Manjaro Linux - An Arch Distro That Rolls Cautiously

Many people have asked me, especially after my Endeavour OS video, whether Endeavour or Manjaro are the best distros to get to know Arch Linux, and whether Manjaro really is the best distro because of its cautious approach to rolling out Arch updates?
There is, of course, no 'best' distro. The statement doesn't really make sense because we have hundreds of distros to choose from and
what we think is best is entirely subjective and influenced by our personal experience.
In this video I take a brief look at Manjaro and ask if it is really the best distro compared to the likes of Endeavour. My answer? At the end of the day the decision will ultimately be one you have to make for yourselves.
I hope you enjoy the video :-)
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Ramble On!

[@hamburger-fries]

Between Manjaro and Endeavour I found Manjaro to have better compatibility. The main difference of Manjaro and others is there are a few more tools and very easy install. I'm a KDE guy and I can start doing some coding right after install. I add a Bluetooth dongle driver and blueman. Then I edit some files for rebooting faster. Add some software development packages and I can get to working within 10 min of install. Endeavour is fairly similar, but I like the way Manjaro is organized.

[@RandyHanley]

Subscribed and watched a couple videos and I've already learned some new stuff from you. Thanks for the work you put into this! -Randy / Michigan, USA.

[@danielponte8264]

First time that i see this softwere discover center. I like! Simple, fast, may need an improvment, but its better than the softwere center of ubuntu

[@markharrisllb]

I was on EndeavourOS on my old computer that went to the great workshop in the sky. However, no matter what I did it wouldn’t load on another old laptop as it refused to find the WiFi. I had problems with multiple distros either not finding my WiFi or grub screen/boot loader as I was loading it as a dual boot. Even Manjaro KDE ran really slow on an i3 2.0GHz CPU and 8 Gb DDR3 RAM Acer Travelmate. Xfce on the other hand has been brilliant and I can't fault it at all. I like it so much I put it on my single boot as well. I really like Arch Wiki and AUR and I think those resources make it the best distro for a newbie and it looks so clean. I’ve been using Linux now for about 12 months with a lot of times I’ve done nothing due to my health).

[@kriskruz3792]

Nice informative video on Manjaro. Thanks! Manjaro is my go to Arch based distro.

[@andyhailey4271]

Both great distros but are aimed at different users in my opinion. If you want a terminal centric go with endeavour if you prefer to use guis then go manjaro

[@Kylian381]

i do have to add that manjaro will break faster then vanilla arch if you have many packages from the AUR. that is because of some version mismatches as manjaro hold back packages for 2 weeks but the AUR does not

[@barriewood9336]

@@Kylian381 Manjaro is the only distro in the wider Arch family I'll use . The holding back of packages for a week or two is fine by me. I will install apps from Flatpak (or even Snaps at a push ) before AUR Repo forthe reasons you give. Careful use of AUR aids stability and fewer problems. Overall I'd pick OpenSuSE / Gecko or Solus as ,rolling release distros first. The latter is fast and super stable, but upheavals within the dev team make me wary of what the future holds (sadly).

[@AnalyticMinded]

I've been using Manjaro for the last 18 or so months. I switched to it after using Ubuntu (my first Linux distro) for about a month. My Dell laptop had issues with the Gnome version, where pamac would sometimes freeze and mess up an update. There would also be screen tearing after upgrades, and random freezes that would need a force shutdown. After I got my Lenovo desktop PC, Manjaro Gnome has been working absolutely fine on it. I then replaced Manjaro Gnome with Manjaro i3 on the old laptop, and again everything has gone smoothly... except a few months ago when I ran an update with outdated mirrors and lightdm got a bit screwy. Had to wait until a new system update to fix this. That's something that should be on the Manjaro Welcome screen---update your mirrors! This is what EndeavourOS has on its own Welcome Screen.

[@MrTomro]

I started with Manjaro as my first Arch-based distro but switched to Endeavour and i love it ❤

[@user-stanrbm]

EndeavourOS breaks CoreCtrl after new update and i switch to Manjaro. And love it!

[@aelaan12]

You're right on the money with the fresh and stable. Manjaro holding back is sometimes not what users are looking for (they think). I do run a rolling arch now (Arco) and it is lovely but if you get in doo-doo it is tough to recover. Remember that, installing it on bare metal, will show how well the implementation runs. The calamares that is being used is still not able to install on a second nvme drive. I think Manjaro is mostly focused on systems that are a little older, but they do offer the 5.16 kernel (at your own risk).

