As others have stated, reviving them through Linux should be a piece of cake.

However, how many is “a tonne”? This is important information for the community to provide recommendations on administrating those systems.

I will make my case clear of what I meant earlier:

Me:

• Doesn’t understand by everything that has already been mentioned under this post why one is considering Manjaro.
• But, I am glad to hear that it has been working lovely for some people.
• Doesn’t accuse those who’ve enjoyed using Manjaro for lying, being not genuine or misrepresenting reality.

You:

• Argue why Manjaro should be considered.
• Mention how your experiences don’t quite align to the ones others are experiencing.
• Your reception to concerns:

That page is not legit criticism, it’s a bunch of nonsense. It misrepresents what Manjaro does, outright lying in some cases, it fails to understand how package updates and AUR work, it glosses over the fact that Manjaro helped the AUR infrastructure. It’s prejudiced information made out specifically to make it look bad.

There is not one pertinent criticism in there. It’s all meaningless drivel presented as legit concerns.

I suppose I don’t need to spell it out for ya. How about, instead of taking the subject to other places, you address the following elephant in the room:

All of that is cool and all, but trust is what it’s all about.

• Do you aknowledge that trust is the end all be all for considering a distro?
• Do you outright deny every single thing mentioned in the infamous Manjarno?
• If so, are you aware of any place where (with facts) a rebuttal (or something similar) can be found?
• If not, could you write up one yourself? So that we may benefit from that as a community.

I like for the truth to prevail. And for injustice to be stopped. If Manjaro is actually accused of crimes they’ve not committed and if (therefore) misinformation is spread, then I’d desire that the world is ridden of that fake news.

Windows ->

Fedora Kinoite: A relatively mature atomic/immutable distro combined with excellent security standards and that resembles Windows’ workflow. Unfortunately, it broke almost immediately. Though, to be fair, it was a known issue with the ISO back then. As a newb, however, I couldn’t be bothered with it. ->

Fedora Silverblue: Well…, I didn’t have much of a choice 😜. Or I had to forego Fedora Atomic altogether. However, I actually really enjoyed GNOME’s workflow. I used this as my main system for about year. Until I found a related project… ->

Arch: The memes got me 😅. In all honesty, though, it was mostly curiosity. Still, I didn’t intend to throw away my working Silverblue installation for the sake of quenching my thirst for experiencing Arch. So, as dual boot, I tried to install it. This was pre archinstall, so it took a couple of tries before I booted into GNOME. However, I guess I did mess up something as I don’t recall ever booting back into that system 😅. So, what if I want Arch, but don’t want to spend more time with the installation… ->

EndeavourOS: Yup. I actually enjoyed it. I also took the opportunity to install another DE; KDE. Tried out the hardened kernel. Was able to make Davinci Resolve work, which just caused a lot of trouble on Silverblue. Access to AUR. It was cool, really. And, for some time, I was actually pondering to dismiss Silverblue altogether in favor of EndeavourOS. But, I started to miss the ‘stability’ that I was used to from Silverblue. Though, I don’t exactly recall if it was the fault of being based on Arch, or rather linked/attributed to KDE instead. Regardless, I noticed that (over time) I spend more and more time on Silverblue. At some point, booting into EndeavourOS didn’t work any more. It had broken. I did engage in some troubleshooting efforts, but to no avail… ->

Zorin OS lite: On backup laptop; the poor thing couldn’t run Windows but (even today) it’s still kicking on Linux ->

Nobara: So, I guess I did miss some of the functionality provided by EndeavourOS; running Davinci Resolve being the primary one. But, I didn’t want to pass out of the opportunity to try something else. Back then, Nobara was released relatively recently and was received very positively by the community. And had even a special guide/tutorial to make Davinci Resolve work on AMD devices. Nobara was cool. But, it didn’t feel very special. I actually enjoyed EndeavourOS a lot more. It was mostly utilized for Davinci Resolve and for gaming if Silverblue wasn’t fit for the job (for whatever reason). Unfortunately, even this one broke at some point 😅. I could still boot into it. But, the system just didn’t do what it’s supposed to do. I tried troubleshooting. But, once again, to no avail. ->

uBlue; Silverblue image: Through all that was previously mentioned, I had stability in Fedora Silverblue. It was reliable. I could trust it. Well…, most of the time 😅. Decisions related to mesa or video acceleration in browsers definitely felt more like misses rather than hits. I can’t blame Fedora as they’re legally restricted. But, shouldn’t we be able to do better? Enter uBlue. It seemed like some black magic shenanigans. The earlier issues would have never occurred (nor did they occur) on uBlue. This ‘managed’ aspect of uBlue was clearly, at least for me, the reason to consider it over regular Silverblue. And so, I parted with regular Silverblue and started using the Silverblue image provided by uBlue. Not long after, I even had my own (hardened) custom image. But, eventually (to be more precise; about half a year after switching to uBlue), keeping up with hardening took up too much effort for me to bear. But, thankfully, I had already found the perfect solution… ->

secureblue (based on the Silverblue image): This was Silverblue hardened by someone that actually knows their shit. And, thankfully, I didn’t have to maintain this myself. I used this for a couple of months until the next best thing… ->

secureblue (based on the Bluefin image): Currently on this for I think half a year now. It has just been a lovely experience through and through. Everything I could have asked is provided.

