OMGUbuntu Arch and Manjaro

[slooksterpsv]

OMGUbuntu posted an article on Arch Linux. While I've heard quite a bit about it, and had a few people tell me to switch to it, I didn't feel like completely customizing everything, compiling everything, etc. I think Arch does AURs where it does everything automatically for you... I'll look that up.

Anyways, back to my story, well I read the article and felt like taking a new challenge into the Arch area. I've used Slackware and that was a paint to have to compile everything pretty much. Great for customizing, but if you need a system ready to go, Ubuntu outshines it. Well Arch looked pretty slick. Rolling release, downloading AURs to get non-official items installed (Google Chrome *cough cough*), up-to-date repositories. It sounds great!

Well... I didn't want to do CLI as I wanted to browse in case I had questions or needed help, so I looked into Manjaro which I've been hearing more and more about lately. Pretty much a pre-packaged Arch install with GUI installer (granted I had to use the CLI to install for EFI, go figure right?, but the GUI was in a terminal so its all good), codecs, everything I could want.

First boot. Bam! I'm like whoa when did my computer get so speedy quick.
Well in Ubuntu 14.04 I have an issue where I have very slow network speeds with my WiFi, like I can boot, try to load up a site and it act like we're in the dial-up ages. I tried a few things to fix that, nothing really worked, tried compiling the driver and loading it, that didn't help. I decided well if WiFi is still bad in Arch I'll look into getting a more compatible dongle (not what I want to do, but still). Arch loads up, I connect to WiFi, and the speed, it's not as fast as Windows (interference), but it's a lot stronger than Ubuntu. The kernel for manjaro is 3.10.30-1 (I think 3.14 is out and Ubuntu is on 3.13). It could be a kernel issue for the WiFi as 13.10 was great.

The installation experience. I got a little paranoid:
1. GUI wouldn't let me continue unless I chose an EFI drive nor would it let me select where to install the Bootloader, so I canceled the GUI.
2. CLI was a little spooky when it was accessing my EFI partition, so I, before doing this, did a dd of my /dev/sda2 and a cp -Rn of the EFI drive.
3. It went through, and Manjaro wasn't in the list for my EFI. Great, just great!
I luckily had Ubuntu 14.04 on another partition so I booted up and created the entry, moved it to the top and updated grub, it didn't save so I booted into grub, created the entry and used my app to modify the entries. Well this sparked another idea for my EFI Boot Order - label modification (now I know how to do it).

Let's continue onto what I've noticed about Arch/Manjaro:

After install I have over 500MB of updates - its a rolling-release, I was expecting 900, but hey I'll take 500 =P
Codecs right out the package (like Mint)
Graphics drivers right from live cd - I had a vesa issue booting normal, used non-free and it loaded my AMD driver
XFCE is using Whisker menu, it's all clean and organized
HiDPI must be enabled. I was using Ubuntu-Gnome and it felt like I was using a 1366x768 screen on my 1600x900 display. Manjaro booted and I have a lot more real-estate for my screen. I feel like I can more prominently multi-task

Downfalls:

I'm only on my first 2 hours of Manjaro so yes it's exciting, new, fun, and making me giddy like a school girl, but in all seriousness, I need more of a challenge to test my Linux skills. Modifying my brightness via terminal, perfect. Didnt know how to, now I do.

Any one else with experience with Arch or Manjaro? Questions such as UEFI or that?

Let me know =D

[sffvba[e0rt]

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

[Jordan_Cameron]

I have actually switched from my own Arch install to ubuntu 14.04. I loved the AUR, and the rolling release, but for my production machine that I use for University Studies needed to be more solid, and able to get up and running quickly.

I sum it up like this: If new code is your "crack", then Arch is for you. But if stability, rock solid and out of the box setup is your "crack", then *buntu and Mint are for you.

[mips]

I just want to mention one thing, Manjaro is not Arch.

Yes it's based on Arch but they have their own repos and a few unique utils like MHWD for example.
Don't go asking for support in the Arch forums with things related to Manjaro, sure read the Arch wiki & forums as there is a lot of info there as well if you need anything in addition to the Manjaro forums & wiki.

That out of the way carry on and have fun

[slooksterpsv]

As far as I can tell I still get all the rolling-release updates like Arch does though right?

Yeah it's smooth. Audio issue, had multiple times, fixed. I'll have to give Ubuntu another go around don't get me wrong. I may have to try a pure Arch install and see how that goes.

[mips]

As far as I can tell I still get all the rolling-release updates like Arch does though right?

Yes but they are delayed and sometimes some packages are held back for stability reasons.

It goes like this Arch Stable Repos-->Manjaro Unstable-->Manjaro Testing-->Manjaro Stable

[lykwydchykyn]

I switched to Arch on my laptop when I got it a few months back. It's an ordeal to get things going initially, but once it's setup you're set, and it's not like you're going to be reinstalling every six months (*cough*). I've had good experiences and plenty of fun so far, but honestly I wouldn't want to manage Arch on a system that I wasn't using daily. My servers are staying with Debian and my family machines are sticking with *buntu.

Haven't yet had to deal with a machine with UEFI, though. My laptop was a Dell that shipped with Ubuntu so they had it in BIOS mode.

[monkeybrain20122]

I have a partition running Manjaro, it was very fast starting up and with all the codecs already installed (even flash with hardware acceleration enabled, resulting in crashing everywhere. ) But a few weeks later package managing system was broken after an update.. It is easy to set up, fast and easy to use but feels a bit unfinished and volatile,--arch probably will be more so,-- I won't use it for a production system, not for now. I was in the process of setting up Arch but get interrupted with other things, will get back to it in a few weeks.

[monkeybrain20122]

I switched to Arch on my laptop when I got it a few months back. It's an ordeal to get things going initially, but once it's setup you're set, and it's not like you're going to be reinstalling every six months (*cough*)..

Well you don't have to re install every 6 months, support period is 9. It is 5 yrs if you use LTS. But Ubuntu is so easy to install and setup that you can do it many times during the time you set up arch once.

[lykwydchykyn]

Well you don't have to re install every 6 months, support period is 9. It is 5 yrs if you use LTS. But Ubuntu is so easy to install and setup that you can do it many times during the time you set up arch once.

Just an innocent tongue-in-cheek jab, since the "accepted wisdom" at this forum is that only a complete reinstall will do (I've always just upgraded myself). Ubuntu is quick to install if you stick close to the default setup. Part of the reason that I switched to Arch was that my preferred setup involved installing a bunch of packages from Universe, a bunch of PPAs, some things backported with apt-src, and about half a dozen things that I had to install from upstream source using checkinstall or dpkg-buildpackage ('cause sometimes one worked but not the other).

At that point Arch makes more sense, but only at that point.