The whole reason manjaro does hold back packages is precisely for stability and compatibility. They want them to work with manjaro and everything on the official repo's. This is different from arch, but a common practice on just about every other distro. The only issue I can see people having is if they use the AUR to get fresh out of the oven packages and then expect everything to be perfect. To me this seems like a classic example of elitist arch mentality "Your distro has a vetting process and it's own repo's? Then it is inferior and breaks compatibility." In reality the packages are held back for maybe a week if it's not important. I've been using Manjaro for a couple years now and the only compatibility issue that I've had was with proprietary software. It just bugs me that arch users think the only way to get your software is soon after it is released. RHEL and others have a completely different view on that. We're just in the middle and are looking for cooperation from mainline arch and its userbase.
No no no. Do not get me wrong. I am not rooting for arch here. Trust me. I am really not rooting for arch.
I am simply explaining why people have the mentality that they do towards manjaro.
That's a very good point. Do you think it's a major risk to use these user-made scripts, considering the limited permissions given?
Also, any malicious script, once detected, should be easy to report as all build scripts are made public. I guess it isn't a very efficient exploit, I know I would be discouraged (not everyone though).
I tried Ubuntu 15.04 on an Acer laptop some time ago and the trackpad was the main reason I abandoned it. The pointer would freeze all the time and scrolling was completely unusable. Other than that, some steam games wouldnt start, and Gnome crashed a few times for no apparent reason. Have not tried the Unity version though
it would surprise me if it didn't work. then again 14.04 is an LTS distro. everything better work out the box. 15.10 ehh I would expect a few minor issues here or there.
In my experience, while yaourt is supremely useful sometimes it just won't work. There are the odd few packages that I have to manually build from time to time. That is why it is a good idea to know how it's done instead of relying completely on yaourt. As for manjaro, there really is nothing wrong with using a distribution that does all you need out of the box, however (contrarily to the "arch way") that places it in the same cathegory as something like ubuntu - which does not make it bad, it just makes it something different. The "point" of arch is supposed to be full customizability and no preinstalled stuff that you may not need or want, as well as clean code and bleeding edge updates. While it's certainly possible to take something like manjaro or ubuntu and strip them of the stuff you don't want, it's more of a patch solution, not quite as "elegant", although you'll barely notice any difference anyway. Personally I use arch because I want to learn rather than for any other reason, although the high stability and customizability as well as the rolling release model certainly help.
I have been using Manjaro for about a year now and really like it, although it is not the logical choice of distribution for my main need; a reliable system for audio streaming. I would probably be better on a LTS distro with minimal updates, but I would miss having the AUR and some other features.
I went to Manjaro because it was the first distro I could boot a live cd with choice of proprietary graphics drivers and not need any setup for my 2 displays. The manjaro extras to help change graphics driver and kernel were a big plus after struggling with various ubuntu flavours. I have never felt the XFCE version to be bloated like windows
I have seen lots of stronger warnings than those in the AUR. Putting 3rd party sound and graphics drivers in win7 and getting info from my isp for networking devices had bigger, scary warnings. I just take it as reminder to stay focused on a clear plan of action and ways to roll-back changes or restore from backup.
When I search AUR in the pamac gui, packages with more than one version showing (like a bin or git version) have been the ones most likely to cause problems. Paying extra attention to the messages during the build is enough to see if it is failing and try a different version.
I would consider the AUR less risky than adding 3rd party repos or downloading a .deb file like in ubuntu. Probably the most dangerous noob mistake on any linux is copy/pasting commands you don't understand from a random webpage.