[@BendyLemmy]

Interesting video - I installed Manjaro KDE ( a reinstall after my PSU exploded and prompted a new motherboard/cpu purchase, and OnlyOffice as well as LibreOffice are simply optional. No Pigeon - this XFCE looks a bit like a blast from the past (like ten years past) with Pigeon. But sure, the difference is one that many people complain about (after certain political/in house issues with developers) that Manjaro hold things back. I talked with the Latte dock developer, and he says this is one of Manjaro's top features... and now we see many many people getting upset as Plasma 5.25 rolls out and breaks many things (Latte included) whilst Manjaro Stable sits comfortably on 5.24 even after the 5.25.2 is rolled out. So we have EOs for easy Arch install and a couple of tools, and then Manjaro which actually helps somewhat with stability, more tools, and as you say - it's stupid to argue about what's best - because those arguments reveal more about your ignorance than anything else ;)

[@TheLinuxCast]

Great video, as always!

[@OldTechBloke]

Cheers Matt

[@greisboy425]

if you dont want the extra layer of update from manjaro you can change your repo to shoot directly from Arch repository, that way you get the latest update of Arch.

[@SwiatLinuksa]

I used Manjaro 1.5 year, Gnome version and NVIDIA 1660s and Ryzen first 1600x now from 6 months 3900x. On that time i have only issues when Manjaro go to 40 Gnome. Never ever it freeze, not not our whatever. I have camlink 4k usb audio interface and many other thighs for my channel and no issues at all. Using it everyday about 12h perv day. It's just work. Fantastic fast distribution. Thanks for great video OTB

[@chrissoskavounis4307]

Hi Steve! Enjoyed your video!!! I m a debian guy so i always avoided arch and arch based distros....manjaro never worked for me on the vbox but...i have installed manjaro arm on an external hard drive and works very well for 1,5 year now on my pri4 8GB model!!! So my opinion about arch has changed dramaticaly cause of manjaro.... so its a good distro and it deserves its good ranking in general!!!

[@OldTechBloke]

Well said

[@christianemden7637]

I’m running Manjaro; for the reason you stated, a system with a bit of safety while still being fairly close to the latest updates.

[@ChristopherGray00]

I am one of the very few people seemingly that enjoys both endeavor and manjaro a lot, i don't like it when arch users come to bash manjaro for its update scheme, when they don't realize it's meant for a different reason that plain arch does their update scheme. There is one big fallback with manjaro, that is AURs will not build often, however manjaro has official repos that offer far more packages than arch official repos as well, so pick your poison, i personally like much more precompiled applications in the repo so i tend to use manjaro more.

[@derekr54]

I use Manjaro kde version on my desktop,Endeavour xfce on my Thinkpad x230 and vanilla Arch xfce on my Dell laptop,no problems with any of them.I also use Mabox openbox version on an old Macbook with no problems either.

[@barriewood9336]

Mabox Openbox implementation rather better than that of Manjaro IMO.

[@johnstath9666]

Manjaro is like going to the pub with some mates having a few drinks and some great tucker and no argy bargy. Then back home safely.

[@celestialbeing4767]

Recently moved to endeavouros, manjaro is my first love honestly. Just wish the twm branch was revived. They only have i3

[@JoeProstko]

As shown towards the beginning of the video, currently Manjaro has three branches for packages: stable, testing, and unstable. Stable is what you get out of the box, but it's a matter of running a couple commands on the command line to switch to a different branch. I use the testing branch most of the time on my machines, but the unstable branch allows you to pretty much get the same thing as normal Arch. For those that want to run Manjaro, but get package updates as quickly as possible, just switch to the unstable branch. There's instructions on how to switch branches on the Manjaro wiki.

[@OldTechBloke]

For me, once you do that, there’s no difference between Manjaro and distros that use the arch repos

[@lordofthemound3890]

I just switched to testing branch-stable’s rollouts were a little too slow for me. I’ve been loving it so far!

[@trueriver1950]

@@OldTechBloke ...apart from the ease of initial installation and the initial choice of software

[@catchnkill]

@@OldTechBloke Still there is a bit of difference. The fact that you can switch branch comes handy. Usually I would switch to testing branch to get the latest important bug fix in the latest kernel. After a few weeks I switch back when the Manjaro catches up. It is not all or nothing. You can have something in between.

