuda to try out some of their stuff, see how the alacritty terminal and fish suited me, see the gaming stuff already set up… and then incorporated it into your own install - same could be said for Manjaro.
I like some stuff done for me, I’m no expert. I read the Wiki and still had trouble installing Arch, I then realised just how many things needed to be done to make it suit me, so I got Manjaro instead.
Some of us just love the extra bloat.
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I have installed Arch several times. My last Arch install had Gnome. I wanted KDE Plasma back without the hassle, so I installed the Manjaro KDE minimal edition. I also like that Manjaro has 2 graphical package managers that can be installed without building them from the AUR. I’m using Manjaro’s testing branch because it’s closer to Arch while still being stable enough for me.
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What makes Manjaro better?
Nothing. Literally, nothing. Distros are just personal preference. Different people have different needs and that is the very reason we have so many distros. Not because one is objectively better than another, but because each is suited to a different niche of users.
If we rephrase that question a bit…
What makes Manjaro better for each of you?
Then I can say:
- I am given a fully working desktop without having to go through several wiki pages.
- I am given an aesthetic interface, whatever “edition” I choose. I want my desktop to look pretty, and pretty by default. I love to rice, but if I get a UI so nice and usable that I’m not forced to rice, then that’s Marvelous.
- Pamac GUI being installed by default is a blessing. I simply cannot be bothered to memorize the duckload of flags and flag combinations of pacman/yay/paru/pamac-cli. I do install stuff using the terminal because I’ve set up aliases, but when I’m searching for a package I don’t know the name of, Pamac GUI makes it a breeze to find. For example: let’s say I don’t know what office software is there. I can just type “Office” in the search bar and pamac will list them in a visually appealing and intuitive way, and often has a nice description of the package. It also sorts them by relevance by default, which is helpful.
I could probably say more, and I might edit this reply over time, but the point is - Manjaro doesn’t force you to fight the system in order to use it. You don’t have to learn funky and unintuitive terminal commands and flags to use Manjaro. It’s a distro for the general public, but it’s customizable enough for the power user. The choice of how to use it, is left to the user.
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Why not?
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Also there is the waterfall package coming through many stages from Arch Unstable to Manjaro Stable, you really get a more stable system in theory.
Also there is more compiled software by people that want to protect the branch Manjaro instead of using AUR where the PKGBUILDS might be poisoned by random guys.
So the root of trust is also there backed by a Brand.
All that aside I am using both, Arch linux and Manjaro and must say that Arch is slightly more stable for me than Manjaro.
It’s not HW issues, it’s breakages due to the opinionated defaults that Manjaro put in place for their flagship isos and base skels.
If I went the Manjaro Architect route, then I would probably had the stablest system ever.
I know this’ll either ruffle feathers, or I’ll get hate/scorned, and that’s fine.
If I had to describe Manjaro in 1 line, it would have to be “Arch Linux, for dummies.”
Meaning, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to get Arch up and running, and one day I might even give it a try, but at the moment, I don’t want to but I still would like the power, flexibility and more it gives me. Enter Manjaro. And thanks to the ever AWESOME Team Manjaro for the best OS EVER.
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Read the wiki
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/About_Manjaro
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Manjaro:A_Different_Kind_of_Beast
It’s perfect for me, but It’s not good enough for my dad / brother / sister: those get Debian…
That’s why not!
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- ease of use, convinience
- laziness, less updates, less bugs to fiddle with
- well filled repos, I need the AUR less as with plain arch
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I know. I am incredible in the entertainment world.
To the first comment, there are simply different situations where different things are better. For my libre computers, I use trisquel. For my laptop that generally does nothing but I want mostly free (apart from wifi drivers) I use debian. I run windows 10 in a vm on my workstation for using certain software my college forces me to use but I do not trust. I use arch for my main workstation because I do many tasks on it and I need a lot of proprietary garbage and I want it bleeding edge for best performance and security.
I’ve personally never heard of garuda. Will look into it.
I mean I think it’s fair having some stuff handled by an installer rather than yourself due to difficulty in understanding some things as (don’t eat me gentoo users ;( ) but abstracting some things from the user isn’t so bad in my opinion. However, manjaro abstracts waaayyy too much and comes with random crap I would have never asked for. Doesn’t it come with firefox or something? That’s kinda poopoo. I’d never want that and just install librewolf. That’s just one example. Theming of the DE rather than giving me a clean DE also annoys me.
Aaahh bloat 
That’s actually pretty interesting. Nice!
Yes, it’s possible you’ll hate it a lot - it’s mostly bloat - but they’ve also done some really cool things. I’m going to start playing with it - things like Timeshift/btrfs by default, and the last 5 snapshots accessible from GRUB, fish shell in alacritty set up as default… and extreme theming that many folks worship, but I find it too much (though it’s not a huge deal to fix that).
For theming I am pretty simple - Breeze or Breath2 with Lightly application style installed, using Material bars with the menu inline there, and Breeze Chameleon icons making it a very simple job to completely re-colour the desktop between grey-dark and light modes (i.e. Themes follow colours, including the icons).
I truly despise LEFT side window buttons (I don’t use window buttons myself) and centred bottom docks (ridiculous waste of vertical screen space on a normal FHD monitor).
I think the main reason I haven’t moved on from Manjaro is that I’m kind of into the idea of delayed updates to avoid having to fix stuff.
I’m also not averse to the basic Manjaro theming - which really does look quite tasty out of the box and just needed a touch of gentling for me on the colours front (less contrast/saturation).
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It is like - thai food vs. japanese food vs. indian food vs. McDonald vs. Burger King vs. haggis.
It all depends on the personal preferences.
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Fair enough.
foot lettuce all the way 
Sounds like a pretty funky OS.
My theming works for me but probably not liked by most. Can’t remember what icons I use but they look very simple and have color and my “dock” thing is at the top (xfce btw) with applications in top left for menu, currently open in middleish area stacking from after applications, drop app thingies in top right, full date in very top right, two desktops only, button near right for showing desktop. That’s the very way I like it. It feels great like this. I’ve used macos, win10 and various distributions of GNU/Linux and I think, for now, I like it just like this. Who knows though. Maybe I will go the minimal suckless software route in the future.
That’s fair. However, I have used both manjaro and arch and arch has only failed me two times with one being completely my fault for removing X11 stuff and the second being no wifi capability but that’s still pretty much my fault for not installing broadcom dkms drivers as I was previously using an LTS kernel and didn’t change. Manjaro had broken on me about 5 times but that is when I was still quite inexperienced with computer operating systems and caused things such as corrupting files in my /boot and stuff. I might want to take a look at manjaro again but I don’t see any need to when arch is treating me so well.
I mean… I don’t HATE it but I don’t really like it. Certainly better than some I’ve seen come as stock in other distros though. What I particularly don’t like is the branding of the DE which really peeves me off.
edit:
Image showing my thingy which is at the top of my display. No garbage.
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I cannot remember who I am quoting but I believe it was either Luke Smith or the creator of the youtube channel “mental outlaw”.
“The best distro is the one you make the best”. I think there is an incredible amount of truth to that.
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