securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 1 hour ago, abarbarian said: Why on earth would you even contemplate Manjaro ? If you take a bit of time and take it step by step you can install just the programs you need on a Arch install that will be as stable as the Rock of Gibralter. If you install Manjaro you will get a load of crud that is of no use to you and you will be relying on programs that have been fiddled with by the Manjaro devs to fit in with their ideas. On a Arch build you will get the programs unaltered and as they were created by their original developers. Just saying is all. ^^ Exactly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 I find it rather ironic that the "paternal" distros like Arch and Debian are (of course) rock stable but their DEs are so vanilla bland that customization is a must. OTOH distros like MX Linux and Linux Mint have a slick level of default DE that I personally would find hard to do better. Being a default sort of guy I just distro hopped until I found some that did the job for me. MX Linux has a lot of "tools" but you can update with APT easily enough. Having said that I stay away from Manjaro, which in my view has the most arrogant forum in Linux. YMMV. I don't use Ubuntu that much anymore either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 (edited) I like Arch AND Manjaro. I see the merits for Arch that were cited. But some of the "negatives" cited for Manjaro, I view as pluses, or at least "a wash". For me personally, I customize my distros as "swiss army knives" with a tool for everything; often having a fully-featured program for something, as well as a lightweight alternative. For instance, Cantata as my main music player, with Audacious as a backup. Maybe a better example would be gscan2pdf as my main scanning software and skanlite as my backup. Or MasterPDFeditor as my main, with PDFMod as my backup. This is my production machine, and I have HARD deadlines. I can't have a problem with gscan2pdf which requires a 2-4 hour troubleshooting session which may or may not yield a resolution. Gscan2pdf is NECESSARY for me, and could absolutely cause me to miss my deadline. And NO ONE wants to hear "sorry I'm late, I had computer problems." With Skanlite installed, I can use that software, modify my workflow a little to accommodate, and meet my deadline. THEN I can troubleshoot gscan2pdf when I'm no longer on the clock, fix the issue, and I haven't been held hostage by the software or the process. I'm big on backups......data, processes, software....everything. I even have a backup scanner (my old scanner), a backup printer (my wife's laserjet), a backup router (found cheap on Ebay), and I have a cell phone hotspot as my backup internet access. So for me, I would remove less from Manjaro (or perhaps even nothing) than I would add to Arch. Manjaro also uses the Calamares installer and a LiveMedia for installation. I'm used to that, I'm comfortable with it, and I like that. I've used various Arch installers, and everything worked out fine, but I could never "try before you buy". I am NOT KNOCKING ARCH.....I like it! But you asked why I would choose Manjaro....these might be some reasons FOR ME. A third reason might be the user-base/forums. I'll respectfully disagree with Ray about the Manjaro forum. My experience has been the inverse of Ray's.....I have found the Manjaro forum to be user-friendly and helpful, with the occasional sphincter, while I have found most users on the Arch forum to be sphincters, with occasionally helpful folks. I find the Arch forum to be quite arrogant, filled with elitist responses similar to "maybe Arch isn't for you". If it wasn't for SecurityBreach, I would've written off Arch a LONG time ago. He's a breath of fresh air. But I can't rely on ONE person for potential support. While the Arch Wiki is a hands down winner against all other tutorials for all other forums (another plus for Arch), I find the Manjaro forum to be more welcoming and willing to help with troubleshooting. RTFM is not helpful advice, IMO. FWIW....no decisions have been made. Perhaps I could've phrased my original statement better and said "a rolling release distro like Arch". Although I see Manjaro as something that I would want to customize my Arch install to be....a "head start" so to speak. But I won't be switching to a rolling release distro any time soon, for the reasons cited. Too much maintenance/updating for too many machines in my home network. But if a solution ever presents itself, I'm happy to reconsider this decision. Until then, re-installation every 5 years or so is the price I'll pay to avoid the frequent updating of a rolling release on multiple machines. I've only replied here to indicate some reasons why I might consider Manjaro over Arch. That's not a knock on Arch.....as I could just as easily learn something in the future that could swing the pendulum that Arch is better for me than Manjaro. I'll continue to run both in VMs and experiment with each... Edited January 20, 2021 by Hedon James 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 I'm still using Mint on my old Lenovo laptop, it just plain works and with that I mean everything works without any problems whatsoever software wise. The only thing that does not work is the fingerprint sensor but that is a proprietary piece of hardware by Lenovo which I don't need and don't use. Upgrading it to a new version of Mint does not give any problems out of my experience. I keep this machine in this working state in case my main machine (Mac) fails. Last fall I upgraded it to v.20 (Ulyana) after I took a thorough look at some other distros to see what they had on offer in particular with this hardware : debian, opensuse, manjaro, medocia, fedora, ubuntu, kde neon, in different flavours en different versions and DE's. I took my time with it during a couple of weeks, however at the end I came back to Linux Mint and after a fresh install I tweaked it to my liking and to the way I use it when I need to do so. All in all in my opinion it's a very stable and enjoyable distro to use. