I have made one more distribution switch. I am currently using Manjaro, and if things continue to work out as well as they have, I will be sticking with it. I currently have my laptop set up to dual boot Manjaro and Pop!-OS 20.10. I am doing this because I am still a little fearful of the stability of rolling releases. This way, if Manjaro were to die on me, I could use Pop!-OS until I could properly recover my system.
Day One
Download size
I love the Gnome desktop, so I have been systematically trying various distributions of Linux that feature it. While there are so very many distributions to choose from, I wanted to stay close to the main distros so that they would have larger communities looking after them. After going through several different distributions, one of my last ones to try was Manjaro.
I had been afraid of Manjaro since it is a rolling release. While it isn’t as bleeding edge as Arch Linux, I am still afraid that Manjaro will put out more updates than I can handle on a portable system.
Let me start at the beginning. I had pretty well decided to stay with Pop!-OS 20.10. It is based on Ubuntu 20.10 and comes with the latest version of Gnome in addition to some additions specific to Pop!-OS. While those additions are really interesting, I found that I never actually used them. There just isn’t enough room on my laptop screen for the built-in tiling window manager that can be toggled on and off in the Pop!-OS version of the Gnome desktop. But even though I was more-or-less happy with Pop!-OS, I still wanted to give other distros a look.
The Gnome desktop on Linux Mint is good but unsupported. Gnome is good on Fedora but I don’t like the underlying operating system. Gnome on Pop!-OS is excellent but the operating system is isn’t as friendly since it is designed primarily for their hardware. It is still good enough that I still might stay with it, but I gave Manjaro a try as well.
When I installed Manjaro, not only is the Gnome desktop absolutely wonderful, but I fell in love with the operating system as well. The installer did exactly what I wanted without me having to configure it manually. The package manager is full of all the software I could ever want. And if I need more, I can access snaps as well as the Arch AUR.
My one and only fear is that there will be too many updates.
I downloaded the lastest ISO containing the Gnome desktop and installed it. Immediately after installation there was just over 1 GB of updates needing installed. This in itself isn’t a deal breaker as long as it doesn’t happen all that often. And to be fair, there were all the security updates for the browsers as well as updating Gnome from 3.36 to 3.38.
And that is the only reason that I am still using Pop!-OS instead of already switching everything to Manjaro.
Day two
downloads
The only download today was an update to Firefox.
Wayland
Manjaro Gnome desktop runs Wayland instead of X-server by default. While wayland is fast and beautiful, it isn’t yet 100% compatible with all the applications that I was used to using. For example, it doesn’t work with the “simple screen recorder” application, and as near as I can tell, it doesn’t work with “plank” either.
There is an easy enough solution to this, but you have to be used to Linux enough to know that it is there. After you select your name to log in, there is a cog that you can select showing the different desktop environments available to use. You can change from the default Gnome environment to the Gnome x-org environment when you need to run the applications that require the x-server.
While you don’t specifically have to switch back and forth between the two, I don’t mind. If you preferred, you could switch to the Gnome x-org environment and just leave it there. I don’t do that since I actually find that I prefer the wayland environment over the x-org environment. On the rare occasion that I need to use an application that only works with the x-server, I am happy to log in to the Gnome x-org environment, use the application, then switch back.
Hunspell
You may or may not ever need to have a version of hunspell on your system. Hunspell is a spell checker that can be called upon by various other applications in the Gnu/Linux world. On every other distribution of Linux that I have used, each has already had Hunspell installed and ready to go. That doesn’t hold true for Manjaro.
When I tried to use hunspell from within emacs (yes, I am one of those emacs people), it would throw an error saying that there was no file. As it turns out, hunspell was installed, but there wasn’t an english dictionary file loaded on the system. That was simple enough to fix, but again, you have to either know what is happening or be content to do some googling.
If you open the package manager and search for hunspell, it should show that the application is already installed. Right under that entry, though, the package manager begins to list the available dictionaries that can be added to your system. Select the dictionaries you need, click apply, provide your password, and you should be all set.
Day three
Downloads
There were only two small updates to be downloaded today. They were only a few kilobytes in size. That said, there was an initial download of almost 50 megabytes when I first started the computer. While I have the data to handle that size of a download, I don’t want to waste that much data every day.
I suspect that the initial download was updating the databases for all the different files to see what needed updating and what was fine. If that is the case, then I can expect a download like that virtually every day when I start my computer. The problem is that I almost always initially connect to the Internet over a metered connection.
I have changed some settings to see if it helps.
Changing update settings
Because of the initial downloads, I have changed the settings in pamac (the graphical front end to the Manjaro repository) to not automatically check for updates. While I considered just having it check less frequently, I couldn’t think of a way to prevent it from initially checking when I first start my computer. Hopefully this will stop the glut of data usage when I first connect to the Internet.
