 The promise of a easy to install arch-based Linux distro is one that has been around for a very long time But the OG if you will of those types of distros has to be Manjaro It has been around for quite a while and the premise of it has always been to be arch Linux But more new user friendly they hold packages back so that it's more Stable they have an easy to use installer all of this stuff goes into making a distribution that at one time Was proclaimed as a very good distro for new Linux users So the topic for today is to ask the question is Manjaro any good or is it still any good? So let's go ahead and jump right into this topic The first thing we have to discuss is whether or not we actually still need distributions that are only in Existence because they're easy to install arch-based distros now I'm not saying that Manjaro is only good because of that reason But you can't deny that at least some part of the reason why it exists is because of that now Personally, I don't think that that's a good enough reason to exist anymore If that's your only selling point because art itself is no longer hard to install but also there are Approximately three dozen Maybe even more distros that have come into existence that use the calamari's installer To install a basic version of arch Linux or some variant thereof So that idea that we need a distribution that is easy to use and easy to install Is not necessarily one that is as relevant today as it was when Manjaro first came out But like I said, that's not really Manjaro's only claim to fame Obviously, there's more to Manjaro than just having a calamari's installer to install arch Linux So we can't ignore all this other stuff that Manjaro does and kind of just write it off into the dustbin of history So let's talk about some of that other stuff. So one of the biggest Benefits to using Manjaro if you want to consider to benefit is that Manjaro holds packages back In their own repositories so that it maintains a more stable base than what you get If you were to use vanilla arch Linux, this means that Packages are going to be held back two to three weeks or so And they won't be pushed to the Manjaro users until they have been tested by the broader arch community And this means that you're less likely to have bugs and stuff like that So for example the recent grub issues that arch Linux has had never really affected Manjaro unless you were on The unstable branch of it So you kind of were able to get past what was a major issue for a lot of people who use vanilla arch Of course, this whole holding packages back does have a downside And that is that you are using arch, but you don't have the benefits of using arch So one of the main benefits you get by using arch Linux is that you get access to the latest And greatest software almost immediately upon release. That's one of the best parts about arch Also, we have to acknowledge that the a u r is maybe the best part of using arch And Manjaro doesn't enable it out of the box. In fact, using the a u r on Manjaro is Kind of sketchy simply because of the way the a u r works. The a u r is going to be pushing you Very fresh packages that's going to perhaps rely on packages from the standard arch repos that don't actually exist on Manjaro So they'll instead use older versions or at least attempt to use older version And that's going to cause some packages in the a u r to either not build or not function properly because they're looking for versions of Dependencies or whatever that haven't been released on Manjaro yet simply because they hold those packages back So the idea that Manjaro is more stable Is perhaps true If you limit yourself to just using the Manjaro Repositories and you're happy with the way They control the flow of updates Manjaro can be a very stable distribution if however you try to force Manjaro to be more like arch in that you're trying to use the u r You're trying to get fresher packages That's where Manjaro kind of falls down just a little bit, but that's not really a Manjaro problem That's just people Using a distribution for something that it's not really supposed to be used for For me personally one of the biggest things I have to consider when i'm recommending a distribution for a new linux user is how their community and their developers Interact with new users and with the community in a broader sense And Manjaro doesn't really have the best reputation when it comes to Being a community distro. So specifically the developers have so much of a prickly The meaner when it comes to interacting with the community and you have seen Various youtube videos probably if you've googled Manjaro About how Their developers have interacted in some form of negative fashion towards community members quite often Over the last few years and it's just kind of the way they do things and while I can't really say Anything too negative about them simply because I don't know all the details It is something that you kind of have to take into account if you choose to use them because Somewhere along the line you're going to have some issues and a lot of the benefits of Manjaro being considered a Fairly easy distribution to use is that when you do have problems you should be able to go and get support and this comes into contrast with other distributions that are Of a similar nature to Manjaro and that they are supposedly easy to install arch based distros So something like arco while I have my problems with arco linux the website they have is just really really bad Their support is top notch. They have a ton of youtube videos that describe basically every inch of arch linux It's amazing. Even if it's not really well organized. They also have telegram and discord And irc and all this stuff where you can go and get help That's arco endeavor has the same kind of stuff going on you can go to the endeavor support forums and I'm assuming probably telegram and stuff as well and get support if you want to and while they're going to have the same Problems with noobs that any linux community is going to have simply because it seems to be an endemic problem But you're still going to have that opportunity to go get help now I'm not saying that you can't go get help with Manjaro It's just that the developers and their community have a reputation of being a