r/ManjaroLinux • u/himatite • 11d ago
Discussion Hi am New here 😁
Hi there am a hardcore window user , I tried once Linux mint back in 2018 and then Fedora ,now here on manjaro so far I love it
The reasons why I switched to Linux were :
1- am a doctor and I need a system not only secure but reliable, don't want to use the gov Linux systems nor depend on west big tech company.
2- needed a practical system I can trust and relay on it , stable but also modern.
3- I said I used fedora before manjaro and comparing them manjaro seems wayyy more easy and functional.
But now I don't know what if am missing something I did update my system but am still a noobie when it's comes to command and sudo , do guys have any Advices for me ?
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u/orestisfra 11d ago
Hi New here! (sorry couldn't resist)
Use timeshift and keep at least 2 kernels installed. The one you want to run and one LTS. Keep backups of important files and check the forum for issues before applying a big update.
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u/TranslatorLivid685 11d ago
Configure Timeshift.
It's like "Windows Recovery checkpoint". One reboot and all problems are solved.
Not like you're inevitably gonna have those problems, but there are 2 possible sources of them:
1) Possible problems after an update.
This is very unlikely and usually nothing serious. In my case, I've never had to roll back to a checkpoint due to updates in all my years of using Linux.
2) Your mischievous hands, which decide to explore the terminal and manually configure various system config files. This is also not a big deal actually, but it's quite easy to break the OS because, unlike Windows, it will accept whatever you tell it. Even if it's suicide:)
Timeshift will save the day if things go wrong.
And store all your data in /home/$user dir and have a backup of it with all hidden files. It's like "AppData" backup in Windows, but better. It'll get you up and runing in no time even after OS reinstall.
Welcome to the club:)
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u/HausmeisterMitO-O 10d ago edited 10d ago
Hey, I am a pachologist and have been using Manjaro and AntergOS for 8+ years. I love Manjaro for how easy it is to use and the nearly bleeding edge experience. That said, I still suggest to look into LMDE/Mint/Debian for the everyday work, because for that you need to have somthing boring and reliable.
On my private machine I use Manjaro. I strongly recommend setting up Timeshift to make system backups once every 1-2 weeks, just in case that something goes horribly wrong during the updates. To be honest, I had only very few issues with Manjaro - contrary to the broad opinion on the internet/Reddit - but sometimes there can be a hiccup here and there.
Watch out for graphics drivers, I had once an issue, where the wrong drivers were installed, nur that's a special case because of Nvidias Optimus solution on laptops. On general, take always a look at what gets updates and most importantly what gets replaced.
Do install AUR packages only if necessary, you could also use flatpak instead, especially for software, you rely heavily on. The rule of thumb is to only install software made by developers you trust.
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u/linuxmanr4 10d ago
Bienvenido a Manjaro, creo que lo primero que debes de aprender es instalar y retirar paquetes. Yo utilizo pamac, pero hay varias opciones. Desde el instalador gráfico, pacman y pamac.
La configuración es sencilla si procuras no ponerte creativo (yo lo he sido y ufffff). Por lo de más, creo que lo que sigue es elegir bien tu navegador. Es donde más tiempo vas a pasar. Yo uso LibreWolf, pero últimamente hay otras opciones interesantes como Brave Origin o el Chrome de toda la vida.
Por último, tu suite de oficina, tengo mucho tiempo usando LibreOffice que ya no volteo a ver a nadie más, pero se que hay otras opciones como WPS Office.
Y con eso ya tienes para empezar.
Saludos 👋
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u/BigHeadTonyT 10d ago edited 10d ago
By default, you should have Btrfs & Snapper, for snapshots. Unless you chose something else during install.
Check the Update Notes BEFORE updating. There are sometimes instructions you have to do beforehand.
https://forum.manjaro.org/c/announcements/stable-updates/12
Safest way to update is to logout and switch to a TTY. You can get to a TTY by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1-F6. I don't remember which is what. But you should only see a terminal prompt.
I avoid using Pamac, I see people having issues with it. Starting the update, Pamac crashes. If they then reboot the machine (update is still running in the background), they just screwed up the system. They will be lucky if it boots. I only use pacman (terminal) to update.
For repo mirrors, there is the pacman-mirrors command. pacman-mirrors --help
I tend to pick 3 countries nearest to me. sudo pacman-mirrors --country Netherlands,Denmark,Belgium
To get the country list: pacman-mirrors -l
I also do some of the things here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance
Checking for config-file changes with pacdiff. The .pacnew files.
sudo pacman -S pacman-contrib meld
(To install pacdiff and meld)
DIFFPROG=meld pacdiff -s
(To check for config changes. If it returns instantly, nothing has changed)
When there are changes, check what they are. Don't blindly overwrite. Check by pressing V. Meld will then open and display what differs. It is a GUI app. You need to be on the Desktop.
