I just tried again to install Manjaro. I tried it with the community edition Lxqt, installation actually worked, althoughthe progress was not show properly, but I had no wifi, apparently the wifi firmware is missing in the mini iso community editions. Then I tried to install the Xfce version. Installation competed within a very short time, and again the progress was not shown, but the system did not boot.
However, the good thing about Manjaro is that the boot manager cannot be automatically overwritten/reset by Windows at the next Windows boot.
Now the key thing about a linux distro, and which DE you install is does it support colour management? Hence me running Cinnamon on Mint 19.3
If you have no de and just a windows manager as I do, you can start xiccd as a user service and it’ll enumerate your monitors to things like displaycal.
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I’m running Darktable 3.0, via the ubuntuhandbook ppa.
Color management is not so important for me as far as distro choice is concerned. I can configure it in every DE (but Gnome-Wayland where it does not work). Configuring it is comparatively easy with dispwin (argyllcms), nevertheless few people know how to do it and I have published my article about color management in Linux in a German journal. However, it is true that it is even easier to configure in Cinnamon or Gnome-X11. There it is really super easy.
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How about in a 2015 MacBook pro with a virtual box? I have 16 gb ram, say 8 good for Linux/ darktable
Actually gnome under wayland has some hacks in it that should make color mgmt work.
You don’t have a real GPU in Virtualbox so it’s slow. And I am not an Apple fan.
I’ve certainly found colour management more tricky in the likes of Mate. I do believe that the recent XFCE (4.14) supports colour management, so I think I may switch to that.
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The main thing is bite the bullet and learn how to partition when installing, so you can mount /home on a separate partition or better yet drive, so you can try new distributions at will, without losing data.
YouTube is your (my) friend. Partitioning not so hard.
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Indeed. I always use a separate /home partition on all my machines. For my main desktop, the root partition is on an individual SSD drive, with /home on a 1TB HDD
Or you can use “rsync -axvH” to copy your home directory to an external drive, and back again after upgrading.
I am a happy Manjaro user also. I have been on Linux for more than 10 years, never missed Win.
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I’ve been on Linux for the last 15 years or so. I have used Redhat, Marndarake, Mandriva, SuSE, and some of the Debian-offspring finally ending up with PCLinuxOS but I have now solidly settled on Manjaro for the past few years. I do have to use Windows at work and often find it clunky.
The choice of distro itself is merely a matter of taste and stability. To me, using a rolling distro which doesn’t require reinstalls is an absolute must which limits my choice.
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I’ve been considering Manjaro as well. The 6 month release cycle of Ubuntu based distros is bothersome, especially if there is a risk of an upgrade not working.
Ok. So quite a few people indeed have Manjaro, although I have never actually met someone in person who has Manjaro.
Well I am curious what systems the LUGA people will have…
Are there no Fedora users here? No MX users?
I recommend Arch Linux (on which Manjaro is based). Because you start with a command line, the package manager (pacman) and the most basic set of Linux applications, you can build a minimalist system without any bloat. The Arch Linux wiki will hand-hold you through the installation process and you’ll come out the other side with more knowledge about how the whole thing hangs together. As with Manjaro it’s bleeding edge so you have to be prepared to get your hands dirty if it goes wrong.
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Gentoo, but by far not a fan of Python scripting.
Compile RawTherapee (and your other heavily used applications such as Gimp, Internet browser) with the following LTO enabled CFLAGS and RawTherapee will be amazingly fast/quick! Or just switch to Intel’s Clear Linux.
# ACCORDING TO YOUR CPU, THESE ARE FOR Intel i7 Ivybridge
CPU_FLAGS_X86="aes avx f16c mmx mmxext popcnt sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3"
# Devirtlto
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fdevirtualize-at-ltrans"
# FLTO
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -flto=auto"
# GRAPHITE
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fgraphite-identity -floop-nest-optimize"
# IPAPTA
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fipa-pta"
# SEMINTERPOS
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -fno-semantic-interposition"
# Common CFLAGS
CFLAGS="${CFLAGS} -Ofast -march=ivybridge -pipe -falign-functions=32 -fno-unsafe-math-optimizations"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
NOTE: Disable FastMath Optimizations by swapping “-Ofast” for “-O3” for applications with problems compiling and executing with fastmath optimizations. eg. dev-lang/python 
Took me a while to grep CFLAGS from the Gentoo LTO project.
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Ok. Is there more to distro choice? Are certain distros for a certain kind of people?
E.g. I noticed: I know 2 Linux users who have a PhD and both of them have Debian; or I have the impression that among Fedora users there are more French, Spanish, Italian, Catholic, maybe Turkish, Arabic or Mediterranean people. Are there certain tendencies? Are there distros for e.g. women? Do distros represent certain values (except more or less freedom/open source)?
Btw, I am amazed about people who love a certain brand. That is difficult to understand for me. Is it like politics (which is easier to understand for me)? Is Fedora more left than Debian or the other way round?
I don’t see it that way. For me, I just stick with what works for me. It is the advice that I have given several times with apps. Instead of pitting software A against B, whatever you end up using becomes your choice. Of course, if and when the decision will affect more than just you, esp. when it is made by committee, the decision making process is much more complex and complicated.
Personally, I have tried all types of Linuxes in a feverish sort of way. Each one has its unique flavour, feel and frustration. Some are cute and others practical. Some are well supported, others require regular maintenance.
PS BTW, this thread reminds me of What OS are you running?, sharing very similar comments.
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