1y ago

Yet another "recommend me a distro" post

Hey ~~fellas~~ friends. Sorry to create yet another post on this topic (maybe we should have a sticky for this?).

About 2 weeks ago I decided it was time to move on from Windows and installed Manjaro. I would consider myself a newbie-intermediate level linux user.

Though I've used Windows most my life, we use Linux servers (no GUI) at work, managing them is part of job description. I also own a late 2011 Macbook Pro with vanilla Arch Linux. I barely ever use it but boy, Arch really brought it back to life!

I've been reasonably happy with Manjaro so far, feels easy and intuitive to use but the community has made me aware that Manjaro is maybe a questionable choice. Since I don´t plan on distro-hopping a lot I want to get it right sooner rather than later.

Here's what I'm looking for:

Rolling distribution, preferably. Though this machine is also used for work, our environment depends mostly on remote servers anyway. I'd rather have a distribution that provides the most recent packages for whatever I want
I don´t mind running a distribution that forces me learn new things or do things in a different way, I kinda embrace it. I just don´t enjoy complexity for complexity's sake.
KDE is my preferred Desktop Environment so far, though I guess that's not very relevant. I'd love to run Hyprland, but you know.. Nvidia :(
I play games on Steam but from my understanding this doesn´t matter either. Everything I tried worked great, I don´t think I want a ¨gaming focused" distro or anything like that
No Ubuntu, please.

My hardware, in case you feel is relevant!

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OS: Manjaro Linux x86_64 
Kernel: 6.5.5-1-MANJARO 
Shell: bash 5.1.16 
Resolution: 2560x1440, 2560x1440 
WM: KWin 
Terminal: konsole 
Terminal Font: MesloLGS NF 10 
CPU: 12th Gen Intel i7-12700K (20) @ 4.900GHz 
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Lite Hash Rate 
Memory: 23313MiB / 64087MiB

87 comments

Anything but Manjaro. I won’t get into the reasons why because it’s easy to find, but suffice it to say that it’s an amateur distro that makes dumb mistakes.
If you want rolling, Arch, Tumbleweed and Endeavour are the first places to look. Maybe even Fedora because it updates very fast, although it’s not rolling.
- I've been using Manjaro for years without issue. I fully understand the arguments against using it, but it's never been a problem for me and I'm too lazy to distro hop for no good reason.
  Are there problems with Manjaro? Yes, of course.
  Are they bad enough that "anything but Manjaro" is good advice to give to someone? IMO, no.

Yet another "Time to reccomend EndeavourOS" reply.
Seriously tho, EndeavourOS is a pretty solid distro, and not that different from what you're currently rocking (Manjaro is based on Arch) except well...it actually works as an Arch based distro should, unlike Manjaro. EndeavourOS's a bit on the light side tho, and it comes with no GUI Add/Remove Software outta the box, but if you don't like using the Konsole for that, nothing a "yay pamac-all" (or "yay pamac-all-no-snap") and a bit of installing the packages you want/need can't fix.
- I always use pacman or yay to install stuff anyway, I won´t miss the Add/Remove GUI!
  
  I also do this, partly outta habit and partly to hear the sounds my mechanical keyboard makes when typing lol
  Anyways, I'd say you're golden if you wanna give Endeavour a shot then
  
  I actually like that that thing from manjaro and use it from time to time in endevour, I think is called "paman".
- I've looked into EndeavourOS now, and I'm very confused. Normally I'd download a .iso and burn it onto a USB using Balena Etcher (or Rufus), but the official page for EndeavourOS doesn't have a .iso. I tried following "method three" on that article, but I don't understand the dialog asking me to choose between Raspberry Pi, Odroid, and Pinebook. I don't have any of those. I just have my own desktop PC with its Intel CPU. Also I see "ARM" everywhere and I think that also implies incompatibility because ARM is RISC whereas my 6th-gen Intel is CISC.
  How do I get started?
  
