Manjaro Architect edition Anyone?

[mamamia88]

I just installed it on 2 machines and I am surprised how close they got to the arch experience but, it only took me about 30 minutes without reading any documentation to install. Oh and the benefit? You get nearly arch bleeding edge software but, a little behind after the arch guys worked out the kinks and fix it. Not difficult at all especially if you read like the first page of the actual arch install wiki and have a general understanding of that. But, defaults are mostly fine on almost everything. 

[manikyath]

manjaro is basicly arch with an actual installer.

 

but i do say it's very refreshing to see that they made it a very barebones installer, gonna give it a spin in a VM and see if they managed to reach the refinement some of the big boys (debian / *buntu / fedora) are good at.

 

EDIT: nope, it's shyte.. 9 years of development and they still cant get keyboard layouts besides US QWERTY to work properly. selecting additional packages is essentially just a dump of the repo, and currently my screen is just a waterfall of errors because it cant resolve some mirror's hostname.

 

also, for having not selected any additional packages, i really wonder why i'm seeing SO MUCH FREAKING SOFTWARE fly past on my screen..

 

installation done, here's the pain points:

- had to set language and keyboard layout 3 times, still had to do one login with a wrong keyboard layout

- virtualbox drivers are broken

- i enabled auto logon, it doesnt auto logon

- i installed the 'latest' kernel.... but there's a kernel update?

- i didnt install any additional software, and went for an xfce installation, the layout they squeezed xfce into is HORRID...

- while having not installed any additional software, here's the damage report: gColor2, GIMP, Gparted, GtkHash, HexChat, HP device manager (WHAT?!!), pidgin, thunderbird, timeshift, VLC, and a bunch of system utilities installed 'double' like xfce's task manager and htop.

 

all in all.. it's a pretty poor experience compared to going for a *buntu, and for all the work they seem to be doing on making things more refined.. it's making things more messy. i havent had problems with virtualbox drivers since like.. 2015? but manjaro never fails to surprise.

[mamamia88]

24 minutes ago, manikyath said:

manjaro is basicly arch with an actual installer.

 

but i do say it's very refreshing to see that they made it a very barebones installer, gonna give it a spin in a VM and see if they managed to reach the refinement some of the big boys (debian / *buntu / fedora) are good at.

It was pretty easy if you’ve ever tried to install arch it’s relatively easy but time consuming. This gives you a minimal GUI installer that basically turns arch install into the Debian net installer. Pretty hard to mess up. Literally took about as long to install an entire desktop as it would take me to install arch using tab autocorrect following along on my phone. Just does it all for you and let’s you pick a minimal install of a desktop pulling everything in for you even Aur helpers and drivers. Basically arch meets Debian net installer. 

[manikyath]

5 minutes ago, mamamia88 said:

It was pretty easy if you’ve ever tried to install arch it’s relatively easy but time consuming. This gives you a minimal GUI installer that basically turns arch install into the Debian net installer. Pretty hard to mess up. Literally took about as long to install an entire desktop as it would take me to install arch using tab autocorrect following along on my phone. Just does it all for you and let’s you pick a minimal install of a desktop pulling everything in for you even Aur helpers and drivers. Basically arch meets Debian net installer. 

i've had my share of arch installations, and i've had my share of debian net installations.. this is nothing like debian net installations.. mostly because the debian net installer actually works properly. it is a weak knockoff attempt at how someone describes the debian installer over a 1980s phone line.

[mamamia88]

12 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i've had my share of arch installations, and i've had my share of debian net installations.. this is nothing like debian net installations.. mostly because the debian net installer actually works properly. it is a weak knockoff attempt at how someone describes the debian installer over a 1980s phone line.

