2y ago

Why do people hate Manjaro and how to replicate Manjaro sway in arch or arco?

Pretty much the title. Where's the hate towards Manjaro coming from? I was pretty much a Ubuntu/Fedora user for years but never got too technical. Used almost always gnome, but recently got interested in tiling wm and have done some searches and stumbled upon the Manjaro Sway edition and everything works quite well, but I keep seeing people bashing on Manjaro and I don't know exactly why. So if I were to use sway in Arch or Arco (way friendlier to install) if there any simple way to replicate the makeup sway default configuration?

Thank you all for your time.

76 comments

There's a lot of reasons people hate on Manjaro, though generally they boil down to instability - despite being on a slower schedule than Arch, a lot of people report worse breakage; their main "testing" is just being a week behind Arch without actually testing much.
Crucially, this can break things when mixing in AUR packages since those are shared w/ Arch and so anything in there that's precompiled against the Arch version of relevant libraries might just break.
It also has considerably deficient security policies, such as the GUI installer pamac allowing unsuspecting users to trivially install unvetted packages from the AUR without even a clear indication they may be dangerous, and they forgot to update their SSL certificates ~~twice~~ edit: five times (see https://lemmy.ml/comment/1343440), asking users to manually overwrite them as a "fix".
Unrelated to desktop, I've also noticed Manjaro staff are quite hostile and unpleasant to work with; I'm involved in a project that works on Linux on mobile devices, and Manjaro's mobile team has been less than the most pleasant. This is a personal gripe for sure and unrelated to the distro itself, but if I'm going to take a dump on Manjaro I'll do it all the way.
As for your other question; you can simply copy the sway config file from the Manjaro install. Either mount the ISO and search there, or if it needs to be installed to populate the sway config, just install in a VM and copy it from there. Necessary packages should be relatively easy to find by just reading the errors sway spits out and googling them.
- such as the GUI installer pamac allowing unsuspecting users to trivially install unvetted packages from the AUR without even a clear indication they may be dangerous
  Unless something has changed since the last time I used Manjaro, this isn't actually true. You have to go relatively deep into Pamac's settings menu to enable AUR packages, and when you do, a popup comes up telling you what the AUR is and why it might be dangerous (although iirc, it neglects to tell you that an extra reason is Manjaro packages being out of date).
  Not that I'm pro-Manjaro, for all the other reasons you've given.
  
  Good point and I absolutely should have mentioned this in my original comment, but I do think there is a risk here worth mentioning. A lot of guides for installing some arbitrary piece of software on Manjaro (or, to be fair, any Arch-based distro) will boil down to installing some package from the AUR, and the average Manjaro user is probably less tech-savvy than the average Arch user. Also, the pamac warning dialog only warns against packages not compiling or being buggy, not against malicious ones, and as far as I know - though it's been a while since I used pamac - it doesn't allow you to inspect the PKGBUILD at install-time, whereas most CLI AUR helpers e.g. paru which I use require it and require manual signoff every time said build script changes.
  As an entirely unscientific test, I googled "manjaro enable aur" and checked the first 5 results to see if there's any warnings (I figured this is a relatively common query from Manjaro users?) and only 2 even mentioned the risk of malicious packages, with the top result not mentioning any risks whatsoever, not even breakage or bugginess. I'm sure there are many resources that do make this clear, but I doubt the average Manjaro user will see them.
  This is arguably an issue on most Arch-based distros with a pretty installer, though it seems Manjaro is particularly vulnerable since it's marketed as a beginner-friendly distro despite all of these footguns.
  Edit: at the risk of crucifixion, this is also why I usually direct newcomers towards using flatpaks wherever possible instead of using 3rd party repositories unless said repositories come directly from the developers of said (trusted) package. Briefly looking over the Manjaro docs, it seems like enabling flatpaks is actually harder than enabling AUR packages as it requires installing a compat plugin (whereas AUR support appears to just be a settings change). Maybe there's an option during the installer to enable it, but I couldn't find a mention, and this might also push users towards the less-secure and unsandboxed AUR.
- This....all of it. I started with Arch using Manjaro, like so many do. There was a mass exodus that exploded, and the worst lot remained on the dev team. Beyond that, as you stated, they convice their users that holding back packages is for their benefit, when in reality, your system becomes unstable at times as a result, especially becoming out of sync with AUR. It is still one of the most popular Arch distros, and ...well..I feel sorry for their uninformed users who believe it is a stable choice.
  For information sake; Reasons Against Using Manjaro
  