  Install ventoy to a flash drive, download iso from the landing page, drag it to the flash, boot
  
  They seem to be doing UI changes to the website.
  Currently the non-ARM version of the ISO is in the main page (https://endeavouros.com/) just scroll down and you'll find the mirror list of the most recent ISO by country. Dunno why it's there NGL shrug

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
- Just be careful with Packman repos. Docs advise to run zupper dup with --allow-vendor-change but this has broken KDE a few times for me and I was forced to revert to a previous snapshot.
  That said, openSUSE Tumbleweed with snapshots is the ideal rolling release distro and works great for gaming.

Endevour OS, 100%. Is Arch but without the hassle. I did the same as you, Manjaro then Endevour. Couldn't be happier. Also we have similar hardware (nvidia 3080) and kde+wayland is working really good here. If you would like to try something else, Nobara is great, based on fedora but with some gaming patches.
- kde+wayland is working really good here
  That's nice to read. Do you also have 2 monitors? I have this issue where a screen starts to flickr randomly, apparently it's related to multiple monitors.
  
  Yeah. Well I have 2 + tv. I get some flicker on some xwayland apps, but right now my only remaining xwayland app is Reaper, afaik, at least the only one that flickers. No flicker on native wayland apps. Also, this workaround is worth at least trying to get rid of visual artifacts in kde:
  Search in krunner or similar for "Plasma renderer", under "rendering loop" select "Threaded". Then reboot, not relog, reboot.
  
  No issues here.. probably another Nvidia thing?
  Also check if AdaptiveSync is on or off

If you are tired of Arch, why not give Tumbleweed a chance.

There's nothing wrong with Manjaro. If you say that you're "reasonably happy with Manjaro so far, feels easy and intuitive" and you're not into distro-hopping then I see no reason for you to switch.
If you've already installed Arch on another machine you probably know these things already, but here's the basics for using an Arch-based distro (any Arch-based distro, this applies to all of them):
You gotta keep rolling. You don't have to upgrade every day, you don't have to upgrade every week, but once every few months you should. That's the whole point of a rolling distro, if you don't want rolling you can look into point-release distros.
It's best to use pacman -Syu on command line to do upgrades.
Don't install critical stuff from AUR. Don't install AUR graphical drivers, or AUR kernels, or replace system packages with AUR packages.
Don't install experimental kernels and especially don't uninstall all other kernels and only keep the experimental ones, that's just asking for trouble. Stick to stable/longterm kernels and always keep two versions around, just in case.
Specifically for Manjaro there's similar advice:
Stick to the stable releases, don't mess around with testing or unstable unless you really know what you're doing.
If you want to know what's coming in updates you can check out the announcements page. That's also where you can find tips for fixing various package upstream annoyances – in every release post, under "known fixes and workarounds" (which happen occasionally, it's the price you pay when using a rolling distro and staying on the bleeding edge).
- There's nothing wrong with Manjaro
  That's not quite right.

Based on your requirements Arch Linux or OpenSuSe Tumbleweed is what you want
Run away from Manjaro.
- I can recommend Tumbleweed. I'm far from linux pro, so I really love the easy rollback function. It was a life saver couple of times for me. Now rolling for 2,5 years and can't complain at all!
  I'm on AMD, so not sure how's nvidia.
  Or alternatively, there's always Hannah Montana Linux...
- Thanks for your thoughts!

I’m going to also recommend EndeavourOS. Or, if you’re game, just go for Arch. Sure the first time you install will be painful, but you’ll learn a lot about how everything works together. Then you will be more proficient at fixing it if and when you break it.

In short: Manjaro sucks. No one should ever use it.
For rolling distro you should look at:
Opensuse Tumbleweed: latest packages, well tested, bullet proof reliability and built in system rollback. RPM based.
Garuda Linux: full flavoured ARCH. Very fast, has all the latest packages. Reliable. Built in rollback. Cool theming.
- In short: Manjaro sucks. No one should ever use it.
  I've seen their certificates fail to renew multiple times. I feel like I don't know anything, but I could at least certbot.
  