But since updates are so critical – especially for a rolling release like Manjaro – I will have to do the updates manually. That isn’t a problem for me since I have no problem using the command line interface (CLI). While I am more used to the Debian based apt commands for updating an operating system, the Arch based pacman don’t seem complicated. In fact, they might even be easier to use that apt. I guess I will find out more in that respect as I learn more about pacman.
As for now, the command to update the system using pacman is fairly straight forward:
sudo pacman -Syu
And adding a package is equally as easy. One thing that Manjaro notes in their wiki on how to use pacman is that the system should always be updated when installing a new package. Therefore, they recommend installing a package like this:
sudo pacman -Syu (package name to be installed)
By running the above command, that will make sure that the system is updated at the same time as the package is installed.
Installing Golden Dictionary
I have installed Golden Dictionary on my system. The reason that this stands out to me is that this is the first (okay, second) application that I have installed that relies on the Qt framework. Since the Qt framework is associated with the KDE desktop, I wanted to avoid it since it has to add so much extra just to make applications run under Gnome. But there are just a few things that are available under the KDE desktop that don’t have a Gnome equivalent. And Golden Dictionary is one of them.
Golden Dictionary is capable of working both online and off. I have installed the offline dictionary files so that I don’t even need an Internet connection to look up words. But there is many more reasons to use Golden Dictionary instead of, for example, the Gnome dictionary. By turning on the ability to look up highlighted words (I added the option to only look up highlighted words when the Ctl and Alt keys are pressed), I can look up words directly from the browser or other program with a simple click of the mouse. And as I indicated earlier, I don’t even have to be connected to the Internet to look them up.
If I do have an Internet connection, I can also look up words with Wikipedia, Google, and several other options. Those are available at the click of an icon on the lookup dialog box that pops up.
I would say that if you do any work at all with words – whether writing or just extensive reading – then Golden Dictionary is something that should be a staple on your system.
Day four
Downloads
There were no downloads today. That being said, I think that I was right about what is causing the 40 – 50 MB of data when I start the computer. More to follow below
Initial data usage
When I turned off auto updating the data usage stopped as well. While I realize that isn’t proof that it is the updater that is using so much data, it does seem to point in that direction. When I manually refreshed the database it took around 50 MB for the download. With that in mind, I suspect that the updating of the database while checking for necessary updates is what is causing the data usage.
I am looking for a way to control these updates better, but until I can find a way to do that, I have switched to manual updates. It seems to be working quite well.
Installed more applications
Now that I am settling into Manjaro, I have been installing quite a few more applications. The thing that I have noticed is that I have to pay close attention to is to make sure that I download things for wayland. There usually isn’t a separate version for wayland, what usually happens is that the dependencies will have one for x-org and one for wayland. For example that’s the choice that has to be made when you download Kodi (which is a wonderful entertainment center). I wasn’t paying attention when I originally downloaded it and just downloaded the default x-org dependencies. When I went to launch it, the application didn’t seem to do anything.
When I realized what I had done, I tried to change the installation to include wayland support. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to change the installation that I already had. While there might have been a way, I couldn’t find it. Instead, what I had to do was uninstall Kodi and reinstall it with the proper wayland dependencies.
Granted, this isn’t really a Manjaro thing, it has more to do with switching from x-org to wayland. And the switch from x-org to wayland is something that most every distribution either has already done or will be doing at some point in the future. But since Manjaro is the first distro that comes with wayland by default – and I decided to keep using wayland instead of logging into Gnome under x-org – I am having to deal with these things as they come up.
No Google Chrome
Google Chrome isn’t available for Manjaro. Well, that isn’t completely correct. If you want Google Chrome, you have to install it through the AUR (Arch User Repository) instead of through the default package manager.
When I was running Debian based distros, all I had to do was go to Google, select download Chrome, and they had a Debian package as well as an RPM if I remember correctly. In addition to downloading Google Chrome, it would also set up a PPA to keep it updated.
It seemed to work well under all the different distros that I used. But it doesn’t work that way with Manjaro.
If I want to install Google Chrome, I have to use the AUR. While Google Chrome is available in the AUR, I have been avoiding using it for two reasons. The first reason it is a community repository. There isn’t really a good way to know whether the software available in the AUR is quality software that isn’t tampered with. And the second reason is that I have read that most of the instability that happens with Manjaro happens because people use software from the AUR. I like a stable system, and I don’t want to do anything that would cause me to have to install it over again or switch distros. Since stability matters to me, the best solution that I can think of is to avoid the AUR.
Marisa Burnes (dot) com 