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 2 hours ago, raymac46 said: I find it rather ironic that the "paternal" distros like Arch and Debian are (of course) rock stable but their DEs are so vanilla bland that customization is a must. That is because only uses vanilla upstream sources without any patching or modification. We run arch because of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Arch Linux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions or modifications. It ships software as released by the original developers (upstream) with minimal distribution-specific (downstream) changes: patches not accepted by upstream are avoided, and Arch's downstream patches consist almost entirely of backported bug fixes that are obsoleted by the project's next release. In a similar fashion, Arch ships the configuration files provided by upstream with changes limited to distribution-specific issues like adjusting the system file paths. It does not add automation features such as enabling a service simply because the package was installed. Packages are only split when compelling advantages exist, such as to save disk space in particularly bad cases of waste. GUI configuration utilities are not officially provided, encouraging users to perform most system configuration from the shell and a text editor. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux#Principles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 1 hour ago, Hedon James said: If it wasn't for SecurityBreach, I would've written off Arch a LONG time ago. He's a breath of fresh air. 2 Wow, I really appreciate the kind words Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 28 minutes ago, securitybreach said: Wow, I really appreciate the kind words Well, I really appreciate YOU! You stick out like a sore thumb when it comes to Arch users. You seem to want to cultivate new Arch users, while most Arch users seem to view it as some sort of "credential test". If you can't RTFM and figure it out, then Arch isn't for you....perhaps Ubuntu, or Mint, or Debian will suit you better. If enough Arch users feel that way, and treat new users that way for long enough, Arch will never grow its userbase and may even eventually die on the vine. Everything I learned about Arch, I learned HERE at BATL, and most of that was from YOU! THANK YOU! 1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 @HJ I understand your need for redundancy as your use of Linux is truly mission critical. I have not visited the Arch forum although I use the Wiki all the time regardless of what distro I am running. If it's got even more dweebs than Manjaro I shudder at the thought. Most of the arrogance I got on Manjaro's forum came from moderators - something that never happens here. I just rely on Josh and the Wiki. And Erik of course as he is more on my level than Josh is. @ Josh I am not complaining about the vanilla Arch look and feel. I understand the principles behind it. I have customized Arch a bit - currently I have LXQt as my desktop and XFWM4 as my window manager. But I am no artist when it comes to appearance and Linux Mint's Cinnamon looks great to me out of the box. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 raymac46, as you've probably found already, there isn't much reason to go to the Arch forums for help. Or there hasn't been for me. The wiki is almost always enough. As I recall, I asked a couple of questions here early on. When I visit the Arch forums, it's usually just to do some reading. Oh, and now that I think of it, there have been times when a web search took me to the Arch forums, and then I found the info I needed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 7 hours ago, Hedon James said: I have found most users on the Arch forum to be sphincters, with occasionally helpful folks. I find the Arch forum to be quite arrogant, filled with elitist responses similar to "maybe Arch isn't for you". Well I took the trouble to check out the ten latest threads at the Arch Forums in the Newbies Corner and the Installation section and I could not find any of the behaviour you describe. In fact I found the opposite, quality information delivered with a patient and helpful manner. I did the same thing over at the Manjaro forums and whilst the replies were friendly enough the information offered was in some cases very scetchy. This FUD regarding Arch elitism and unfriendliness is in the main just FUD these days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 3 hours ago, raymac46 said: I just rely on Josh and the Wiki. And Erik of course as he is more on my level than Josh is. Blimey you must have been in desperate states to rely on any help and information I have offered. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 In all fairness...it's been several years since I've visited either forum, Arch or Manjaro. And it's certainly possible the culture changed in that time. But those were my experiences back when I was frequenting those forums. I can't comment on how they are today, only to say it sounds encouraging to hear Arch is a little less elitist and more tolerant. My experiences came from more than 1 user, and after awhile just concluded "they're right....Arch obviously isn't for me." And that formed my opinion. Now, I conclude that Arch COULD be for me someday, as long as SB and the rest of you folks at BATL are still active and kicking! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 3 hours ago, raymac46 said: @HJ I understand your need for redundancy as your use of Linux is truly mission critical. I have not visited the Arch forum although I use the Wiki all the time regardless of what distro I am running. If it's got even more dweebs than Manjaro I shudder at the thought. Most of the arrogance I got on Manjaro's forum came from moderators - something that never happens here. I just rely on Josh and the Wiki. And Erik of course as he is more on my level than Josh is. @ Josh I am not complaining about the vanilla Arch look and feel. I understand the principles behind it. I have customized Arch a bit - currently I have LXQt as my desktop and XFWM4 as my window manager. But I am no artist when it comes to appearance and Linux Mint's Cinnamon looks great to me out of the box. I feel like EVERYONE here is at a higher level than me. But that's why I keep coming back! