preshy360

What mikrotik model did they give you. That's the old hap.
 
Mikrotiks are damn good and external antennas mean nothing

You don't really specify what went wrong with your Arch based installs. I've been testing Manjaro and loving it so far. What should I expect to happen?

On a few other tech forums with a linux section I go to I try to manke a anual list of Linux distros for windows users to try on the side and with Linus covering Linux recently I actually have a list of linux distros to try.
2019 is going to be a interesting year as we now have the countdown to Windows 7's EOL and there is plenty of good linux options out there.

So with Windows 7's time running out its time to list some good Linux distros for potential new users who dont want windows 10 to try out for now and see what linux can offer:
 
1: Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon
Linux mint is my main suggestion to new users, and its current Cinnamon desktop offers a very windows 7/10 like icon task manager.
Its a very good starting point for new users, highly recommended!
2: Kubuntu 18.04.1
Wow Kubuntu is actually very good again! Despite its very vanilla KDE desktop its a nice distro, and has a fairly decent app center.
It is a bit plain Jane but if you are looking for another good windows 7 replacement/alternative this is where to go!
3: MX Linux 18
Okay this one is a bit of a surprise, as while its not that much like Windows in terms of UI and it does have a bit of a learning curve I have seen nothing but praise for MX linux. Mind you if you have certain modern hardware you may want to skip this one but if you got a old clunker around say something from 2006 or above this is not a bad option at all. For more modern machines stick with Mint or Kubuntu, if you have a 4GB cap and have a core2duo or something this may be a good distro to invest in. Plus I did want to take a brief break from the Ubuntu based distros here, MX linux is debian based though and that does come with a few caveats such as newer hardware support isnt as strong.
4: Xubuntu 18.04.1
Again this is mainly here for older machines, and yes this is another ubuntu based distro but for windows users a ubuntu base is rather a good thing.
Xubuntu is stable, fairly easy to use and a nice option for the linux newcommer.
 
Now my main list has a obvious Ubuntu bias but rest assured there are good non ubuntu based distros.
Solus is rather nice but it doesnt have the software support.
Mageia is also rather nice, though i am not crazy about its installer these days.
 
Currently the most popular distro according to distrowatch is Manjaro....
However I personally cannot recommend it, I have had too many issues and bugs with it.
For me I cannot recommend Manjaro at all at this stage to the new users.
You may also hear of something called Arch linux
Or Slackware
Or Gentoo
Again I cannot recommend these to new users, these are more for those who know linux inside out and how to navigate command line like the back of their hand.
You may have also heard of something called Kali linux or even Tails.
You might have even seen the show Mr. Robot and it may give you the wrong impression of linux.
Again these are not for those new to linux, these are specialized versions and are beyond the scope of what you need to get started.
 
Finally I  have a special category called "the garbage bin"
 
These are linux versions that I feel are of poor quality and will never recommend them to any new linux user:
openSUSE (sad as I used to like this distro but recent release are of poor quality)
Manjaro Linux (same as above)
Maui linux (its dead)
Netrunner linux (constant dropping of project/ inconsistent management)
PClinuxOS (Third party software installation is near impossible, very rude community too)
RedStarOS (seriously its a north Korean distro and its indeed real)
Hannah Montana Linux (again yes I am serious)
Justin Bieber linux (aaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!)

A hackintosh would probably be a better option then.

ISP's will likely never give you "great" equipment. They use whatever they have a mass supply of so that troubleshooting and configs are all the same. WIthout looking into any of the actual specs of the two devices I'm 99% sure you're better off plugging your netgear back in.

the router the isp provided looks ancient