[@trueriver1950]

24:47 Like you, I love user guides. My first Linux was bought on DVDs from SuSe and to my delight when they arrived from Germany they came with an inch thick manual -- all of it in English. Much better than the printed manual that came at the time with Win95.

[@markharrisllb]

I got that edition of SuSe, it put me off Linux for 25 years. It just wasn’t for me. It might have been because I was a working single father studying for my law degree and I had enough thick books.

[@Jbrimbelibap]

I'm pretty sure manuals are known to suck you soul out of you

[@ChaiBronz]

Manjaro out of the box theming is so good. Really like how they set things up. Just haven't had the best experience with Manjaro in the past.

[@aelaan12]

It was my training ground, practice and practice even more.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

I used to champion Manjaro, until I've noticed the package signing keys situation wasn't really improving. I've had instances where dependency problems persist, and that attempts to reach out about this were met with dead silence. The other thing is, they haven't been as transparent as they could be about their modifications to the Arch base. If they opened up about these changes more, such issues specified would have been fixed. I hope they get pressured onto the right track again, because I don't think there needs to be any more friction leveraged towards Arch. It's a great distribution. Better if treated with respect.

[@theplaymakerno1]

I don't understand. Does something break your system?

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

@@theplaymakerno1 I have a crap burner laptop that handled Ubuntu just fine, everything worked like a charm, including sleep. When I tried to install manjaro onto it, the trackpad went haywire and the audio was a randomized mess of glitches. I waited until an update to come out and that was the point the touchpad stopped working altogether. I tried getting help and only got advice for reinstalling, or installing random, tangential fixes that do nothing. Then I had no responses pertaining to audio bugging out. Nobody in the Manjaro locale would answer, anyways. It seems like the help isn't spectacular either... Then I get dependency errors that weren't there before and shouldn't have been to begin with. Also packages not being properly signed opens up a world of potential trouble. I'm not sure where Manjaros devs get this idea that of all the corners to cut, that GPG would go unnoticed. This is bad. It's basically allowing a version of software with potentially serious holes go unaccounted for.

[@catchnkill]

@@phonewithoutquestion80 Because Manjaro uses their own custom kernel. MWHD is their unique software. Also they have pre-compiled modules as extramodules in the /lib/modules directory.

[@theplaymakerno1]

@@phonewithoutquestion80 Thank you for replying, Sir.

[@paullong4086]

I just tried the latest Manjaro Cinnamon and KDE. In both desktops, when I enable Bluetooth, the tray icon appears for about a second then disappears. Just that one thing is stopping me from using Manjaro because I use Bluetooth ear buds to listen to video's and music.

[@scality4309]

Manjaro is pretty stuff. Specially with KDE plasma.

[@MartinKuhlen]

Manjaro and Endeavour are both very nice but I prefer Garuda (even if I had to change the theming) because of the useful tweaks under the hood. It uses the Fish shell with a lot of aliases. Simply type update and it does a full system upgrade. Exa is installed and preconfigured and Dolphin can be run as root. That makes it the winner for me.

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

Another good video OTB... I use the Cinnamon edition, (Go figure) as I like it a bit more than Xfce... Lol I is no one Arch distro that fits, it is what do ya like. Just try several and see what you like best. Me I prefer EndeavourOS, but that is me. I do like Arco Linux's LeftWm's build Erik put out. The Spectrwm ISO one Erik made is good too! Thanks for the video and no it is not #1 as there is not a real #1 because of people being different tastes... :-) Cheers OTB! LLAP BTW your trying to tempt me with DWM again aren't ya? just like SpectrWm and LeftWm...See how ya are OTB... Lol

[@OldTechBloke]

Ha ha wait until next week Bruce. Dwm flexipatch makes life so much simpler and I’ve been testing for a few months now and love it

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

@@OldTechBloke 👍 😁

[@davidwayne9982]

I haven't looked at MUCH Arch-- because i know diddly squat about arch.. and don't really want to learn.. *(sick of having to learn something new to do basic computing)... but I DID use Manjaro for a bit-- LOVE IT.. simple, fast, good. had issues with an update that screwed up a LOT-- as manyother folks did- and got away from them for a while- but they seem to have got their heads out of their rear ends and fixed it!!! it IS good-- very good..expecially the KDE.

[@user-ss6zt2mo1l]

one thing that is bugging the hell out of me with Manjaro is figuring out how to ignore upgrades to packages that will not upgrade. those packages are part of Gimp Plugins and it's driving me bonkers. I have lableed them "Ignore", but they still pop up . Im sure there is a fix for them.

