Frankly, I find that if it aint broke, don't fix it. If Mint is working for you, why switch?

Category still matters as people can go to forums directly, and it helps with searching ;)

Yes, I think you are right. I found a few videos that dealt with this somewhat objectively, and I think it would at best be a sideways move. Mint does everything I need well, and Manjaro would be unknown territory to me, and possibly a worse choice, so I'll stick with Linux Mint. I'm not tech savvy enough to fix problems on my own if something happens, and Linux Mint has generally been very stable.

Would be nice to have more updated kernels (Mint is on 5.3), but I do like their more restricted stance here in general, as it ensures stability.

Hi,

One month ago, I made the switch from Mint + Cinnamon to Manjaro + KDE.

Maybe it's KDE and not Manjaro but I found some quirks that didn't happen with Mint + Cinnamon.
Dual screen in KDE is customizable to a high degree, so much it's too much (Per Window and per application) and I needed to configure it since its behavior at start is different from what I'm used to.
My Xbox gamepad must be unplugged and re-plugged to be recognized.
Problem with streamed videos (ie Youtube) choppy AF with no sound, so I have to reboot 2 sometimes 3 times and sometimes it works on first try.
Pamac (Manjaro package manager GUI ) got stuck many times during downloads, so back to terminal and 'sudo pacman -Syyu'.
I like having a transparent background on my terminal and each time I turn on my second screen the desktop effects are disabled and I have to 'Alt+Shift+F12' re-enable them.
No shortcut to switch from one screen to another, you have to create it.

Everything is minor, you can troubleshoot everything, it's usable but it's not as pleasant as my experience with Mint and Manjaro + Cinnamon is community driven so maybe it's not the best choice support wise.

Else, as you said, you have fresh kernels + Firmwares, latest Mesa without fiddling with PPA or compilation, and mainly the AUR.

So going back to Mint or not, I'm not sure...

depends on what you mean with "beginner friendly"
i switched from kubuntu to manjaro kde and i dont see any difference at daily usage
it comes with a kernel manager like UKUU, but you dont need it, because manjaro has newer kernels since it is a rolling release (it is 5.4 atm)
you also dont need 3rd party PPAs for newer mesa, plasma, openoffice, etc, because... rolling release. makes it easier to be up to date
which mesa version does mint come with? i think it doesnt even have ACO. you have to wait til mint 20, or 3rd party ppa

some commands are different
sudo apt update / dist-upgrade is sudo pacman -Syu
but since you want beginner friendly you will use the GUI anyways

i think almost every distro is "beginner friendly". more important is the desktop environment
steam, gog and mango hud work the same

Quoting: TobyGornowHi,

One month ago, I made the switch from Mint + Cinnamon to Manjaro + KDE.

Maybe it's KDE and not Manjaro but I found some quirks that didn't happen with Mint + Cinnamon.
Dual screen in KDE is customizable to a high degree, so much it's too much (Per Window and per application) and I needed to configure it since its behavior at start is different from what I'm used to.
My Xbox gamepad must be unplugged and re-plugged to be recognized.
Problem with streamed videos (ie Youtube) choppy AF with no sound, so I have to reboot 2 sometimes 3 times and sometimes it works on first try.
Pamac (Manjaro package manager GUI ) got stuck many times during downloads, so back to terminal and 'sudo pacman -Syyu'.
I like having a transparent background on my terminal and each time I turn on my second screen the desktop effects are disabled and I have to 'Alt+Shift+F12' re-enable them.
No shortcut to switch from one screen to another, you have to create it.

Everything is minor, you can troubleshoot everything, it's usable but it's not as pleasant as my experience with Mint and Manjaro + Cinnamon is community driven so maybe it's not the best choice support wise.

Else, as you said, you have fresh kernels + Firmwares, latest Mesa without fiddling with PPA or compilation, and mainly the AUR.

So going back to Mint or not, I'm not sure...

Hmm. Does Manjaro not offer Cinammon ? If that is what you are used to , why not stick to that if i may ask ?

Simply: Rolling release + AUR, that's why I quit Linux Mint and stick with Manjaro now (5 years ago?).

Main thing I didn't like about Manjaro: Since it is Arch based, you have to update your system every time you want to install something new. On Manjaro however, all updates often come at the same time once in two weeks or so. This often caused problems when I was working on something with close deadline, needed to install a new software, but had to update my system first, which meant downloading about 1GB of updates before I could install a 50MB application.

Right now I'm running Debian KDE on my laptop (used for work and studies) and Arch on my desktop and couldn't be happier.

I'm starting to lean towards the opinion, that the best distributions are the ones not based on some other distribution. For example Ubuntu is based on Debian to fit more normie user, which is great to get started with Linux, but at the same time it introduces problems and bugs not present in Debian, because it is doing things for which Debian was not designed.

Last edited by Rooster on 10 April 2020 at 10:25 am UTC

Quoting: Liam DaweFrankly, I find that if it aint broke, don't fix it. If Mint is working for you, why switch?

Category still matters as people can go to forums directly, and it helps with searching ;)

I agree.

What's the point of switching distros, when you're already happy with the one you're using?

I used to distrohop, but that's because each distro had some deal-breaker for me.

When I found Solus, I finally settled on it and stopped distro hopping, because it's the one I'm most happy with.

If you're happy with Mint, you just keep using it, it's a fine distro.

You should only switch distros if you have a good reason for it.


Also, there's nothing like the feeling of having an old OS install (properly upgraded of course) that has everything set up the way you want it to.

Quoting: RoosterMain thing I didn't like about Manjaro: Since it is Arch based, you have to update your system every time you want to install something new. On Manjaro however, all updates often come at the same time once in two weeks or so. This often caused problems when I was working on something with close deadline, needed to install a new software, but had to update my system first, which meant downloading about 1GB of updates before I could install a 50MB application.

Right now I'm running Debian KDE on my laptop (used for work and studies) and Arch on my desktop and couldn't be happier.

I'm starting to lean towards the opinion, that the best distributions are the ones not based on some other distribution. For example Ubuntu is based on Debian to fit more normie user, which is great to get started with Linux, but at the same time it introduces problems and bugs not present in Debian, because it is doing things for which Debian was not designed.

Uhm . no.
I can install software just fine on Arch. No need to do a full system update.
Yes you can not do incremental updates , but you can install stuff just fine. I do it all the times. Pacman -S <package>

Of course you can technically do it, but you are heavily warned against it, as it can break another package in your system.

From Arch wiki:

QuotePartial upgrades are unsupported

Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution. That means when new library versions are pushed to the repositories, the developers and Trusted Users rebuild all the packages in the repositories that need to be rebuilt against the libraries. For example, if two packages depend on the same library, upgrading only one package might also upgrade the library (as a dependency), which might then break the other package which depends on an older version of the library.

That is why partial upgrades are not supported. Do not use pacman -Sy package or any equivalent such as pacman -Sy followed by pacman -S package. Always upgrade (with pacman -Syu) before installing a package.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/System_maintenance#Upgrading_the_system

Last edited by Rooster on 10 April 2020 at 10:07 pm UTC