Well functional enough I was able to download it and breeze through the steps after getting a general idea what I was doing.  I actually thought of Jumanji like it would be a cool diy adventure game. Relatively easy and convenient way to build a system exactly like you want

[manikyath]

Just now, mamamia88 said:

Well functional enough I was able to download it and breeze through the steps after getting a general idea what I was doing.  I actually thought of Jumanji like it would be a cool diy adventure game. Relatively easy and convenient way to build a system exactly like you want

i suggest you try the installers of the following distro's, and let me know how manjaro compares:

- fedora

- ubuntu

- debian

- ubuntu server

 

fedora's installer is probably the most impressive out the lot, in my opinion even doing a better job than windows 10's OOBE.

ubuntu is just the essence of simplicity

debian is barebones but feature-complete

ubuntu server is impressive for the features given <=> how little resources are consumed

 

compared to these.. manjaro is a clusterfuck. too many options ducktaped together in a poorly designed UI that still has the 2008 struggle of keyboard layouts, coated in a yucky sauce of bloatware.

their intent is for this to be a 'custom' installer, then why the hell do i have two task managers, two chat applications, and 3 photo editing programs preinstalled? this is beyond ubuntu's level of bloat, in an unstabile package of broken mess.

 

i'm sorry.. i tried to like manjaro 4 years ago, your mention of the 'architect' package made me try to like it again, and it's a bad second try of a sour ex. I really compliment manjaro for trying as hard as they do to make arch usable for people without neckbeards.. but they failed, and continue to fail.

the installer is a mess, the distro is a mess, updating is a mess, fixing things when updates inevitably break things is a mess. installing Xubuntu is faster than attempting to fix manjaro when it inevitably breaks 6 months down the road, because of the hilareous complexity of the underlying structures. i greatly prefer pacman over apt.. but i greatly prefer my computer to work in the morning as well...

 

and that's coming from someone who actually had manjaro on several devices... until it broke so badly i gave up and went *buntu.

 

also, the *buntu's cover just about as much customization as you could want, being available in just about every window manager. and they even come with less bloat out of the box... just pick your flavour, and apt-get the rest of your stuff.

 

also, like customization? get Kubuntu, and try http://kde-look.org

[vorticalbox]

10 hours ago, manikyath said:

- while having not installed any additional software, here's the damage report: gColor2, GIMP, Gparted, GtkHash, HexChat, HP device manager (WHAT?!!), pidgin, thunderbird, timeshift, VLC, and a bunch of system utilities installed 'double' like xfce's task manager and htop.

 

all in all.. it's a pretty poor experience compared to going for a *buntu, and for all the work they seem to be doing on making things more refined.. it's making things more messy. i havent had problems with virtualbox drivers since like.. 2015? but manjaro never fails to surprise.

Ubuntu minimum install is exact as described, other than Firefox it comes with nothing install not even curl.

[gardotd426]

11 hours ago, manikyath said:

i suggest you try the installers of the following distro's, and let me know how manjaro compares:

- fedora

- ubuntu

- debian

- ubuntu server

 

fedora's installer is probably the most impressive out the lot, in my opinion even doing a better job than windows 10's OOBE.

ubuntu is just the essence of simplicity

debian is barebones but feature-complete

ubuntu server is impressive for the features given <=> how little resources are consumed

 

compared to these.. manjaro is a clusterfuck. too many options ducktaped together in a poorly designed UI that still has the 2008 struggle of keyboard layouts, coated in a yucky sauce of bloatware.

their intent is for this to be a 'custom' installer, then why the hell do i have two task managers, two chat applications, and 3 photo editing programs preinstalled? this is beyond ubuntu's level of bloat, in an unstabile package of broken mess.

 

i'm sorry.. i tried to like manjaro 4 years ago, your mention of the 'architect' package made me try to like it again, and it's a bad second try of a sour ex. I really compliment manjaro for trying as hard as they do to make arch usable for people without neckbeards.. but they failed, and continue to fail.

the installer is a mess, the distro is a mess, updating is a mess, fixing things when updates inevitably break things is a mess. installing Xubuntu is faster than attempting to fix manjaro when it inevitably breaks 6 months down the road, because of the hilareous complexity of the underlying structures. i greatly prefer pacman over apt.. but i greatly prefer my computer to work in the morning as well...