  They are notorious for breaking your system because they mix old packages with new which causes dependency issues and driver issues.
  If you're using a rolling distro both the system packages and library's, as well as the apps packages must both be up to date.
  Manjaro doesn't follow this

Debian testing
- This is the closest to a rolling Debian release, and I really like it. It’s basically the next major release for Debian, Updates are plenty and the packages much newer than in the stable, though not bleeding edge.
  Best of both worlds IMHO

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, one of the default DE's they offer is KDE.
- OpenSUSE was also known for their amazing KDE implementation in the past. Not sure if that's still the case but it's worth mentioning.

If you want to be a little adventurous, just install vanilla arch and it will be great, but if you want a little bit of a easier install with all the same benefits, use endeavor os.
If you want something not arch based the only thing I can recommend is OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, I've heard great things about it.
Also about Hyprland and Nvidia, I've been using Hyprland for some months now with Nvidia and it's been working great. I do have a significantly older card then you, but it could be worth a try to see if it works. You just have to follow the Hyprland wiki very carefully and you should be fine.

I'd usually recommend Linux Mint, but since you seems to be up for a challenge, how about Gentoo?
Otherwise for something more mild, you can go for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
- I feel like I'd break Gentoo really fast, to be honest
  
  Just follow the handbook. You'll be fine.

I'd say either OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or either (depending on if you want a graphical installer) EndeavourOS or Arch.

Just "man up" and do a minimal install of (any distro you want), and (manually) install the things you want via the package manager.
...no really. All it takes is two commands (one to search for the package you want, and the another one to install it).
"b-buh its my first ti--"
DO IT
- undefined
  
  $ man up man: No entry for up in the manual.
  Another idea ?
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  DO IT
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- This, op.
  You clearly know enough about what you want already. A minimal install of Debian with just a handful of apt commands will get you exactly what you want in just a handful of minutes.

I switched to fedora some months ago and I've been really enjoying it. Maybe worth a shot.

I've already mentioned this a couple of time this week, so I hope no one get bothered. But I can't recommend Xerolinux enough (page). I think it's what you may like. Rolling release, gorgeous KDE, a ready to use as is system. I've been distro hopping for a while but this made me settled.
- Do they use Arch official repositories or is it like manjaro where they have their own repo?
  
  It uses the Arch official repositories so it's as rolling as pure Arch, i used it before it's great. It uses KDE Plasma and has different theming options to pick from that all look really nice.
  You can always try it in a live environment before installing it to see if you like it.

OpenSuse Tumbleweed is an excellent choice, if you want the most stable rolling release distro.
High quality OS.

Man I used arch for a while and many other "bleeding edge" distros and I just can't get enough of Fedora. It is so stable and has such reasonable defaults. I use the fedora kde spin and have zero issues with my setup. Now since you are on nvidia you may have more issues, since by default fedora only ships the open source nvidia drivers and you would have to use https://rpmfusion.org/Configuration to get the nonfree stuff. Also you'd have to use dnf which is very similar to apt in my eyes and is very easy to use. Fedora even gets stuff sooner than arch on ocassion which is nice.
I do enjoy my time with fedora and for the most part it has very little setup. It's a very set it and forget it distro

This rolling release thing was just a terrible time in my Linux life. It's like you are scared of the "you have to start from the ground, erase everything, thing if you want to install win7 or winXP" but the price for a rolling release is a hell of updates every day.
I am done with this annoying updates. Debian has both world's, the stable side just updates if your security is at risk and the unstable branch is near the same like a rolling release and what Debian calls "unstable" is more stable than any arch-based distro. Btw a change between stable and unstable can be done at every time after install.
I personally prefer fedora because its as stable as Debian but has mostly actual packages like rolling releases. And would be my advice for op. BTW. Try out kinoite. Undestroyable Linux is the hot shit actually.
https://fedoraproject.org/kinoite/
And don't be scared about not rolling release, a version change is just a big update. Nothing got destroyed like in the good old windows time.
- Immutable distributions and/or NixOS is definitely something I have considered. Mostly as a learning experience, maybe NixOS is something that could be really useful for work. As an everyday desktop experience, I'm not sure it's the right fit... Maybe I'll replace the Arch Linux on my Macbook Pro. I barely use it anyway, something not rolling definitely makes a lot more sense.
  
