Welp, I made a similar thread yesterday regarding Manjaro but I decided to swap to Fedora as my daily driver for stability purposes. Unfortunately since fedora is yet another non Debian distro I need help finding a Syncterm replacement.
I’m my previous thread it was pointed out to me that syncterm has a docker option which I can run on Fedora, but I’d prefer running an app locally if possible.
I tried the Syncterm snap package which boots inside bash, but it doesn’t have ANSI support (which is the entire point of using Syncterm) since I assume it’s simply piggy backing off of bash- hence the 1.5* review on the snap store.
Looking for options… if anyone can help a Linux noob I’m all ears. I tried Alien to convert deb to rpm and fell on my face.
If you are looking for something a little more stable than Manjaro but still Arch based and beginner friendly EndeavorOS is a good option.
Not an answer to your question or suggesting you jump from Fedora just putting it out there.
These days, there is also the official guided installer for arch that may be worth a try. I had similar issues with Manjaro, but since this has been around I’ve never had a reason to try any arch derivative.
My brother had that OS. It worked fine until it got a bug that the computer froze when he enabled the wifi, and the only way to stop it was pressing the power button. I couldn’t figure out the cause, and there was many unnecessary things coming with the OS, so I helped him to install Arch instead. Now, it works well and feels clean.
EDIT: based on the comments, the issue happened with arch too.
Odds are it would have come up on a regular Arch install too, and simply reinstalling is what fixed it.
EndeavourOS is essentially just a GUI installer for Arch with some defaults changed.
I was wondering this, too. I’m too new to Manjaro to have any opinion about its long-term stability, but it doesn’t make intuitive sense to me that Manjaro would be less stable than a distro that is based solely on the AUR.
I wonder if Arch newbies choose Manjaro initially, improve their knowledge of Linux, then switch to Arch if their installation fails. After that, having reached Linux’s final boss, they know that all further problems in Arch are just part of the experience.
Or is it maybe that Arch installations are often more minimalist than Manjaro and so are less likely to have conflicts? By way of example, and going from memory, the base EndevourOS install is around 900 packages, while the base Manjaro install is over 14,000 packages.
I really like my Manjaro installations, so as you can imagine, I’m hoping it isn’t an inherently flawed distro.
If this was a recent occurrence, it may have been from the 6.6.5 kernel. There was a WiFi regression in that version that did exactly that, slowed the system to an absolute crawl. I got hit by it on my PC and ended up hosing my whole install (because I panicked and botched things up), but my laptop was fine. I finally got things reinstalled a couple days later when 6.6.6 was released, which fixed the regression anyway.
Isn’t it just an installer, welcome app, theming, and maybe an Nvidia driver helper?
I don’t think Endeavour really adds that much, but maybe my perception has been wrong this whole time 🤷
No, you are right. EndeavourOS is about two-dozen packages on top of the Arch repos and AUR ( 80,000 packages ). Most of the additional packages are just nice-to-have utilities you can enjoy or avoid.
EOS ( EndeavourOS ) is more of an opinionated Arch installer than a stand-alone distribution. Other than theming, almost everything in a fresh EOS install comes from the Arch repos. Even the kernel is native Arch.
I happen to like the way EOS sets up the system, including that it installs yay by default which makes the AUR available right away.
You can disable the EOS repos in EndeavourOS if you want. It really is just Arch.
That’s exactly what makes Endeavor a great option over Manjaro. You just end up with more-or-less normal Arch instead of the jank of Manjaro.
My 6800xt desktop regularly froze on endeavour, but on nobara it hasn’t frozen nearly as frequently. Also, i encountered an update issue that broke most of the packages, and I spent an absurd amount of time fixing it. It happened again after a couple of months. I managed to fix it quicker this time, but endeavour os (and arch) is not as stable as the experienced arch users make it to be. I’m not an arch newbie btw. I’ve been using arch, Manjaro, and endeavour for close to 10 years now. Just recently switched to nobara. (distrohopped frequently since Ubuntu 5.04, but I just want a maintenance free distro these days)
I really wanted to love Endeavour. I run it for about 2 days then it broke when systemd updated, literally couldn’t get past bios (thread here for the interested reader). The combination of Dracut and Systemd isn’t as stable as on arch. And then the recovery steps don’t seem to work so I just started again with arch.
Just a cautionary tale for arch based distros and their stability.
You must have tried EOS recently. They only just moved to Dracut. Most of my EndeavoyrOS machines pre-date that change and it does not force it on you when you update. It would still be possible to use an older installer to avoid Dracut I suppose.
I only have Dracut on one laptop actually. That machine boots super fast though and I was considering moving to Dracut elsewhere. Interesting to hear that it might be less stable. I will have to look into that now. Thanks for the heads up.
if you feel comfortable with Debian based distros (or at least, to my understanding), why not use… Debian? or a Debian based system?
I loooove Debian and I don’t mind having older packages for better stability. However the only reason for me for not using Debian is actually KDE Plasma. I don’t want to miss out on new Plasma released and have to wait forever until I receive them.
There is an option in the installer to enable the non-free software repository. It’s just not checked by default.
Have you considered using Arch on which Manjaro is based?
This way you won’t have issues with AUR. It’s not hard to install, you can use archinstall helper if you want, it’s available in the default installation media.
