2d ago

Is Manjaro more stable than Arch?

Does the 1~2 week delay improve Manjaro stability over Arch?

I run Manjaro on the computer I use 99.9% of the time. It's been rock stable but there have been a few issues, over the years. I've been forced to reinstall on four occasions, since 2017. I expect it would have been more but I stopped taking updates until a week or two after they are offered. Every issue could have been handled with timeshift but I only started running timeshift about 6 months ago.

I also have an Arch laptop that I use a few times per year. It's been very stable but it goes for weeks without being used. I have no way to know how many problems it would have had if I used it every day.

Any thoughts on which is more stable? Maybe it doesn't matter that much, with snappy and timeshift?

12 comments

No, because the whole Manjaro concept is bullshit.
Delaying updates by two weeks for a few more checks could help catch some bugs that went unnoticed, but not in the way Manjaro does it. Which means with no rhyme or reason at all. They don't use the two weeks for additional tests. They don't even collect fixes or patches based on the bleeding edge experience of actual Arch to apply to their delayed updates. They just delay updates, fixes and everything by two weeks. So your system is exactly as unstable as Arch just with 2 weeks delay.
And it gets worse from there: Arch has a disclaimer about the AUR being unsupported and requires you to install AUR helpers manually, so you did it at least once the old-school way and actually see the disclaimer. Manjaro however gives you access to the AUR pre-installed. No, not a cloned version of the AUR that is also 2 weeks behind. Direct access to one as used by Arch that expects your system to be up-to-date, not 2 weeks behind... introducing a completely new kind of dependency hell and instability.
PS: And that's before questionable stuff on the Manjaro side... like letting their SSL certificates expire multiple times (and suggesting changing your devices clock as a "fix") or DDOS'ing the AUR with a bug in their AUR helper, also multiple times.
- The delayed updates also include security updates by the way, so you're vulnerable for two weeks to any known exploit.

nope, just older. and as soon as you throw in AUR you're asking for trouble

I find Arch more stable since I choose what to install and everything is basically "stock".
However my experience with Manjaro is from a few years ago, it could have improved.

According to Debian users, "stable" means "unchanging" and not "doesn't crash or have bugs" ... If you still ship 100% of the changes but just delay them by 2 weeks, you have the same number of changes. So by the Debian definition of "stable", no, it is the exact same as arch.
By the everyone else definition where "stable" means "doesn't crash or have bugs", then also no. Shipping buggy code 2 weeks later doesn't reduce bugs. And if you use the AUR at all, then things get worse, I've found, as the AUR pkgbuilds expect dependencies to match current up to date Arch repos.
tl;dr - no

Manjaro was worse when I tried it a few times. I'd steer clear of it.

I will note that your "I have no way to know how many problems it would have it I used it every day" is kind of.. the stability "issues" is due to frequent updates. You can simply not update for a few weeks at a time, reducing the likelihood of encountering issues.

My completely unqualified position is that manjaro is not more stable than arch, in fact, according to the news manjaro's changes are just more instability. I've been running basic arch & KDE for 6 months now and it hasn't been perfect. The biggest issue I've had so far is; "using the scroll wheel in the KDE start menu will crash the DE" and that was fixed in a day.

I personally have never actually used Manjaro on my own computers, but my friend had one for the longest time and had way more bugs and issues in it than I have had from my vanilla Arch, and I update almost daily. I've been using this install for about a year now and only reinstalled my previous copy of Arch because I wanted to completely clear my SSD, and I was using it for the two years before that.
- Same, I've never reinstalled Arch for any reason other than building a new computer or due to hardware failure.

I can't speak for Arch personally. It required more time than I had at the time to install it, as I wanted to do it the recommended way from the Archwiki but I also did not have reliable internet at the time. That was awhile ago, late 2020 I think. I started using Linux in spring of 2020.
I have been using the same installation of Manjaro KDE since

me@mycomputer ~]$ stat / | grep Birth Birth: 2024-02-05 04:54:20.000000000 -0500
which is also when I assembled this computer. The zeros at the end of 'Birth' look really improbable. They are accurate as far as I understand but I wouldn't know how to check otherwise either.
My previous system I also was using Manjaro KDE. It had a few problems, I think it was mostly because of an nvidia graphics card. That and user error. It still works to this day. I haven't reinstalled Manjaro or installed any OS on it since september of 2021. I also haven't used it much since building this new system. This has nothing to do with the operating system, I just like to share it, the computer was in two tornados one day and the CPU was partially delidded from one and it still works fine.
I will add that I am a casual user, I don't do some things that might invite trouble like torrenting. I also live alone and have very few friends and no known enemies, so overall I have a very boring threat model, that mentions cats more than most threat models do.
I also do not use the AUR and am on the stable repository. I also don't use Timeshift, I use Vorta, which uses Borg, for my backup system, which only backs up my personal files which are in my home directory on a separate partition, if something happens to the system, I will reinstall. It hasn't happened in over a year though.
For my very basic computer needs (mostly Firefox, GIMP, Blender, Zim and Kdenlive), it works fine. Cue Manjaro haters.

12 comments