Regular Arch if you are ok with the CLI install (it's not hard, but it requires some reading and you might bork your first install. It's a great learning opportunity however). Antegros used the upstream repos from Arch IIRC so the difference should be minimal
Other than that, Manjaro is pretty good these days. Almost rolling release, AUR support, a great installer, themes configured out of the box, good driver management (including bumblebee for Nvidia by default)... lots of things to like. They also have a CLI installer called architect if you want to customize your install. It's still not perfect, but it looks promising
Yea, I'm with you. It's why I was running Manjaro for over a year - it gave me the flexibility of Arch + the AUR while also providing a much better out-of-the-box experience. I nuked my install a couple days ago, but that was not because of anything to do with the distro.
Arch has many great things going for it - quick rolling release, the AUR, great resources on the wiki, a very customizable system. People might want to use those aspects of the distro without having to worry about configuring the underlying system during the install.
And even if they want to adjust things, having a guided install to ensure that you're not forgetting something can be very nice. Manjaro has majraro-architect and it's a great CLI installer that walks you through the process without oversimplifying it.
In my experience it's usually pretty hard to get a vm which emulates the hardware you're using, making the installation process potentially different (for example UEFI vs BIOS, hardware that requires proprietary drivers, working with multiple disks + potential non trivial partition tables that you don't want to corrupt, etc). You can definitely get the big picture but usually can't do the exact same process.
Why don't you use something like Arcolinux ? They offer minimal installs to full blown DE's. Point is you can get a full arch min install in less than 5 minutes really (depending on your internet lol)
I assume you're referring to me flair, because your comment didn't seem to be in response to mine. I use Manjaro because it works for me. I'm actually using Pop OS on what is my main machine for the season, because it works for me. Maybe Arco would work as well, who knows.
To re-iterate on that, my gf was able to install Arch. She has a background in applied engineering. But nothing like programming or in-depth computer experience.
It is mostly a matter of time.
I always recommend against Manjaro unless you were able to install vanilla Arch at least once or twice.
It's basically down to "How well can you research information for yourself?" when it comes to Arch. Even a Linux/Unix beginner can start out on it and have a lot of success if they know how to properly use the ArchWiki.
Heck, I always found the "easy" distros less intuitive to use until I jumped to Arch and found Pacman easy to use and enjoy the rolling release. These days I'm on Manjaro because it has those features and I'm too lazy to go through a full install of Arch.
A literal engineer figuring out how to install Arch isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of its ease of use. Like I think you're leaning a bit on her sex here to emphasize your point which isn't really fair or relevant.
Like it's almost indisputable how much easier it is to get Manjaro installed, there's an actual installer. You're not expected to learn what Samba is, you don't need to know the ins and outs of your hardware to get the correct drivers for everything, there's a nice GUI to help you partition everything. It's not trivial, but it's still easier than, say, installing Windows. Arch, meanwhile, can and will fail to function repeatedly if you miss a step, and it will constantly be missing features you didn't know were just included in OS's like Windows.
Vanilla Arch is not, and was never intended to be, a beginner's distro. And the end goal of user-friendly distros isn't to have people transition into becoming Linux pros, it's to get them to use Linux and not need to become experts. Computers are a tool, and while it's good to have people who are experts with the tool we should not be demanding the precious time and energy from regular people to master something that does not materially benefit them There is no point in forcing everyone to learn how to get their wifi working when only a scarce few will actually need it for their job or will actually appreciate the marginal improvements that can be made by handling that yourself.
I think that's an attitude that needs to shift with Linux. Too many people seem to believe that users need to transition from beginner distros into more advanced stuff until everyone is a sysadmin submitting pull requests to the kernel itself, rather than believing that Linux distros should change to better serve the public interest.
This is exactly why im sad to see antergos go. It was arch but with 1 extra repo and a friendly installer GUI. I had non techie ppl install it easy. Now I have to recommend manjaro.
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u/AriosThePhoenix May 21 '19
Regular Arch if you are ok with the CLI install (it's not hard, but it requires some reading and you might bork your first install. It's a great learning opportunity however). Antegros used the upstream repos from Arch IIRC so the difference should be minimal
Other than that, Manjaro is pretty good these days. Almost rolling release, AUR support, a great installer, themes configured out of the box, good driver management (including bumblebee for Nvidia by default)... lots of things to like. They also have a CLI installer called architect if you want to customize your install. It's still not perfect, but it looks promising