Interesting. As a former Manjaro user (several years ago now), my problems with the distro were more with their approach to package management and the AUR. They withhold packages for the main repositories, but the dependencies for AUR packages will always assume the latest packages, so I would constantly get into these dependency deadlocks where I could not install or could not update certain AUR packages because the necessary dependencies were the incorrect version. I view this as a fundamental technical problem with their approach, and was my main reason for switching away.
Hopefully the new structure/leadership will result in technical changes which fix their issues. Though if I am being honest, the vision of a Manjaro with rolling packages is basically just a reskinned EndeavourOS, so I am not sure what they would need to do for me to recommend this distro to anyone.
This was exactly the same for me. Every Manjaro install I had broke sooner or later because of these dependency issues. After my 3rd or 4th try, I decided to switch to EndeavorOS which is extremely stable for me and serves me well for a couple of years now.
I’ve used Manjaro and, over time, it’s left me without GRUB and without a graphical interface on several occasions – just as has happened with CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Arcolinux, and others. That’s why I no longer use Arch or Arch-based distributions. I admit that, in my opinion, Manjaro is the best Arch-based distribution, provided you don’t install anything from the AUR repository. The problem is that Pamac and some of Manjaro’s own tools don’t follow Arch’s dependency rules, so that mix of Manjaro’s own repositories and Arch’s original repositories can be a problem.
I just avoid the AUR on Manjaro whenever possible. It still works 99% of the time. The few things I actually need to be bleeding edge I will just try to build from source.
The dependency issues seem like that are a flaw in the Arch design. It is the only package manager I’ve seen that requires running the latest available version of packages.
Why should that be a flaw on Arch’s side, when it ooses no issue on Arch’s side? Partial updates are explicitly not supported. That would be fine for Manjaro if they would not encourage the use or for some cases even enable the use of AUR by default.
Partial updates are explicitly not supported.
This is what I’m referring to. Pacman is the only package manager I’ve used with this limitation.
Yes but that is on Manjaro if they do not follow basic rules from their upstream and not on arch. If you ignore design desicions then thats on you.
True, but also why is that a rule from upstream?
Thats the only (sane without tons of work) way how you can have a rolling release distro without the need to compile everything yourself, everytime. Dependency issues will occure when glibc gets updated (or any other library) and you only update some programms but not all, its possible that those programms work or not.
Thank you. I hadn’t considered the binary dependencies in a rolling release.
Acknowledging the issues and having a plan is a first good sign of trust. Executing is the other, so we’ll see how this will going. I personally lost trust and interest into Manjaro and switched away. From personal experience, there were technical issues (caused by Manjaro), and social issues (didn’t like the administration and project leader). But I hope they “recover” and be better, and survive.
But why? Just pick a new name and fork, if there’s something worth preserving in the distro contents. I don’t understand what the something is though.
But why? Just pick a new name and fork
They aren’t stupid to abandon the brand and community just like that and start from nothing. The team plans to start a nonprofit that will work alongside and not under the current Manjaro company. They do say that if Manjaro GmbH & Co. KG declines, or the feel that they are dragging their heels (which they have done) they will start a strike. They are doing this rn. If that fails then they will just move to the next stage which is to leave and/or fork the project.
Manjaro itself is basically a fork of Arch, I thought. I’m not sure what its attraction is supposed to be, but I’ll take your word for it. I similarly don’t understand the attraction of Ubuntu over Debian.
But why? Just pick another arch or arch-based distro like Cachy, Endeavour or even KDE OS.
Manjaro has been a slow sinking ship for too much time, anyone wasting their time with it is equally responsible.
I would say it’s the branding, Manjaro is a good name for a distro, and it’s known for making Arch stable… It was loved once for a reason
Good.
As a long time Manjaro user is good to see something happening.
As to why I’m a Manjaro user: I installed it on my laptop years ago and it served me well, with only a couple of hiccups (the now famous SSL certificate issue and some repo keys that were broken), nothing too difficult to overcome but that points out some major organizational problems.
Other than that, it just works wonderfully and I’m too lazy to hop.
I guess something needed to be done.