[@dia6olo64]

I personally don't understand EndeavourOS or rather I do but don't understand the appeal. As I see it, it's an easy way to get Arch installed with a choice of desktops and minimal software. I totally see the appeal in that for some but can't get my head around the fact that when it comes to using it as a daily driver there is lots that needs configuring and installing and that by the time you are done doing so you will pretty much end up with Manjaro which is why for me Manjaro wins all day long at least as a desktop user...

[@OldTechBloke]

My setup is nothing like Manjaro 😁

[@dia6olo64]

@@OldTechBloke I understand that there will be those like yourself who will build their system as they like and why EndeavourOS would be a good choice, my point was really that for anyone who is considering Arch xfce, Arch KDE, Arch Gnome amongst one or two others EndeavourOS makes zero sense to me compared to Manjaro. Most of those people will simply want a setup that works out of the box. While on the surface EndeavourOS appears to work out of the box, it does it with many things that requires one to jump through hoops and while those hoops can be sorted, by the time you have sorted them you will pretty much end up with a copy of Manjaro. I personally also appreciate the delay/extra layer of testing protection with the updates provided by Manjaro, it's not like it's months, it's days. I guess the point I'm really trying to make is that EndeavourOS is neither one thing or the other, It's not an out of the box ready to go operating system and it's not raw Arch either. The reason the whole appeal to EndeavourOS is a miff to me is because anyone who is willing and capable of building their own desktop is just as capable of doing it with Arch which is really not all that difficult to install even for a beginner these days. For me personally, distros like EndeavourOS are the reason Linux is so fragmented. Now don' get me wrong, I'm not singling out EndeavourOS because there are hundreds of distros just like it that take the raw project, add their two cents worth to it but ultimately fail to go all the way leaving the Linux world littered with hundreds of distros that are literally useless and serve only to "litter" the Linux world it's no wonder so many of them disappear after a handful of years.

[@tenfourproductionsllc]

Remember as they say in the Windows world, newer isn't always better... The same goes with Linux, newer isn't always better. My feeling is Manjaro is for people who do actual work on their computers, Endeavour is for hobbyist.

[@horatioh5469]

It deserves # 1

[@lordofthemound3890]

How about showing us Manjaro with DWM? Edit: nice bike!

[@Casper-bj6po]

For some reason Calamaris installer hangs for me, Never had any problem before, But calamaris starts up and just hangs, Tryed afew distros and always the same thng.

[@Astravall]

Well its all preference .... i'm running Manjaro now since 2017, but i won't mind EndeavourOS too. I just don't see a reason to switch.

[@redrebel__]

im not sure exactly how everything works but i feel like manjaro works because it may have more drivers or driver support out of the box. and its easier for more hardware to work. i feel like endeavour may be more bare bones and it might need more work done to work properly. im not sure because i have an older laptop "amd 12 with R7 graphics" i can use arco and manjaro no issues. unless i didn't do it right because i was newer and forgot something. then endeavour didn't work as well my thing is i like how manjaro works and easy to choose a kernel and for it to use a kernel detected by your hardware. "which on manjaro my recommended is 15.5 i think" so for someone who isnt' as sure about hardware things and being newer to linux manjaro is safer and works. also im not sure why but i've had no issues with either of the 3 main DE's but when i've installed the community editions they didn't run as smooth so not exactly sure whats different.

[@Pokemonman44441]

Arch for me has been extremely unstable for me. So, I stay on Manjaro lol

[@neobscura]

OTB, I understand the practical aspect of installing a distro on virtual box, it's simple to setup, it's easy to remove without messing with a whole OS reinstall BUT... gpu. Virtual box is a terrible way to test hardware accelerated UIs. And I got choky Gnome manjaro experience to say that (while it run perfect fine on bare metal). This is true for a lot of distros. I know you don't do gaming but this sometimes gives a VERY BAD first impression to people looking at distro on your channels. Good luck to you though, you're doing good work.

[@OldTechBloke]

I only have intel hardware so that’s all I can test and to be fair I don’t claim anything regarding gaming

[@neobscura]

@@OldTechBloke No I know, but VBOX gpu is antique emulated hardware (we're talking about 90s cards) and therefore literally TRASHES performance on gpu accelerated UIs sometimes (not always). So running it on bare metal even with an integrated gpu would DEFINITELY be a more accurate demo of some distros. Today it may not be that big of deal but once wayland becomes more mainstream (which will probably happen this year), running on that kind of emulated hardware will be the worst.