  I used Arch in the past but don't have much time to tinker with my Linux installs anymore, so I switched to Manjaro on most of my devices, hoping to get a balance between low maintenance and access to bleeding edge and AUR ecosystem. I do notice the issues with updates getting delayed more and more in the past few months, and issues with AUR packages getting out of sync like you mentioned.
  I wonder if I should start looking into something else. Any recommendation?
- Go to each distros respective subreddits and you'll find way more tech support questions for arch linux.
  That entire distro is pretty much nothing but googling.

On mobile Linux, Manjaro is the reason dont-ship.it exists. They distributed untested and WIP GitHub patches to their users, which understandably broke stuff. And users would then go to the project to report bugs.

There are multiple types of people "hating" Manjaro to various degrees.
There are the "It GoEs AgAinsT ThE ArCh PhiLoSopHy" guys - those you should ignore without a second thought. Because duh, that's why it's its own distro and not Arch. They probably also hate Endeavor, Garuda and all the other great Arch based distros and have no idea what they are talking about.
There are the ones who, like myself, tried Manjaro briefly, realized there was something broken right out of the box, thought "lol stable my ass" and then invested way too much time in Arch on another distro. You should ignore us as well.
There are the ones who at least claim to have proberly used Manjaro for a while and say there is no noticeable benefit, if not disadvantages. They might have a point (shout out the the guy or gal who mentioned their frequent certificate fails lmao).
And finally there are those who have decided Manjaro just isn't for them and moved on. They can probably give an actually balanced and fair review of Manjaro.
But then again, there are also people maintaining and liking the project, so there seems to be at the very least some perceived value to it. Maybe it's worth it, maybe it isn't. Frankly, I don't care whether people this distro. And why should I?
I also don't get why a couple dozen DEs exist, when I hate everything but Plasma and Cinnamon, maybe GNOME. But if people want to use them and go as far as to maintain them, there is probably a reason and I have better things to do than stop them.
- Haha when I saw the cert issues it eroded any confidence I had; I wouldn't say I know a lot, but I think I can keep a certbot up (unless it was running on Manjaro)
- @UnfortunateShort @jackofalltrades I'm a noob Linux user and I have used Manjaro in the past for about 3 months, i liked it very much. I think people should try it out.
  
  But what did you like about Manjaro compared to other distributions? If I introduce someone who's never used the internet before to Internet Explorer 6, they might claim to like it very much as well.

I've had this site given as reason a few times though I myself feel it's rather overblown and feels more like a personal vendetta for some reason:
https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/
For what it's worth I've used Manjaro myself and rather liked it. Never had a problem.

These are the reasons people hate Manjaro: https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/
- Guess the link is broken... Is this a joke that went over my head?
  
  Yup, it's dead. Here's the Internet Archive's snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20230626075444/https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/
  
  Well, looks like the site went down just a few minutes after I posted this :/

I wouldn’t say I hate Manjaro, but I had a bad first experience with it.
They put Material Shell in the default install. The project devs at the time described the project as alpha or beta quality and it was. It had some easy to find bad bugs.
https://github.com/material-shell/material-shell
I trusted Manjaro to but stable software in the default install and they let me down.
This was for a family member and I didn’t up using Ubuntu instead, which has worked fine.

I've used Manjaro for a while and my system broke twice in that time just by updating my system (And with "broke" I mean it didn't boot anymore). Then I switched to EndeavourOS and I haven't had that issue once. Been using that for over 2 years now.

I've never used Manjaro but the perception I get from it is that it is a noob friendly distro with good GUI and config (good) but then catastrophically fails when monkeying around with updates and the AUR. This is a pain for technical users and a back-to-Windows experience for the people it's targeted towards. Overall, significantly worse than EndeavorOS or plain 'ol vanilla Arch Linux.

