I am trying to think of how to respond to this without being a jerk.

Let me skip to the end. Until very recently, I thought of Manjaro users as innocents that just did not understand the risk. Like islanders living next to a volcano that had never erupted in their lifetime.

I still view most Manjaro users that way. Manjaro defenders though I now think of as dog owners whose animals have bitten multiple times. When told, the owner insists that “my dog would never do that” or “if it did, you must have done something wrong”. I am done arguing with those people. All I can do is warn others that this dog has bitten several of us and you may not want to enter that yard. If you do, who knows, the dog may be friendly. Or not. Again, all I can tell you is that many of us have scars. Use that information as you will.

Most “Manjaro detractors” I have encountered have years of experience with both Manjaro and other Arch distros. Their tales come from experience. When they share their cautionary tales, there are often Manjaro defenders whose best defence is just to deny that what the “detractors” are saying ( about their own experience ) is real.

My core question for the defenders would be, if it is our fault, why do we only encounter the problems on Manjaro?

Let’s go through the bullets above one by one:

• I never did that on Manjaro. I probably do it more on EOS. Why only problems on Manjaro?
• why does my lack of knowledge of how the AUR works only break things on Manjaro?
• this bullet is the best. It admits that Manjaro has repeatedly broken things but we should not hold it against it. Literally this is saying that “Manjaro breaks things” is wrong because, while it does, we should just get over it. Hilarious.
• how does attacking the “detractors” address the claim that Manjaro breaks things?
• how does attacking the “detractors” address the claim that Manjaro breaks things?

I got in a lengthy back and forth with a Manjaro fan the other day where I repeatedly related the ways that Manjaro used to break on me and how that does not happen for me on vanilla Arch or EndeavourOS. They just kept coming back telling me that it could not have happened and, if I thought it could, that I did not understand how the AUR works. It was insane. Basically, this guy could not follow what I was saying to him. His response to his inability to understand the scenario that I was describing was to insult my intelligence and expertise.

Look loser. I don’t care if you believe me that your dog bites. I will continue to warn people and they can decide if they want to risk it or not.