[@TheCocoaDaddy]

@@neobscura I'm confused. What did OTB do, in this video, that required any GPU performance? I don't have an issue with your point about not using VirtualBox due the GPU issue you mentioned but I didn't see anything that OTB did that would require any GPU performance. He didn't play any videos and just took a cursory tour of XFCE.

[@neobscura]

@@TheCocoaDaddy It's not about this video in particular just reacting to his point about using vbox. I've seen the weirdest glitches (button not appearing or reacting for instance) in vbox which would not happen on bare metal. Vbox is okish in most distros but some will straight out behave like garbage often due to gpu issues.

[@TheCocoaDaddy]

@@neobscura Ok, fair enough. :)

[@guilherme5094]

👍!

[@dougtilaran3496]

ArcolinuxB B=Best ;-)

[@sandeepvk]

i tried to dual booting my windows OS with Endeavour and it crusted my Windows Bootloader. Manjaro is much easier to install. That said I am moving away from a rolling release distro and moving to a debian based MX Linux perhaps

[@OldTechBloke]

It replaces the windows boot loader with grub. That’s what it should do

[@tonitruck1]

thanks, i drive manjaro kde plasma an all is ok, i have tested endevour an cant install pamac

[@OldTechBloke]

Yay -S pamac-aur

[@tonitruck1]

@@OldTechBloke have tested, works not complete

[@user-stanrbm]

@@OldTechBloke pacman. not pamac. Pamac is Manjaro's Package Manager.

[@trueriver1950]

Apparently Manjaro comes with a nice bike. Endeavour giving you problems with drivers, perhaps?

[@OldTechBloke]

Funny how people think this video title means I prefer Manjaro. I don’t. Endeavour all the way. Drivers? I run intel hardware so never have any issues :-)

[@fgsaramago]

Manjaro Unstable is actually just arch. I run that on my main machine as I use zfs and, from experience, it actually seems to sync with arch more than once a day. Edit: the suse guys brag about doing actual testing before pushing anything over to tumbleweed and mock the more common practise of delaying stuff for a set amount of time between branches, expecting that if there are problems someone will report them. I think I like their approach better than Manjaro's

[@lordofthemound3890]

Manjaro’s unstable branch isn’t “just arch.” Manjaro uses a lot of their own customized software, such as the Linux kernel and adding things like MHWD. Yes, everything else in unstable IS just arch. But Manjaro uses the unstable and testing branches to, yes, test how their customized versions integrate with the upstream arch stuff. And there is no set time to push to the stable branch. It’s done when they feel that testing on the Manjaro customizations is complete.

[@fgsaramago]

@@lordofthemound3890 not sure why youre trying to obfuscate by establishing distinctions that have no difference. Packages can and do get to manjaro stable without no one knowing if and how much they have been tested. That's just a fact. As for their customised software, it's pretty irrelevant in the overall context. Kernels are updated manually, necessitating explicit user action

[@lordofthemound3890]

@@fgsaramago Not trying to obfuscate. I just wanted to make clear to anyone reading who didn’t know better that Manjaro unstable does not equal Arch Linux. That’s all. It’s close, but not vanilla Arch. Edit: Also, I wanted to point out that there is no set amount of time that a piece of software travels through the branches. It moves from unstable to testing to stable when the developers feel like it’s ready, not on some set schedule. I don’t see how this is different than the Suse model.

[@fgsaramago]

@@lordofthemound3890 suse actually tests everything, they dont go by gut feelings or volume of bug reports, which is what manjaro and others do. Its not at random that even Red Hat uses their testing systems and protocols. Testing everything to verify its good is not the same as assuming its good until proven otherwise. Also, only vanilla arch is actually vanilla arch, that goes without saying ;)

[@rhwinner]

Why not just use Arch..??

[@user-he4ef9br7z]

semi-rolling

[@oalfodr]

@@user-he4ef9br7z I had bad experience with that approach. Cannot exactly remember what packages were braking on update and it could be AUR but on arch I had no issues in over a year while on manjaro i had 2 in less time

[@user-sb1pe9bg5e]

Браузер Мозила морально устарел.Надо установить современный браузер Браве.

[@johnathannicholson9183]

😱 Promo-SM!!!