Today i learned that manjaro has, in parts, german roots and is maintained by a german company. For that i, as a german myself, want to strongly apologize in the name of the german people!!
Today i learned that manjaro has, in parts, german roots and is maintained by a german company. For that i, as a german myself, want to strongly apologize in the name of the german people!!
Outside of what Hamsda said (to which I’ve added some context), the thing with Manjaro is also that it’s target is easy usage which attracts beginners. Now that isn’t bad per se (it was my first distro too, and I still run it on some machines. I’m not a hater) but it does become a thing when those people go to Arch-related spaces (like the Arch forum or the AUR comment section) asking Arch-people for help.
For one, Manjaro isn’t Arch. It may be based on it, but it also has it’s differences. It’s better to ask on the Manjaro forums. Why some Manjaro users go bother the Arch forums I never understood. The Manjaro forum is very helpful, quick to react, and more appropiate. No reason to divert really…
And secondary, Arch is a distro aimed at more advanced users and has a “know the basics, read the documentation, understand it, and try stuff yourself. And if you thén still don’t know you can ask” expectation. Since Manjaro attracts beginners, the questions they ask are often not only about a different distro, but on the level Arch expects you to be able to figure it out yourself making it rather a nuicance (after all, they’re asking beginner questions in a space for advanced users). Manjaro users doing that somewhat regularily gave it a bad reputation.
I’ve always felt that Manjaro holds an untenable position on the Arch derivative spectrum. It’s a weird mix of difficult (inherited from Arch) and fragile setup out of the box.
The best way to use it is to accept all the decisions that were put into that setup and not tinker with it… but that runs counter to everything that Arch stands for. So it keeps attracting exactly the wrong kind of user, who will tinker and get frustrated, and eventually break it, and then go around telling everybody that it sucks.
IMO it works well for two types of users:
It’s a rather specific niche.
It also works well for the “new to Linux but interested in it and tech-saffy enough to learn quickly” people. For those it’s an easier and fuller start-up than an install with the archinstall script that they can use right away while learning along the way. It makes it a good beginner distro for die-hard nerds, but I wouldn’t recommend it for those not interested or tech-saffy enough to handle such an approach.
But yeah, I agree the main users are those who like the Archiness but want something that “just works” most of the time. Not necesarrily because they can’t maintain it otherwise, but because they don’t want too. The first group I mentioned can transfer into this one over time, while at other times switching to Arch itself or more thinker-friendly Archbased distros.
That group is relatively big however, big enough to create some market at least. It’s why I still run it on many secundairy devices, less maintaining but keeps working. At the same time I know some who run it on their production machines for that, while thinkinger with Arch on secundary devices. Once they got a setup they like enough and figured it’s exact requirements, they alter Manjaro to it.
I guess something like SteamOS is better for Archi but for nontech-savvy people. I can give it to my niece and she can use it, but due to it being immutable (unless purposely turning that off) and getting updates from Valve she won’t break it easily. That is; OS-wise. While actually running the games tends to “just work” most of the time, the times it doesn’t are too often and the thinkering then needed too complex to make it suitable for that group of people.
good point
me neither
highlight the last time was a manjaro user asking me in the aur to help him with his manjaro issues on the package. fucking leechers