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 3 hours ago, raymac46 said: Josh I am not complaining about the vanilla Arch look and feel. I understand the principles behind it. I have customized Arch a bit - currently I have LXQt as my desktop and XFWM4 as my window manager. But I am no artist when it comes to appearance and Linux Mint's Cinnamon looks great to me out of the box. I get it but there are lots of sites that you can download themes and extract them to the environments's theme directory or you can just take the name and search the AUR for the package and install it. Here is one for cinnamon https://www.cinnamon-look.org/browse/cat/133/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 50 minutes ago, saturnian said: raymac46, as you've probably found already, there isn't much reason to go to the Arch forums for help. Or there hasn't been for me. The wiki is almost always enough. As I recall, I asked a couple of questions here early on. When I visit the Arch forums, it's usually just to do some reading. Oh, and now that I think of it, there have been times when a web search took me to the Arch forums, and then I found the info I needed. That's actually why the arch forums are considered hostile to some. If someone took the time to write the wiki entry with the answer or it's been answered numerous times on the forum and the user doesn't bother to search either, people get aggravated and tell them to RTM. Now I don't really agree but I understand why it's the way it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 31 minutes ago, Hedon James said: I feel like EVERYONE here is at a higher level than me. But that's why I keep coming back! Nah, you're smarter than you think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 (edited) 3 minutes ago, securitybreach said: Nah, you're smarter than you think. Maybe. But not as smart as i'd like to be. ALWAYS looking for more, and I get that here! Edited January 20, 2021 by Hedon James 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 2 hours ago, Hedon James said: I feel like EVERYONE here is at a higher level than me. But that's why I keep coming back! Ha-ha, I feel the same way, like everyone here is at a higher level than ME! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 59 minutes ago, saturnian said: Ha-ha, I feel the same way, like everyone here is at a higher level than ME! I just have to look at some of the dumb and/or lazy questions and incomprehensible babble posted in certain other forums to know that's not true at all. I get by with knowing how to use those things I use and help others with those things if I can. But I also know my Linux and computing knowledge is but a handful of sand in a whole beach of computing knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 3 hours ago, sunrat said: I just have to look at some of the dumb and/or lazy questions and incomprehensible babble posted in certain other forums to know that's not true at all. I get by with knowing how to use those things I use and help others with those things if I can. But I also know my Linux and computing knowledge is but a handful of sand in a whole beach of computing knowledge. Well even if its been answered a million times, I always give them the (mostly) wiki links in hopes that will realize that the wiki is a great guide for any distro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 3 hours ago, securitybreach said: Well even if its been answered a million times, I always give them the (mostly) wiki links in hopes that will realize that the wiki is a great guide for any distro. I do that if I can understand what they were trying to say (incomprehensible babble) or if they supplied enough relevant info, but I'm much less inclined to answer questions at all if they have been answered a million times or the answer can be found by a quick web search. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 11 hours ago, Hedon James said: I feel like EVERYONE here is at a higher level than me. But that's why I keep coming back! Have you tried adjusting the height of you computer chair, usually done with a lever at the side of the main stem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 3 hours ago, abarbarian said: Have you tried adjusting the height of you computer chair, usually done with a lever at the side of the main stem. ba-dump....tshhhh. He's here all week folks! Don't forget to tip your bartenders! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 11 hours ago, sunrat said: I just have to look at some of the dumb and/or lazy questions and incomprehensible babble posted in certain other forums to know that's not true at all. I get by with knowing how to use those things I use and help others with those things if I can. But I also know my Linux and computing knowledge is but a handful of sand in a whole beach of computing knowledge. Bullseye! that's exactly how I feel! And while I have a handful, y'all got buckets and shovels! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 I can usually muddle my way through most of the problems I've run across while using Slackware over the years. However, when I really begin to feel like I don't really know squat is when I visit LinuxQuestions.org and read some of the Slackware gurus' banter over there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Came across this very comprehensive guide to do almost everything you could think of for MINT whilst searching for something else. Folks may find a tip or too that they did not know about in it. A million and one Easy tips for Linux Mint and Ubuntu, both for beginners and for advanced users. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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