Manjaro

Why?

Why I Stopped Using Ubuntu (on the desktop)

I have used a lot of Linux distros over the years, starting with Redhat, Slackware, moving on to Gentoo, Debian, then Ubuntu, (I also ran FreeBSD for a while, ZFS is the best) and now finally Manjaro. I also used CentOS at work in there someplace as well, so I have definitely lived with basically every distro at some point for an extended period on desktops, laptops, servers, pis, arcade cabinets, and everything in-between. I still like Ubuntu a lot, mostly because of how many users it has and because it is based on Debian (although it’s user base seems to have shrunk as of late). Most of the problems with Ubuntu come from using the LTS releases (Long Term Support). Basically the greatest selling point and the reason most people would choose to run an LTS (95% according to the release page), is also the greatest weakness. Nothing really gets updated once you are on an LTS release (outside of security fixes), but doing development, or even just being a desktop user, you eventually will want to try the new “something”. At that point, you usually realize that you can not do that unless you start pulling in new packages from a PPA. Once you have done that, you are not really on LTS anymore. You might naturally think to run an interim release, but those often feel just as stale to me, or often times more broken and still require PPAs.

The real problems start when it is time to upgrade to the next LTS release. LTS releases basically just encourage you to accumulate technical debt, and all of that debt comes due when it is time to upgrade. When upgrading you find out the pain of trying to figure out all the changes that you ignored for the last few years by staying on an LTS release. It does not really save you any time, it’s just deferring all the time you would normally spend staying up to date on changes, to some upgrade date in the future when you have to deal with it all at once. This might not a big deal for a huge organization, where time is already invested into upgrade cycles / testing / QA and the like and downtime is already planned for that kind of thing. As an individual though I don’t really want to spend my weekends upgrading, standing in my basement at a terminal because SSH is broken and the network is suddenly un-configured. (OK, so that is probably very specific to me ;P but you get the point.) So switching to Manjaro, for me, was more about the Manjaro rolling release and the fact that it forces you to stay up to date, and deal with your upgrade issues right away, little by little all the time. It encourages you to update more often, so you do not accrue technical debt in the first place.

About Manjaro

So what is Manjaro anyway, and why not just use Arch? From the Manjaro.org site..

Is an accessible, friendly, open-source operating system. Providing all the benefits of cutting-edge software combined with a focus on getting started quickly, automated tools to require less manual intervention, and help readily available when needed. Manjaro is suitable for both newcomers and experienced computer users.

If you have used Linux before, you probably have come across the Arch Wiki or the AUR at some point while searching for help. The wiki is a great resource for help, and the AUR is a great source of software, but Arch is not exactly beginner or user friendly. The install guide alone should scare away all normal people IMHO, only the most dedicated Linux users are going to even give that page a chance.

Manjaro is basically the opposite of that, and provides an installer, while still being based on Arch. Additionally, if an official Manjaro package is not available, you can pull software from the AUR, and actually keep it up to date using your normal package tools. I have been using Manjaro now for over 2 years, as my daily driver (on everything but servers at this point). The only issues I have had to date are from letting machines get very stale, and not following an upgrade schedule, which is not something I can really blame on Manjaro. Additionally in those cases it was actually pretty easy to fix the issue in the first place. I could go on about the great tools like mhwd, mhwd-kernel, yay etc. that make using Manjaro every day a pleasure compared to the other distros I have used, but I think I will leave that for a future post.

To wrap up I encourage everyone to give Manjaro a try. For me it has been one of the most stable and enjoyable distros I have ever used.