They let their SSL certificate expire so many times that it became a meme. If I remember correctly it has happened four times.
Just set a fucking reminder lol.
I used to use Manjaro when I first transitioned to Linux from Windows. I think it's okay. Their mission makes sense, when you consider the grub-crashing that happened a few months ago, Manjaro wasn't affected.

I used Manjaro for a while. Twice I had updates break stuff so thoroughly that I had to reinstall the OS entirely. The second time, I installed Pop OS instead and it's been smooth sailing since.
- This is my experience with Manjaro. Really good OS, with gaming that tends to work out of the box, nice choices in UI environment. It's great right up until it breaks.
  Now admittedly I've generally not used much Linux on desktop I have been using Linux on servers since the 1990s (the original redhat 5). But it took me a weekend to get the thing properly working again.
  That's my manjaro experience.
  
  "It’s great right up until it breaks." is a perfect summary
- It's a key issue and it's the only one I have to deal with but man is it annoying.
  The problem is I like everything else about the distro so much I keep putting up with it.

First of all, the settings: you can boot up a Manjaro machine and copy the .config/sway/config and whatever other files it might be referencing (another config in /etc maybe?). Then it is just a matter of installing the dependencies like the referenced themes and tools(= any programs listed for shortcuts) in there and you should be able to get the same setup, unless Manajro people set GTK themes outside of sway or sth... Feel free to comment once you hit that wall :)
As to why Manjaro is widely criticized: they delay all updates by some time for a false sense of stability (I think two weeks) which is often considered to make no sense since it delays bugs, but also their fixes. Then there is some general philosophical disagreement between them and the Arch community since Manajro breaks Arch's DIY and learning principles by being ready to use out of the box. This is mainly because they include all kinds of stuff which also makes the distro considered bloated. In the end, one big advice to give right from the start: searching for help in Arch forums as a Manjaro user is rarely tolerated, if you run Arco, your problem will likely be accepted though.
Hope it helps!
- The config is also split up into usr/share directories, too, if I remember correctly. I installed Manjaro sway on my laptop to get and Arch-based OS with sway on it installed quickly. Then I tweaked it to my liking over a few months and wanted the same setup on my desktop.
  It was a pain to transfer the config over to say the least, and then all the pixel perfect alignments I had done in waybar we're broken on my desktop anyway.
  OP is better off putting together a new sway config from scratch, using the Manjaro install for reference if possible. Maybe spin up a VM to have both at the same time easily?
  
  Thanks both of you for the tip on where the configa might lie, and specially the suggestion to spin up a VM an try to get it right there, that's a great tip that didn't occured to me, I'll try it!

Main devs and is cluttered, there are better alternatives like EndeavourOS.

In short, there have been key signing issues multiple times in the past that. That were the most notable problems from the user side.
Running three instances with KDE that are unproblematic.

I thought Manjaro was great when I ran it (switched to Silverblue which works well for me).
The only annoying thing was taking forever to update plasma one time.

I wasn't aware people hated Manjaro. I don't really have a distro of Linux that I hate. I have some that I prefer over others for certain reasons but anything open source is a-okay with me in the larger scale of things.

I don't get it either. I've been using it on some older laptops because I wanted something lighter weight. It works well for me.

I don't necessarily hate Manjaro, but I do think people shouldn't use it. Besides the things people have already said, Manjaro goes against the spirit of what Arch is supposed to be. Arch has everything you want and nothing you don't. You set everything up for yourself so you know exactly how your system works and why X package is installed. You tailor the experience for yourself rather than having someone else tailor it for you. If you wanted that you could just use a distro meant for that in the first place like Fedora.
But even if you really, really, want preconfigured Arch you could just use EndeavourOS. It uses the normal Arch repos and has basically none of the issues Manjaro has in terms of security and stability. There is not really any good reason to use Manjaro over it.

