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I have a theory that the only reason Manjaro is popular is that for the longest time, Arch did not have an installer. Do not underestimate the power of making t

I have a theory that the only reason Manjaro is popular is that for the longest time, Arch did not have an installer. Do not underestimate the power of making things easier for your users.

giancarlostoro 4y ago
The only time I ever tried it, everything was broken during the installation phase. I wonder if it's improved since. I seem to have the worst luck with Linux Distros.
megous 4y ago
Arch does have an installer? :)
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall Unfortunately, the installer is kind of buggy. (Or was, the last time I used it.) Then again, what installer isn't? :p
  - sshine 4y ago
    Ubuntu’s? I never had any problems with the installer. Even being indecisive about partitioning doesn’t seem catastrophical.
    - shrimp_emoji 4y ago
      My anecdata disagrees. I've had the Ubuntu installer crash around 2 years ago. (The Ubuntu installation that I eventually achieved didn't fare much better, btw. Meanwhile, Manjaro or Arch haven't crashed on me in years.)
  - shider0110 4y ago
    without being disrespectful, the installer that does not fail is the red hat / centos / alma / rocky installer. btw, archlinux user here
arinlen 4y ago
> Do not underestimate the power of making things easier for your users. I found this comment surprising. I believed this was one of those basic facts of life for over two or three decades now. I mean, look at the history of Linux distros. All of the dominant Linux distros of the time had a single trait: they made things easier for users. Mandrake Linux was the single most user-friendly Linux of its day, because installing was trivial and required little to no config to get up and running. Knoppix became hugely popular because users could just burn a CD and have a fully functional Linux distro up and running without installing anything. Ubuntu became hugely popular because it picked up Debian's solid infrastructure and gave it a user-friendly makeover. In fact, is there any relevant Linux distro around whose killer feature was not making things easier for its target audience? In the past there was a vocal minority of Linux users who advocated in favour of high barriers to entry and all-around user-unfriendliness, but let's not be mistaken: what they actually advocated for was ladder-pulling and gatekeeping.
snapplebobapple 4y ago
This is definitely why I used manjaro for the longest time (and then switched to endeavouros rather than straight arch) arches installer was almost as bad as lxc's method for mapping uid/gid

I have a theory that the only reason Manjaro is popular is that for the longest time, Arch did not have an installer. Do not underestimate the power of making things easier for your users.

giancarlostoro 4y ago

The only time I ever tried it, everything was broken during the installation phase. I wonder if it's improved since. I seem to have the worst luck with Linux Distros.

megous 4y ago

Arch does have an installer? :)

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall Unfortunately, the installer is kind of buggy. (Or was, the last time I used it.) Then again, what installer isn't? :p
- sshine 4y ago
  Ubuntu’s? I never had any problems with the installer. Even being indecisive about partitioning doesn’t seem catastrophical.
  - shrimp_emoji 4y ago
    My anecdata disagrees. I've had the Ubuntu installer crash around 2 years ago. (The Ubuntu installation that I eventually achieved didn't fare much better, btw. Meanwhile, Manjaro or Arch haven't crashed on me in years.)
- shider0110 4y ago
  without being disrespectful, the installer that does not fail is the red hat / centos / alma / rocky installer. btw, archlinux user here

arinlen 4y ago

> Do not underestimate the power of making things easier for your users. I found this comment surprising. I believed this was one of those basic facts of life for over two or three decades now. I mean, look at the history of Linux distros. All of the dominant Linux distros of the time had a single trait: they made things easier for users. Mandrake Linux was the single most user-friendly Linux of its day, because installing was trivial and required little to no config to get up and running. Knoppix became hugely popular because users could just burn a CD and have a fully functional Linux distro up and running without installing anything. Ubuntu became hugely popular because it picked up Debian's solid infrastructure and gave it a user-friendly makeover. In fact, is there any relevant Linux distro around whose killer feature was not making things easier for its target audience? In the past there was a vocal minority of Linux users who advocated in favour of high barriers to entry and all-around user-unfriendliness, but let's not be mistaken: what they actually advocated for was ladder-pulling and gatekeeping.

snapplebobapple 4y ago

This is definitely why I used manjaro for the longest time (and then switched to endeavouros rather than straight arch) arches installer was almost as bad as lxc's method for mapping uid/gid