Switching to Linux... still deciding on Manjaro KDE vs Kubuntu

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

On 23/09/2022 at 15:08, Mindovermaster said:

Arch is supposed to be the greatest and latest. Manjaro doesn't fit that pattern. Yet it's based off Arch.

Ummmm There is no law that says an Arch based distro needs to be a strict rolling release distro. All distro branches whether Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, or SUSE/Fedora have distros that are variations of those. Linux is literally all about choice.

 

Quote

If you don't need the newest stuff, then don't use Arch, plain and simple..

That is one of the hardest gatekeeping comments I have heard in a while. You got to keep Linux at 3% marketshare. Am I right?

Edited September 23, 2022 by Good Bot, Bad Bot

[adrynalyne]

On 23/09/2022 at 12:08, Mindovermaster said:

Arch is supposed to be the greatest and latest. Manjaro doesn't fit that pattern. Yet it's based off Arch.

 

If you don't need the newest stuff, then don't use Arch, plain and simple..

According to who, Arch? Majaro is its own thing, they do not have to play by Arch's way of thinking. 

 

As an aside, I have without fail managed to kill Arch at some point or another, but not Manjaro. So that little extra testing goes a long way.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Manjaro doesn't have the same shine it used to IMO; I had some issues with it that i've never had before this last go around; RetroArch for one wouldn't load most of it's Cores from the Online Core Updater section for some reason. Ended up moving back to Ubuntu for the first time in forever.

 

After hearing a couple things in this thread though I might give this EndeavorOS a try. Looks like a promising new candidate.

[MarkTay]

I like Mint Debian Edition. Very stable and solid, especially if you are running older hardware. The Cinnamon desktop is very configurable too.

[JustGeorge]

On 23/09/2022 at 10:20, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

Pop!_OS is not any kinda of "semi-rolling release" distro. It is literally based on Ubuntu and follows their release schedule except there won't even be an upcoming 22.10 version at all. Fedora would be an example of a "semi-rolling release" distro.

System76 said they're skipping 22.10 to concentrate on finishing up their new RUST based DE.

 

While its based on Ubuntu, they seem to backport some applications like LibreOffice so you're not stuck on old versions as long as someone on Ubuntu would be.

 

Fedora is a good distro as well. I don't care for the installer, SELinux and its Firewall management UI, but that's solely due to my lack of interest in learning them. No excuse for the installer though. Its just awful.

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

On 24/09/2022 at 10:13, JustGeorge said:

System76 said they're skipping 22.10 to concentrate on finishing up their new RUST based DE.

 

While its based on Ubuntu, they seem to backport some applications like LibreOffice so you're not stuck on old versions as long as someone on Ubuntu would be.

 

Fedora is a good distro as well. I don't care for the installer, SELinux and its Firewall management UI, but that's solely due to my lack of interest in learning them. No excuse for the installer though. Its just awful.

I am aware why System76 is skipping their 22.10 version. I was just pointing out they will actually fall behind Ubuntu.

 

The fact Pop!_OS may have a newer kernel or some newer packages than Ubuntu for their version at release does not make it a "semi-rolling release". What makes a semi-rolling release is pushing out major updates for that release after it's been out. Ubuntu and Pop!_OS don't do that but wait for the next version. Fedora will do that but it's still not a full rolling release like Arch that updates the kernel, DE,  and ALL their packages as they come out so the user wouldn't care about new releases of the distro in theory.

 

I agree the Fedora installer is not the best design but it works just fine. They are working a new installer. Now, not wanting to deal with the Arch installer I admit has kept me from wanting  to try that distro.

[JustGeorge]

On 24/09/2022 at 12:32, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

I am aware why System76 is skipping their 22.10 version. I was just pointing out they will actually fall behind Ubuntu.

 

The fact Pop!_OS may have a newer kernel or some newer packages than Ubuntu for their version at release does not make it a "semi-rolling release". What makes a semi-rolling release is pushing out major updates for that release after it's been out. Ubuntu and Pop!_OS don't do that but wait for the next version. Fedora will do that but it's still not a full rolling release like Arch that updates the kernel, DE,  and ALL their packages as they come out so the user wouldn't care about new releases of the distro in theory.

 

I agree the Fedora installer is not the best design but it works just fine. They are working a new installer. Now, not wanting to deal with the Arch installer I admit has kept me from wanting  to try that distro.

As long as the main suite of apps is updated over the course of a version, I really don't care if the OS itself is the latest. Others will feel differently obviously.

 

Regarding the Fedora installer, there are better installers out there right now that could be used. Why the wheel has to be reinvented over and over is one of the most frustrating things  about OSS. Arch installer as it is today seems to exist as a right of passage or something.

[cork1958]

On 23/09/2022 at 10:52, Nick H. said:

I wouldn't bother playing around with a Linux distro in a VM, especially if you plan to wipe and start again. You may as well just fully install a distro and play around with it for a few days to see if it suits you before wiping and trying something else.

 

I haven't used Manjaro, but I did use Kubuntu for a while and it worked perfectly fine for things like coding.

 

Zorin was good. I installed it for a guy that doesn't know the difference between a CPU and a GPU and he used it for years without really noticing that it wasn't Windows.

 

But for me, I'm using Linux Mint as my secondary OS. @Good Bot, Bad Botconsiders it to be for grandpas, but I consider it to be a solid distro that does what I need it to do.

100% agree with that first line, for sure! I use Mint almost exclusively and love it. Has done anything and everything I've ever wanted and is super stable and yes, I'm a Grandpa!!

 

Used Zorin quite some time ago and liked it, but that was more back in the my days of distro hopping all the time. Never really been a fan of the Ubuntu varieties. Just never blew my hair back.