The only reason I heard of people hating Manjaro is because of the main developer ... But for me is because it breaks more often than Arch

Part of it is the same reason that Debian users bash Ubuntu or Mint users. Why use a derivative when the original works well?
That is a bit superficial, though. Debian isn't ideal for everybody and neither is Arch. I've used Manjaro before. I like the installation process for general desktop use. Easy and straightforward. People who are used to graphical OS installers may be put off by Arch's approach. I don't distrohop personally and stick with Arch (btw), so OS installation is a one time headache for every device and archinstall is doable. I think the Arch installation process can be a sort of insider shibboleth for self-identifying linux badasses and a graphical install (for them) is missing the point of Arch. Whatever.
I saw a few posts on edditRay that critiqued the Manjaro team for failing to renew SSL certificates one or more times. That may have led to a perception that the team is not competent to run a distro, which seems like a very harsh position to take.
Also, Manjaro holds back updates from time to time for further testing/stability. This goes against the point of a rolling release distro to an extent, since you aren't technically getting the very latest software. The tradeoff may make sense for you, though.
You can try copying over your dotfiles if you switch to Arch or Arco. That might be a good start for the overall layout. You might need to install any extra packages used by manjaro in addition to sway for icons, menus, power management, backgrounds, etc.

I use Monjaro at work for my airgapped laptop, because it was the only modern distro that didn't use Xfce and worked on the T40. I don't hate it, but I also can't ever see myself using it as my daily driver. If you do use it as your daily and like it, cool. If you don't use it or you hate it, cool. For me, all the different distros is the point of Linux, as it allows everyone to tailor the experience to their liking, while still being (mostly) compatibility with each other.

I use arch because i like to do research mess with things and is fun, manjaro that's what i would suggest anyone moving to Linux it's just that good of a distro to use and mostly sre trolls so let them be.

I tried it on pinephone and laptop. Both had 2 different updates break the OS. Both needed to be reinstalled each time.
Not worth it. Poor quality. Go arch or OpenSuse.

Lots of people hate it just because it's popular and accessible. Some of them are trolls, some of them are being trolled.
All of them rely on lofty argument that have no real bearing for pragmatic use of the distro.
I love Manjaro :)

Arch is about DIY approach. Arch derivatives for "making it easy" are a joke because they defeat the whole point of doing it yourself
- Doing it yourself is fine as an educational exercise for newbies, but skilled linux users generally have better things to do than to do the setup by hand for the nth time. On the other hand the "vanilla"/bleeding-edge approach of Arch makes it one of the best bases for derivative distros available, so basing your distro on it is a no-brainer for many.
  
  but skilled linux users generally have better things to do than to do the setup by hand for the nth time.
  Had this fine skilled linux user over there heard about archinstall scripts?
- Pragmatism above all else, at least for some.
  I'm glad we have the option to choose between configuring our entire system or having one that's configured for us.
  There is no one-size fits all answer to computing.
  
  Having one configured for us is about Fedora or Debian or some other distro like that

Just use Manjaro, it's a great distro. I switched from Arch a few years ago because Arch kept changing the tools from the installer so every time I had to read the wiki to know how to install it, and that's not fun.
In general people don't like Manjaro because it's a week behind Arch, so if you install things from the AUR you're likely to break stuff (although that has never happened to me, it is a possibility). Also because since it's simple to install a lot of people without technical knowledge have started using it and they say they use Arch, so they get replies which assumed they read the wiki, and they get angry, which makes them seem more annoying, which makes the whole thing escalate.
- You're not really more likely to break stuff.
  
  Things in the AUR are built for Arch, so they use the libraries that Arch uses, which means that whenever Arch increases major versions of libraries AUR packages get rebuilt for that version and fail to work on an older one. If you use the packages that build from source you're less likely to be affected, also this is not such a huge issue because AUR packages take a while to get updated and most of these changes are backwards compatible (so they don't break on Arch), but I've seen it happen plenty of times, almost every week someone using Manjaro would come to the arch subreddit to ask help because a package from AUR had stopped working. And if you don't believe me, at least believe the guys who wrote the Manjaro wiki
  When Manjaro is updated, AUR packages might stop working. This is not a Manjaro issue

76 comments