 

and that's coming from someone who actually had manjaro on several devices... until it broke so badly i gave up and went *buntu.

 

also, the *buntu's cover just about as much customization as you could want, being available in just about every window manager. and they even come with less bloat out of the box... just pick your flavour, and apt-get the rest of your stuff.

 

also, like customization? get Kubuntu, and try http://kde-look.org

Dude, you're talking about Manjaro Architect. Manjaro Architect isn't "the Manjaro installer." Manjaro uses Calamares. Architect is for people that (for some reason) want (or need) a minimal text-based installer. 

[manikyath]

5 minutes ago, gardotd426 said:

Dude, you're talking about Manjaro Architect. Manjaro Architect isn't "the Manjaro installer." Manjaro uses Calamares. Architect is for people that (for some reason) want (or need) a minimal text-based installer. 

i'm talking about the complete experience. i dont care what the installer is called, if i refer to "the ___ installer" i refer to the installer i was greeted with when i loaded up the ISO of the specific distro at hand. my hope was that for the way the webpage described architect it would be a more customizable manjaro experience.. but it just seems like it's a more broken manjaro experience.

[mamamia88]

43 minutes ago, gardotd426 said:

Dude, you're talking about Manjaro Architect. Manjaro Architect isn't "the Manjaro installer." Manjaro uses Calamares. Architect is for people that (for some reason) want (or need) a minimal text-based installer. 

I like the idea of a very minimal install of an up to date distribution that makes everything relatively easy to get a working system. I was high when I installed it.   They basically took the wiki, and put a minimal text based installer and set the defaults to what works for most people. It's a choose your own adventure game where at the end you end up with only what you need. 

[mamamia88]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i'm talking about the complete experience. i dont care what the installer is called, if i refer to "the ___ installer" i refer to the installer i was greeted with when i loaded up the ISO of the specific distro at hand. my hope was that for the way the webpage described architect it would be a more customizable manjaro experience.. but it just seems like it's a more broken manjaro experience.

Read the arch installation guide. Then try to do a manjaro install. You're basically doing the same thing but, in a much more automated fashion and it pulls in all your gui stuff. I never said it was particularly easy. I said it's relatively easy if you already understand what's going on. The default options are good enough for the most part, automatic partitioning is possible you just need to know the basics like point the right partition to the right mount point and you're of to the races. Now that I've done it twice already I bet I could slap it onto a computer in half hour.  I would spend that alone just reading a single wiki page on arch

[manikyath]

Just now, mamamia88 said:

Read the arch installation guide. Then try to do a manjaro install. You're basically doing the same thing but, in a much more automated fashion and it pulls in all your gui stuff. I never said it was particularly easy. I said it's relatively easy if you already understand what's going on. The default options are good enough for the most part, automatic partitioning is possible you just need to know the basics like point the right partition to the right mount point and you're of to the races. Now that I've done it twice already I bet I could slap it onto a computer in half hour.  I would spend that alone just reading a single wiki page on arch

i've done both manjaro and arch, several times, for several releases and flavours of manjaro.. the installer they cobbled together in architect is the worst i've seen in years. back when i still bothered with arch i could throw together a functional installation in 40 minutes or so, and while manjaro's installation process is defenately easier, the garbage that is architect is not even worth my time figuring out why it's so broken..

 

i *want* manjaro to be good so badly.. and it just fails.. endlessly.

[gardotd426]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

i'm talking about the complete experience. i dont care what the installer is called, if i refer to "the ___ installer" i refer to the installer i was greeted with when i loaded up the ISO of the specific distro at hand. my hope was that for the way the webpage described architect it would be a more customizable manjaro experience.. but it just seems like it's a more broken manjaro experience.

And the installer you're greeted with when using any of the official Manjaro spins is not Architect. It's Calamares. You have to go out of your way to use Architect.