  I like using NixOS on my desktop, and it does have a rolling release channel, but it can be pretty complicated to learn. Messing around on the Macbook would be a good way to learn and try it out, and then copying your config to your pc would be easy.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed gets recommended here a lot. Just be aware: It's an expert distro masquerading as beginner-friendly.
Out of the box, it won't recognize printers and scanners. Setting them up is a hassle without cups-airprint and sane-airscan which aren't preinstalled, and the latter is only available through a user's repo.
Printer setup will also fail unless you add an exception to the built-in firewall. Nothing in the GUI tells you about this.
It also won't play web videos before you install the codecs. These are available in the packman repo, which will require learning the concept of repo priorities and "vendor-change", what it does and when to use it. (It can break your system)
The package manager is very sophisticated and complex, but some of its features shouldn't be used in Tumbleweed. Updating Tumbleweed like you would the normal fixed release system is possible (in fact, if you use the GUI, it's the default) but it will break your system.
And the system administration tool YAST offers a lot of functionality that is already present in the KDE options. What the differences are? Who knows.

I'm just like you, newbie-intermediate Linux user who recently jumped from Windows to (Ubuntu then) Manjaro. What's wrong with Manjaro?
- I've seen this link going around quite frequently: https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
  
  Thanks. Guess I'll have to look into EndeavourOS too, as commenters seem to be saying.
- Pasting an old reply of mine from another thread answering this same question:
  Manjaro is…tricky.
  I’ve called it an Arch based distro that kinda sucks at being an Arch based distro before, and I stand by that. You can’t treat Manjaro like you would EndeavourOS or Vanilla Arch Linux because of how Manjaro decides to do things: essentially, updates are held back by a couple of weeks for better and worse instead of being released as they’re made avaliable. While that means it can catch disastrous things like the GRUB issue another user pointed out (Manjaro was unaffected by it IIRC), it also means the system is prone to breaking itself more often. And you can forget about using the AUR if you’re using Manjaro–or well, you can, but the AUR and Manjaro are nortorious for not playing nice with one another because of the latter’s tendencies to hold back packages, which, natrually, leads to even more breaking.
  Personally, I wouldn’t recomend it. However, If you don’t mind being extra careful with what you install (really that’s standard practice for any distro, but hey, I’ve never found a WIP package that messed up my system anywhere other than when using Manjaro, so make of that what you will), are willing to tolerate constant mild to severe breakage, and just using Flatpaks and appimages over the AUR, then give Manjaro a try, but otherwise? Go with EndeavourOS, or Garuda, or literally anything else.
  
  I've been using Manjaro for years with zero issues. Far fewer than using Arch for example.
  
  Thank you for the detailed explanation. I haven't had any issues in my few weeks with it, but I don't want to wait until issues do show up.
  Honestly I was just in love because the wifi just worked somehow without me having to port over drivers via USB dongle from my laptop.

Yet another one of my Garuda Linux shill posts. IMHO thr best arch based distro. As easy to setup as Manjaro. Check out their KDE light version if you don't like their theme, which is what I use. I think their edgy theme is THE WORST. The distro itself is great tho. Been running it for a few months without distro hopping, this is huge for me.

You want to game on your work machine?? Okay.
So KDE, and gaming, and rolling, and stable kinda.
Opensuse Kalpa: Tumbleweed based immutable, not sure about codecs
Fedora Kinoite-nvidia from ublue
- You want to game on your work machine?? Okay.
  It's more like the other way around, I happen to work on my gaming machine :P Cheers!

Have you looked into Solus at all? They are rolling and build with a focus on desktop usage.

Fellas?
- friends
  Better?
  
  Anything not sexist is better.
  Fella.

87 comments