little bit prickly when it comes to support Whether that reputation is entirely fair. I'll leave you to be the judge When it comes to the stability of arch linux, there's also something else you have to take into account and that the developers have a reputation for bungling up the package manager now they use pamac as their front end package management system it's basically a layer over pacman, but for the most part, it's what they use and They haven't been that great at actually Keeping that thing running Multiple times over the last few years that thing has caused major problems to the point where you can access they you are Sometimes you can access the arch repose this stuff happens Way more than it ever should for being a distribution that is very very popular Now they also have had problems where they haven't signed their security certificates So either the website or some of their repositories have gone down simply because they haven't done this So that's happened also multiple times And the final thing on the developers end is that they kind of have a sketchy side now. This is more of a feeling that I have over Having dealt with some of the stuff that surrounded manjaro over the years But they've partnered with proprietary software vendors at least one time In the past few years in order to make money now I'm not that I don't really care all that much because visitors need to make money And if that's the way they choose to do it, that's fine But it's still something that has happened. So you should know about it They've also had situations where they've had people leave the company based on Disagreements over finances and stuff like that now most of that has nothing to do with the distribution itself But it's still stuff that goes on drama that goes on in the background that You may or may not hear about the manjaro developers. So still something to keep in mind So I've spent the last nine or ten minutes or so talking about some of the negatives surrounding manjaro And if you've watched the channel for any amount of time, you know that I tend to be A little cynical just you know a little and that's probably why I started off with the negative stuff So let's go ahead and talk about some positive stuff for a little while. What does manjaro do? That is still good. So the stability of it is still something to be Proud of if that's what you're looking for if you use manjaro in a way that allows it to stay stable So you ignore the a u r and you just use the manjaro repositories You get a lot of the benefits of arch Linux in a very stable environment. It's very good, right? Also, their design is still really nice. You've seen some b-roll over me over this course of this video And every one of their editions looks very nice. So they have three main editions gnom xfc and kde And they all just are very well designed if you like this color scheme This is definitely something that will appeal to a lot of people. I think it's not for everyone probably But really when it comes to design it's so easy to change. It's not that big of a deal They also have a Wide selection of community editions So if you want to use a desktop environment or a window manager that is not part of the three main ones They have those available now They don't match archo linux when it comes to the number of desktop environments and window managers available Nobody does nobody ever will but they do offer a fairly wide selection. So you can get things like i3 You can get things like mate cinnamon stuff like that all of those fairly well maintained At least they were the last time I checked. So if you Want to use arch linux that is kind of preconfigured in a certain way But you don't prefer the three main desktops that they offer you still have options, which is again very nice Another thing that menjiao does really well on all of their main on all their main versions is that they allow you to Have very fine control over both drivers And kernels. So if you want to install a specific driver for your hardware It's very easy. You don't ever have to go and deal with the terminal or anything They have a tool that allows you to do all of that stuff And it's easy to go back and forth between versions. You just click a button and you can install it That's really nice, especially for people who use invidia and need invidia drivers It's very easy to get and the kernel tool that they provide is also really nice It's not something that you see in any other distro as far as i'm aware There are probably other tools that do this but Menjaro includes this by default you can choose basically any kernel that is still supported and install it and use it If you want it just requires a you know a tap to install and a reboot and then you're able to Not only boot into that new kernel that you installed But if you wanted to you could delete the old kernel that you were using if you want or you could have multiple kernels that you Could boot into So if you're having problems with hardware Like say you use something brand brand new like a new graphics card or something that was just released And you need a newer kernel in order to actually Use that hardware so like a release candidate or something like that you could use that If that's what you wanted to do or if you have older hardware that's not really well supported in a newer kernel Or there's a bug somewhere you could go back to an older kernel Maybe an lts or something like that very very easily and again That's something that well not necessarily something that new users actually need it is actually really nice for even mid-level linux users to have access to because the vast majority of us Never really have to deal with the kernel at all Especially when it comes to downgrading or upgrading or anything like that. We just leave that to the package manager With the option for manjaro to actually you know go through And manage those kernels in a manual way is really nice And the final thing that I want to talk about is both a good and a bad thing I'm going to combine them just a little bit So the the good part of this is that when you download and install manjaro It is not bloated it a lot of arts linux distros tell a lot of linux distributions in general Tend to just kind of shove as much software into Their iso and into their installs