kubuntu vs Manjaro?

[bendy]

Since I'm a bit unhappy with the current drive by ubuntu to force snaps on us, I thought it was time to check out alternatives. Has anyone tried the kde flavour of Manjaro recently? Looking at their stable packages, kde/plasma seem to be up to date and the same versions I have on kubuntu 21.10 plus backports repo. They have a native firefox package, but it appears that Libreoffice is via a flatpak.

[Beerislife]

I've only tried Manjaro from the live USB but never installed it. I did install Endeavour OS Plasma on my ThinkPad and I quite liked it. I borked it up though after a while and since the only Live USB I had around was Mint Cinnamon, I installed that. When I get time I'll revisit Endeavour...

[Bings]

I did a separate partition with KDE Manjaro a while back so I could use it as for games with steam/wine/proton. It worked wonderfully at first then an update happened which created some fault where the graphics would slow down and freeze the system when there was a download happening. The fault may have been specific to me, I just re-installed the OS because it was the easiest option.

Also I didn't use the kde stuff really, like I do with my main kubuntu setup so I switched to the XFCE version and I've had no problems since. The KDE version updated a lot with new KDE stuff so if this would annoy you then I would avoid but it might be something you'd like.

[claydoh]

.

Arch types require a more hands on approach, aside from learning the differences in system level tasks. Even Manjaro

Manjaro, aside from being fugly has a bit of a fanboi crowd that imo boosts its mindshare, which muddies the water a bit, especially from perspective from regular Arch users. Manjaro is just different enough from Arch to potentially be confusing.

and while these may be open to debate, there are perspectives on Manjaro:
for starters

https://www.hadet.dev/Manjaro-Bad/
These are not necessarily current, but some points are still valid.

My personal take?
I have not used it much, or for long, as something always breaks - I am sure it often was my own fault, but not always. I don't recommend it, but I also don't NOT recommend it.
It may be easier to work around whatever Snap issues people have than it would be to install, set up, and learn a completely new type of OS. Then again, it might be worth the effort.

[chimak111]

.
...
https://www.hadet.dev/Manjaro-Bad/
These are not necessarily current, but some points are still valid.
...

The author took a swing at Arch as well

... I personally believe Arch is a barely functioning mess to begin with ...

[GreyGeek]

I gave Manjaro about 30 minutes in my VM before I deleted it.

As far as Ubuntu and snap (and flatpack) are concerned, I deleted both and installed muon.
IF Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Neon ever get to the point that snap is required in order to install a package I shall move to another distro that still features KDE, BTRFS and systemd.

What other distro? I have been running MX-Linux with KDE in my VM.
https://mxlinux.org/
It's installer handles BTRFS installations much better than Ubuntu and in a way that Ubuntu should adopt. MX-Linux allows me to do the BTRFS setup in three steps.
1) Create the <ROOTFS>
2) Create the @ subvolume
3) Create the @home subvolume.

A video which illustrates the process:

I like that because I am not forced to do step 3 IF I don't want to, which I don't. So, I don't have to go through that laborious step of having to copy /home/jerry to @/home/ like I do with Kubuntu or Neon.

As far as systemd is concerned, the default option is sysv, but systemd can be set to default in the boot options.l

[bendy]

.
Arch types require a more hands on approach, aside from learning the differences in system level tasks. Even Manjaro

I used to run Gentoo as my daily driver - Manjaro can't be as hands on as that! I don't mind getting my hands dirty to some extent, but would prefer less frequent breakage than I had with Gentoo.

[bendy]

What other distro? I have been running MX-Linux with KDE in my VM.
https://mxlinux.org/
It's installer handles BTRFS installations much better than Ubuntu and in a way that Ubuntu should adopt. MX-Linux allows me to do the BTRFS setup in three steps.
1) Create the <ROOTFS>
2) Create the @ subvolume
3) Create the @home subvolume.

Thanks GreyGeek - MX-Linux looks good but I'd prefer something more up to date than a Debian stable base. Also I'm not using BTRFS so that's not as issue for me.

[jglen490]

I've run MX Linux before, but it was with XFCE, and not all that impressive. However, MX with KDE could be an interesting alternative and worth investigating.

[Don B. Cilly]

I tried Manjaro (KDE, obviously :·). I see no real differences in usage, except it uses Pacman instead of apt.
Now, I really like my apt, I have scripts and aliases for it, I see no real reason to use that.
Up-to-date, it is - but so is my neon version of Kubuntu ;·)
I haven't been "forced" to use any snaps so far - except Anbox - but I wouldn't care much if I was, actually.

MX, I tried that too. Not impressive in any way.

[jglen490]

bendy There are some BTRFS proponents here. I'm not, and as far as I'm concerned ext4 has no problems. There are some good research tools when looking for Linux distros, DistroWatch is one and provides search parameter selection within their own resources. Other folks have their own favorite tools.

[claydoh]

I'd suggest just going and asking on Reddit

[GreyGeek]

bendy There are some BTRFS proponents here. I ....

I resemble that remark!

[jlittle]

bendy There are some BTRFS proponents here.

I resemble that remark!

It casts nasturtiums on me, too.

as far as I'm concerned ext4 has no problems

It's what ext4 doesn't do.

[Fred47]

I came here from Chakra with was initially a Arch derivative, but later became it's own OS. Still it is a semi rolling release much like Manjaro. That can cause issues with updates and you have to be prepared for updates. When you see a big update, check the website for issues and maybe a wait a week or so for everything to flesh out. I decided to take the easy way out with Kubuntu LTS where updates never (at least in my brief tenure) cause an issue. I don't miss not having the latest and greatest so here I am.