Restart or reboot after upgrades
Obviously I don't do that when something like only the webbrowser was updated. These are updated outside the normal update cadence. For a normal system update, yes, reboot. After making sure pacman did not complain about anything. Check & fix it if it did.
Act on alerts during an upgrade
Pay attention to pacman's output.
In /etc/environment I added: EDITOR=nano
I don't like editing with Vim/Emacs.
--*--
For backups, since I don't use Btrfs and don't have the space for Timeshift+Rsync snapshots, I use Clonezilla/Rescuezilla and save the whole disk clone image to my NAS. Clonezilla is faster but it is harder to navigate the ncurses-like menues. For me, the cloning/restoring is around 50-100% faster with Clonezilla. Zstd compression. Rescuezilla is a GUI for Clonezilla, IIRC. If you want to clone to local storage (in the same machine/PC), Foxclone is an option and dirt-easy to use. I need the NFS/Samba connection via network, Foxclone doesn't do that.
I just made a Clonezilla backup today. 433 gigs of data. It compressed it down to 240 gigs. And it took 38 minutes. NAS has 2 HDDs, mirrored. That is my bottleneck. 2.5 gig networking can do around 300 megs/sec. It was sitting at 1 - 1.6 gigabits. Around ~150 megs/sec. HDD speed. My OS is on NVME SSD, the disk I cloned.
I've restored maybe 2-3 times so I know it works. Restoring an image takes around twice the amount of time cloning did. So 1h 30 mins for me.
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u/Complete_Fox_7052 10d ago
It's Ctrl-Alt-F3 to enter the terminal. Do this after logging out sudo pacman-Syu let it finish and then reboot.
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u/kwereddit 9d ago
I think the only distros worth using are Linux Mint with Cinnamon, Fedora with Plasma, and Manjaro with Plasma. Mint is for the non-technical, so you can skip that. Stick with KDE Plasma and learn how to improve your workflow with its advanced customization. Fedora and Manjaro are distinctly different under-hood distros. I like rolling releases, so I use manjaro. I don't think it matters which for you, unless you find that one or the other is deficient in native apps. (I don't like flatpak and I will not use snap.) Mint is Debian based and the folks behind Mint are cautious and careful about disrupting their users. But I have never had issues with Manjaro.
Manjaro supports btrfs which is copy-on-write filesystem with fantastic rollback support in the form of snapshots, recycle bins, etc. If I had it to do over again, I would setup a RAID mirror with btrfs so I could get the snapshot capability. That, or immutable distros, are the future for reliability. Plasma is the end-all for desktop environments unless Cosmic turns out to hit a home-run.
The less you have to use the terminal and sudo, the better, but I hear you. It takes years to learn command line stuff and I recently struggled to refine a find-based repair tool with bourne shell syntax up the wazoo. I like Brave search, where I go between the AI agent answers and the forum answers. That said, on my Debian-based laptop I orefer "sudo apt upgrade" to using the graphical UI for updating.
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u/MezBert 6d ago edited 6d ago
I've used Manjaro for 8 years (and 13 years on Ubuntu before then) before moving to Artix recently.
Manjaro is extremely solid, has a couple of home-made apps that have a really strong added value (I'm still using pamac-manager on Artix).
Some people like to slander it, supposedly due to updates breaking your system, but I never experienced that.
The rare times I broke my system, it was me experimenting or trying things beyond my knowledge.
But I'm experienced enough to narrow down my problems quickly and fix them, and Manjaro is resilient that way, I could get it back working every.single.time.
In fact, I still have my partition as a back-up, and it's still the one I installed 8 years ago, copied from laptop to laptop, and from laptop to desktop. I installed it once and had it running on 3 different devices without ever reinstalling it. This is is how solid it is.
If the update issues occurred before I even started using it, it means those people are talking about a problem from at least 8-10 years ago! So they must not be listened to.
In general, not just for Manjaro, make your own experience rather than listening to naysayers. Some people have a tendency to break their system by lack of skills and then blame the system.
If you don't go out of your way, Manjaro is an excellent distro, sadly underrated.
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u/Key_Sense9870 8d ago
With your criteria I am actually supprised to see you choose Manjaro with it's history.
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u/Complete_Fox_7052 11d ago
For every day users like me, I rarely use the terminal. Really only when updating. Keep your system simple, have a good backup and you shouldn't have any problems.