If they want a full-fledged system running Arch, then EndeavourOS might be the best bet. Archinstall is great for quickly installing Arch but there’s still quite a lot of set-up required after that, and for some people, they don’t really want to do that. EndeavourOS is essentially a ready-made Arch set up (or as another person said here, a very opinionated Arch install), and is based on Arch’s repos but has its own extra repo for its own software while Manjaro holds the packages back for two weeks (which creates sync problems with, say, the AUR)
Uses exactly the Arch repos and kernel. EndeavourOS is more like an opinionated Arch install than a stand-alone distro. This is not a negative comment as I am an enthusiastic EndeavourOS user.
i too am a satisfied endevouros user. its great if you want something like manjaro, that doesnt break, or something like arch, but easier to get started.
You can do this, and I have, but there can be issues during the switch if you are not careful.
The machine I use as my Jellyfin server used to be Manjaro and is now vanilla Arch ( having migrated it from Manjaro to Arch in place ). It still has a few quirks though. The quirks do not matter for what I use it for ( it is rock solid for Jellyfin ) but anytime I have to reboot or use the desktop, I am reminded. Nothing too serious and nothing I could not fix with a little time of course. That machine is purely functional though and I do not want to spend any time on it. Since my video is all on a second drive, I will probably nuke it and do a fresh EndeavourOS install one of these days. It would be much faster to re-install Jellyfin than to fix all the little warts. The other Manjaro systems I had were replaced with fresh EndeavourOS installs.
I’m out of the loop, why is Manjaro considered a “bad distro” ?
I have used it for quite some time now, and I enjoy it, i find it fairly simple, fast and pretty.
Is there something I’m missing ?
It feels like a fork for the sake of “I use arch BTW”
It doesn’t add anything of value on top of “vanilla” arch, but they still manage to break stuff that works in Arch, occasionally ddos AUR and if I recall correctly there was some controversy because the developers were assholes
Except of course that more ex-Manjaro people move to EOS than vanilla Arch. I have no data on this but there are certainlymore EOS commenters on Manjaro threads than pure Arch ( though often those groups overlap a lot as many people use both ).
I do not know anybody that uses both Manjaro along with any other Arch distro. You are either in or out on Manjaro.
That’s wrong though, isn’t it? AFAIK, Manjaro hosts their own repos with a focus on up to date but slightly more stable packages
Going to weigh in, manjaro devs are kinda incompetent. They’ve ddosed the aur twice in the exact same way, showing that they hadn’t done anything to solve the inherent issue. Their ssl certs keep expiring, even though auto-renewal takes about ten minutes to set up while telling their users to “change your clocks time” as a patch solution while they fix their certs once (which took hours).
Their head arm developer sent a patch to asahi linux which broke x-org, showing he shipped code without so much as running the thing to test making a change well known and documented to cause this error with zero benefit to the project or his commit. This, after manjaro claimed that “manjaro works on the macbook m1” by using the asahi kernal with a full on campaign, shipping a random kernel from the release page which was known to be broken. It would not turn on, and could easily have broken users systems. Asahi at the time simply did not work, nor would it for a while.
They keep making dumb mistakes learning nothing and not asking for help when it’s obviously needed. Their two week delay, though it fixes some issues, commonly still ships known broken updates when unnecessary.
They put the aur directly next to flatpack and snap in pamac without a proper warning. The aur is dangerous, you need to know how to use it, and to read the pkgbuild. Anybody can put any app up there and you’ll be running arbitrary code on the system. Flatpack and snaps are quite safe, the aur is not. A while ago, a guy put a list of people who can “fuck themselves”, insults, and homophobic statements alongside two calls to a IP grabber in the dolphin emulator package. When there’s malware on linux, the aur is likely to be the first targeted
They’ve made many suggestions in their forums that lead to bad habits, putting more stress on arch devs and their servers.
It’s due to the continual incompetence of the devs, them damaging other projects they depend on, and the devs being quite unfriendly in the forums that people hate manjaro. I’d love to see it become better as the concept is a decent one but with the current leadership and work being done I have to caution against it’s use
I’ve been running Manjaro for about 5 years, and it’s still running solid.
Same here. I’ve used it on and off for years without any issues. My current install is around a year old and so far has been running smoothly.
I mostly keep it stock with GNOME and use it for dev work which it handles well
Mostly due to how the team behind Manjaro acts. Personally have been using plain arch for years while my Manjaro installation fucked itself after half a year.
A small compilation can be found in the link below: https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
Every time I’ve tried to use Manjaro, within a year or two the entire OS shits the bed. Whether it’s dependency hell, broken SSL certs or the display drovers fucking up. Legit never had that problem with other arch-based distros or arch itself, or even with fedora tumbleweed which is the “unstable” rolling release flavor of Fedora that I’m currently using.
It breaks. It may never break on you but it breaks on A LOT of people and, as a result, there are lots of “don’t use Manjaro people out ther”…
I am not going into detail as I am exhausted from arguing with Manjaro fans that want to pretend all is ex-Manjaro users are wrong about our own experience. The above answers your question. Believe it or not.
Apparently he still believes other Linux desktop distros don’t randomly brick themselves with updates every six months.
He’s in for. A treat.
God damn these replies are braindead
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5658
Auto script that builds and installs for both Debian and Fedora.
Unfortunately, no RPMs exist on repos and COPR, which is Fedora’s AUR.
spoiler
Although considering the AUR package hasn’t been updated since June of last year, I doubt having a COPR build will be beneficial.
Nevertheless, it would be useful to have an available RPM. If I get time, I can submit one to COPR.
I could kiss you! It worked! Not only was this solution great, but I also learned how to run a bash script and grab dev libraries to execute ncurses and make commands.