I’m glad to hear that it has been working out for ya.

But, you see, I don’t dismiss the fact that you and others like you are still using and enjoying Manjaro. In fact, as I just stated already, I’m happy for y’all. However, why do you dismiss/belie/behave like an ostrich that burry their head in the sand when so many others voice their concerns?

From the FAQ of Qubes OS (i.e. most secure desktop OS for general use):

“Why does Qubes use Xen instead of KVM or some other hypervisor?”

“In short: we believe the Xen architecture allows for the creation of more secure systems (i.e. with a much smaller TCB, which translates to a smaller attack surface). We discuss this in much greater depth in our Architecture Specification document.”

I wanted to know from OP why they’re considering Manjaro.

Because it’s an excellent distribution which is also in the top of the Steam Survey (alongside Arch, Ubuntu, Mint and PopOS) (and Flatpak, and Steam Deck’s SteamOS).

I’d argue it’s to Arch what Ubuntu is to Debian. Do with that whatever you will.

Btw, ProtonDB’s numbers show that Manjaro is losing lots of ground over the years. I won’t deny that the negativity around it plays a significant role in this. However, to me, if it’s already installed on your device, your experience with it is simply more important than whatever’s said about it. Therefore, I’d argue that Manjaro’s ever decreasing market share has to be linked to users being ever so upset of its vision, direction and mishaps.

It’s a rolling distro but mitigates the risks of bleeding edge with a curated stable branch, offers LTS kernels going back to 4.19 but you can choose LTS or newer versions or RT patches, it does not force you to switch kernel version if you don’t want to, has visual management tools for packages, kernel management and driver installation, does a great job installing drivers during install, comes with extra safety features (update rollback built-in if you use BTRFS for root), Steam works great, you can use AUR and Flatpak etc.

All of that is cool and all, but trust is what it’s all about. And honestly, I think someone should get a diagnose for Stockholm syndrome if they’re still putting up with Manjaro after all it has done.

Why are you even considering Manjaro?

If gaming is the priority, then I honestly don’t think anything out there can beat Bazzite in terms of ease of use, ‘hands-off’-ness, robustness and stability.

Honorable mentions include: Nobara and Pop!_OS.

The main difference at this point isn’t what you can do with them, but how they’re set up by default

Excellently distilled most of my post.

I wonder if distros are interested to further blur the lines themselves; like how Debian and Fedora both enable Flatpak by default.

To be honest, I think the homogenization is a net positive.

Definitely. But I feel like we fail at capitalizing on this. Though, in all fairness, the fact that derivatives have lost (some of) their significance does convey to me that we’re currently in a major shift. I just wonder where we’ll end up and if there’s anything we (as a community) can do in order to accelerate the process.

Thank you for touching upon the human-side of things! I wonder if my original point could be distilled to “Can we, humans, simply act more rational?” 😅.

The philosophies behind the different distros is definitely something I didn’t touch upon earlier. Thank you for mentioning that!

I wonder how different the philosophies are between Arch, Debian Sid, Fedora Rawhide and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Update 2: After trying out EOS, Arch, Manjaro, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Universal Blue, among many other options, I’ve come to the decision that I’m okay with sticking to Mint for now on my main desktop and setting up UBlue Aurora on my work laptop, but might consider switching to Kubuntu or Fedora if I want something similar at work and at home (one of my main draws away from Mint was that it didn’t offer a KDE option), or to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed if I must have a rolling distro for some reason. Thank you all for your guidance, and happy distro hopping!

Thank you for the update!

Could you elaborate upon your decision-making?

Question: Do you intend to play games with high-fidelity?

Like, the latest gen iGPUs from both AMD and Intel are capable for light gaming (as can be seen on the many pc-handhelds). But, is that sufficient for you? Or, do you need more raw power on your device?

Btw, OP, I foresee a switch to Linux Mint Xfce Edition. Please consider writing about your experiences in which you compare Xubuntu to Linux Mint Xfce Edition. Thanks in advance!

Linux Mint Xfce Edition should be right up your alley.

Unfortunately, the required steps to rid your Ubuntu (non-pro) system from this and other forms of advertisements are a lot more involved than it has any right to be.

Or, perhaps, consider another distro.

Unfortunately, I can’t take this seriously as 1% lows and additional variance due to difference in DE haven’t been accounted for.

Furthermore, you bet that Tuxedo OS has done a splendid job at optimizing performance on a device that’s sold by Tuxedo. Therefore, I wonder if it’s even a fair comparison to begin with.

OS is xubuntu 24.04

Ubuntu defaults to ufw. That, by itself, justifies the use of ufw in your case.

Pro-tip: Always look for (alt) software found on Linux before you gamble with Wine. https://alternativeto.net/ provides an excellent resource on that.

Fam, with al due respect, make up your mind; because, unfortunately, it’s not possible to keep up great security practices in conjunction with access to the AUR on a low powered system.

I’d argue that your best bet is probs Kicksecure. Though, I reckon you’ll have a hard time on a VM regardless.

I’ve been bouncing between live versions of ubuntu and mint

Ah okay, is this problem on Ubuntu or on Mint (or are you going to tackle it on both 😜)?

I’m still learning, so thank you for educating a linux ignoramus like myself.

It has been my pleasure fam!