Manjaro or Ubuntu?

Hello. I’m a new guy to Linux, and for the past few weeks was trying out different distros to pick one which is best for me. I’m thinking of switching to Linux permenantly. In the end I’m stuck between 2 distros. Manjaro and Ubuntu. I like Manjaro for rolling release model and the AUR and Ubuntu for the big community and stability. Which one of the 2 distros do you think is best for me?

Hard to say without knowing what your goals are with the said distro.
But given the fact that you are a new user, i would say start with an Ubuntu base.
Because allthough Manjaro is pretty nice an easy to setup aswell nowdays.
But its still Arch based, running the latest bleeding egde generally means that you will also get the latest bugs.
So the sysem will break at a certain moment.
And if you are not aware of that, and not yet feel at home enough to poke arround and solve bugs.
Then its probablly better to go with a stable Ubuntu base.

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Being that you’re new to Linux, I would recommend against rolling release, and that you should use Ubuntu instead. As a beginner, the slow moving packages will let you get comfortable at your own pace. Once you’re more familiar with the platform you should be fine to inch closer to the bleeding edge.

You already know all there is to know.
Choose.

Manjaro has it’s own repos. Being based on something doesn’t mean a lot. Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. They are still all very different and neither Mint nor Ubuntu are as stable or unstable as Debian.

I would counter that with: The faster you go, the faster you break shit, the faster you learn. And you WILL break shit anyway regardless of distro.

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I recommend Ubuntu for this reason. If you like to tinker, things will break. But at least you have given the option to forgo random breakage (for the most part) and instead can break things at your own pace. The seemingly random breakage that comes from quick updates may easily puzzle a new user who isn’t accustomed to troubleshooting this kind of system. It sucks pretty hard when your mom has to cancel your meetings because Xorg broke again.

That’s not to say that Manjaro would be a bad choice, it’s a fine distro and I actually used it myself at one point. I’m just worried of the disillusionment that can come from a bad first impression.

I honestly hardly had anything of that sort with manjaro. I do understand your point but since I am running kubuntu and manjaro KDE both for a while now, I don’t see any difference in quality of updates. And you can easily just disable updates in manjaro too. … It’s not windows we are talking about. :wink:

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I don’t mean to say that you WILL experience breakage with a rolling release. But it’s certainly not unlikely. And as experienced users, we’re more likely to forget about something breaking because it was very easy for us to fix as we know where to look.

During the time I used manjaro I did notice that the Arch crowd was very unwilling to help manjaro users, as they use their own repos and the like. Maybe things have changed.

bUt ArCh BaSeD sTuFf BrEaKs A lOt

Can we move on now guys?

Honestly the learning curve for Ubuntu isnt quite as steep but if you have a bit of patience Manjaro isnt going to be something completely out of the realm of a new user. Documentation for Arch is really good and if you can spend some time reading through it you can probably figure out how to do most things.

Hell I use the Arch documentation as a mint user. Its p good.

:thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking:

Not an argument, and that’s not even what we’re talking about here.

Only works in Pro and up

Im making fun because that always gets brought up first thing despite really not being that big of a deal. It wasnt a direct reply to you was it?

Lol no. It works in all versions. You can just set it in registry on home.

But this is getting off topic. Stick to the linux discussion.


I think this pretty much sums up the answer to the question.

Pick one, hell try them all.

Maybe it’s just not the right people to ask?
If Ubuntu breaks you’re not asking questions in Debian forums, do you?

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It’s not from personal experience, just my observation. I’ve definitely seen ubuntu people helping linux mint users however.

You’re not the first one to mention that. I just never understood why debian based distros are always seen as it’s own individual thing and all arch based stuff “is basically arch”.

I’m pretty sure given enough time I could find examples of the opposite nature.
Either way it’s just not a good argument to make. If you’re running manjaro and have a problem, the first place to go should be the manjaro forums.

I would recommend you start with Ubuntu unless you are more interested in the Operating system mechanics side and have a need for bleeding edge / rolling release.

I have a few reasons, but my main reason is simply that with the much larger install base you will have a much easier time finding support. Ubuntu gets a lot more hardware testing simply due to its install base, there are so many folks using it problems get found and fixed rather quickly.

I have used dozens of distros over the years and I don’t personally use Ubuntu, however when I help a new person on Linux, I always start them with Ubuntu.

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