[Farchord]

On 24/09/2022 at 16:10, cork1958 said:

100% agree with that first line, for sure! I use Mint almost exclusively and love it. Has done anything and everything I've ever wanted and is super stable and yes, I'm a Grandpa!!

 

Used Zorin quite some time ago and liked it, but that was more back in the my days of distro hopping all the time. Never really been a fan of the Ubuntu varieties. Just never blew my hair back.

I used to play with Ubuntu. But it got so bloated over the years....

[BoondockSaint]

After a few days of testing, I've done my final install. Thanks to the suggestions in this thread, I also tried Fedora 36 (KDE spin) and Endeavour OS (once again with KDE).

 

As I mentioned elsewhere, the target machine was a Lenovo Legion 5 with a R7 5800H, integrated AMD graphics & RTX 3060, 16GB ram and 1440p screen. Linux is the only OS on the machine, and all versions were installed in their "lighter" modes, without office suites, graphics apps and such.

 

Kubuntu: Everything worked right after install. Wifi, sound, Bluetooth and even the switchable graphics. It was a very smooth experience. The screen worked at its 165Hz refresh rate too which was nice.

 

Manjaro: As with Kubuntu, most stuff worked without any problems. Wifi didn't work at first, but after a second reboot, it sorted itself out. The only issue was the RTX card - by default, the machine runs on the integrated graphics (in the machine UEFI I set the mode to dynamic). I installed the nVidia proprietary driver as part of the main process, but I couldn't get things running on the discrete card without forcing it in the UEFI. I checked a lot of posts and there's many methods of getting it to work using the terminal, but I didn't have any luck. No doubt it's all just due to my Linux inexperience. Intel/nVidia combos are apparently easier to get working, AMD/nVidia not so much.

 

Fedora: I was excited to try this, but it was very unstable on the machine. I was getting freezes and total lockups over & over. Trying to update the system post install would constantly fail, after a while the screen would flicker when moving the mouse and more. No doubt just a hardware incompatibility (though everything seemed to work when the machine wasn't going haywire).

 

EndeavourOS: Everything worked fine after install but had the same issues with the discrete graphics as with Manjaro. That aside, I have to say it was a very nice system - whereas Manjaro installs & enabled everything out of the box, Endeavour keeps things simple by installing the right drivers, but not enabling everything by default (for example Bluetooth was disabled, and just needed a simple terminal command to start it). It felt more lightweight than Manjaro.

 

After each install, I put my full suite of work tools on each distro. Everything worked fine, though due to the availability of ready packages for some software, Kubuntu & Fedora needed a bit less work than the Arch based distros.

 

So after all that, I decided to go with Kubuntu as the main OS (for now). I was very impressed how well it all worked, and I was able to get things in "almost work ready" state quicker than the others. I will say that Endeavour was a very close second for me, and I'm thinking of dropping a second nvme drive in the machine and using that to distro-hop, while keeping the primary with Kubuntu and all my work tools.

 

Thanks again to all who weighed in opinions!

 

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Have fun, bro!

[Farchord]

On 27/09/2022 at 21:23, BoondockSaint said:

After a few days of testing, I've done my final install. Thanks to the suggestions in this thread, I also tried Fedora 36 (KDE spin) and Endeavour OS (once again with KDE).

 

As I mentioned elsewhere, the target machine was a Lenovo Legion 5 with a R7 5800H, integrated AMD graphics & RTX 3060, 16GB ram and 1440p screen. Linux is the only OS on the machine, and all versions were installed in their "lighter" modes, without office suites, graphics apps and such.

 

Kubuntu: Everything worked right after install. Wifi, sound, Bluetooth and even the switchable graphics. It was a very smooth experience. The screen worked at its 165Hz refresh rate too which was nice.

 

Manjaro: As with Kubuntu, most stuff worked without any problems. Wifi didn't work at first, but after a second reboot, it sorted itself out. The only issue was the RTX card - by default, the machine runs on the integrated graphics (in the machine UEFI I set the mode to dynamic). I installed the nVidia proprietary driver as part of the main process, but I couldn't get things running on the discrete card without forcing it in the UEFI. I checked a lot of posts and there's many methods of getting it to work using the terminal, but I didn't have any luck. No doubt it's all just due to my Linux inexperience. Intel/nVidia combos are apparently easier to get working, AMD/nVidia not so much.

 

Fedora: I was excited to try this, but it was very unstable on the machine. I was getting freezes and total lockups over & over. Trying to update the system post install would constantly fail, after a while the screen would flicker when moving the mouse and more. No doubt just a hardware incompatibility (though everything seemed to work when the machine wasn't going haywire).

 

EndeavourOS: Everything worked fine after install but had the same issues with the discrete graphics as with Manjaro. That aside, I have to say it was a very nice system - whereas Manjaro installs & enabled everything out of the box, Endeavour keeps things simple by installing the right drivers, but not enabling everything by default (for example Bluetooth was disabled, and just needed a simple terminal command to start it). It felt more lightweight than Manjaro.

 

After each install, I put my full suite of work tools on each distro. Everything worked fine, though due to the availability of ready packages for some software, Kubuntu & Fedora needed a bit less work than the Arch based distros.

 

So after all that, I decided to go with Kubuntu as the main OS (for now). I was very impressed how well it all worked, and I was able to get things in "almost work ready" state quicker than the others. I will say that Endeavour was a very close second for me, and I'm thinking of dropping a second nvme drive in the machine and using that to distro-hop, while keeping the primary with Kubuntu and all my work tools.

 

Thanks again to all who weighed in opinions!

 

 

Yeah I have a similar computer to yours, I have a Legion 7 gen 7 (AMD) and everything works too, eeeeexcept... for some reason, the brightness control buttons dont work. To be clear, I can adjust brightness using the UI controls but not the Fn keys. Annoying, but I can do without.