as possible. It's not a very good Thing because a lot of people don't have that hefty of an internet access So downloading a four gigabyte isos is not necessarily going to always be easy for the vast majority of people But also it impacts the usability of your distro when you shove a ton of software into it Simply because it makes it that makes things harder to find and it makes it so that Eventually the user will either have to just kind of put up with all that extra software that they don't use Or they have to go and get rid of all that stuff now Where this turns into a negative part is that manjaro makes the choices for you So when you install manjaro The software that comes with it is the software that you get you don't get to make any choices Now obviously you can install or uninstall whatever you want after you install it. That's Just basic linux But unlike other art space distros that have made an effort to allow you to install software prior to installation So choose what's installed alongside So for example arc olynx or caruta or something like that Both of those have options where you can kind of go through a wizard of a whole bunch of software And install stuff either prior or after Installation, you know, you can make those choices either prior or after installation And that is a nice way of doing things. It can be overly confusing So manjaro being for new linux users may not want to confuse their Users with all that extra stuff, especially right upon installation It's still something that You're kind of forced to live with manjaro has a set standard of software that they offer And that's what you're going to get. So that's both a positive and a negative thing I personally don't really care simply because i'm always going to just go and install my software no matter what So I enjoy the fact that they basically have a very curated number of Software applications that they include things that really do make sense things like steam Things like the covanta manager so you can theme qt applications A few developer tools so that you can manage and control your hardware things like that And then you have the standard linux stuff like a of music player and a chat app and stuff like that Nothing where you have like five music players or you know three chat apps that stuff doesn't really exist Now I will say that they do include only office. It's the library office, which is not a traditional choice But it's not that big of a deal I've recently started using only office for a video that i'm going to be making later on And it's not bad. So it's not as a big deal as I originally thought it would so that but that's still something that you Should keep in mind so to conclude is manjaro any good the answer to that question is yes Depending on how you want to use it if you are getting into Manjaro because you want to use arch then no Okay Manjaro is not arch That's the One thing you should take away from this video is manjaro is just not arch is based on arch But they've done so much to the repositories and everything that surrounds being an arch distro things like Disabling they you are making it so that you kind of don't want to use it It's really just not arch linux. So if you go into manjaro saying, oh, I'm using arch. No, you're not And you shouldn't use it as arch. It's not it's its own thing and that's okay And in fact, I would say they've developed into their own distribution that's Kind of like linux mint has linux mint is based on a bone to but linux mint has done and gone their own direction in any number of areas And that's okay that has shown some individuality that makes linux mint really good And it's the same for manjaro manjaro has done its own thing in many different areas created some of their own tools That are really good and have just done a fairly decent job of being their own distro instead of just being A easy to install arch based distro So the bottom line is it really does depend on what you're expecting when you use manjaro If you're expecting to have arch you're going to be disappointed if you're expecting to be its own thing Manjaro is actually pretty good. It has a few really good tools It has a very or at least somewhat minimal software base. It's easy easy to install And in terms of stability and stuff like that Obviously, that's going to depend a lot on your hardware and stuff like that So I really can't comment on how it's going to be stable for everyone I don't think that that's true for any linux distribution. So I would say That it's just as stable as any other linux distribution Is it more stable than arch linux? Again, it's going to depend on how you use it. So That's kind of the bottom line for me personally I'm not a big fan of manjaro because of all the extra stuff that I talked about at the beginning things like their Prickliness with the community the shadiness surrounding their developers things like that I'm not really a fan of all that stuff, but that's more of a personal decision if you're looking at just The distribution it's easy enough to use And it has a fairly good experience in terms of design and software and installation. So It's just a really Decent linux distribution. Is it the best linux distribution? No because we all know there's not a best linux distribution It just doesn't exist If you are looking for something that is kind of arch ask and you want to kind of get into the idea of a Somewhat rolling distribution manjaro is a good place to start I would just caution you against thinking that this is actually arch linux So that's the end of the story if you have comments on manjaro or anything surrounding You can leave those comments in the comment section below You can follow me on twitter at linux cast you can follow me on mastodon or odyssey Those links will be in the video description along with all my other social media stuff You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the linux cast just like all of these fine people Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon youtube. You guys are all absolutely Amazing people. I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for your support So thank you so very much. The channel just would not be where it is without you. So again, thank you Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time