Folks, I’m going to install the latest Garuda dr460nized KDE Plasma ISO and have disliked PAMAC since its creation several years ago. Very much. Past ISOs have installed PAMAC, with no other choice. I can remove it, no problem, but it’s a PIA, and it’s tied to too many other things that I really do like.
I ran the newest KDE Barebones installer yesterday and the post-installation routine included a section on Package Managers and offered several, but also the choice to have none and I really appreciate that. If I like any at all, I like Octopi (w/no notifier), especially in Plasma.
I wonder–and anyone who has installed dr460nized 210621 knows–whether the choice of Package Managers is included in its post installation routine? I’ve researched the Garuda GitLab resource, and according to this Setup Assistant, my suspicions are that it is also offered.
Am I correct?
EDIT: OK, further research at GitLab found these lines in the changelog. I had skipped past because the past changelogs only went to 210507 and the Upcoming changes I surmised were for future versions. Anyway, I believe this to be correct: Files · master · Garuda Linux 🦅 / Changelogs and To-Do · GitLab
Garuda-assistant:
- Fix misleading description
- Removed dependency on Pamac
It is indeed. We tried to not rely on Pamac anymore for our Garuda applications & instead offer the selection of package managers However we still need a final decision concerning Pamac, for new users it might in fact be the most userfriendly package installer
I decided for my garuda VM that it's best to do what I do with my Anarchy and Artix install, namely just use pamac-aur from AUR. So I'm not depending on Garuda devs to keep the pamac packages in their own repos up to date or whatever.
Pamac is useful for one-off installs/removals, package searches, and it's also a nice graphical way to view the details of a particular package (eg explicitly installed or not, dependencies, who is maintainer, date of release of latest version, etc).
The problem is the users who think it's the official graphical frontend of pacman and depend on it for everything, particularly full upgrades, which doesn't always go well. And then of course when you have a big change in pacman and alpm, and pamac lags behind, they complain because they think pamac is an official Arch thing. So the Garuda devs have some decisions to make.
Thank you all for your replies, but especially @dr460nf1r3. I appreciate it greatly.
@wongs, yep you are probably right--Pamac may be a "nice graphical" package manager for newcomers. I note that Discover keeps improving.
I dislike the name Pamac for the same reasons as you and argued against it when naming was discussed in the Manjaro forums. You were there also, I believe.
Anyway I'm off to do something I advise against newcomers doing, and that is dual-boot with Windows. I run Windows now on my main machine so I can stream in 1080p instead of 720p, which is all that Linux offers on (at least) Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon. We don't have a TV so my desktop PC is what we use for entertainment. But Windows is not Linux. And it damn sure ain't Garuda.
So I'll be kind and give Windows the first 100G of the 10,000 rpm, 1T spinner in NTFS, with the rest as unformatted.
Then I'll install Garuda on the small, fast 128G SSD in BTRFS.
Then I'll format the 900G remainder of the HDD in BTRFS for my data because...
Then I'll select Garuda as first-up in my BIOS (which it should already be set to). OS-prober should pick up Windows. Or I could always F12 and boot into Windows from the BIOS if I wanted.
That should keep any Windows updates from messing with GRUB. I've rarely ever had GRUB problems caused by Linux, but I do know how to repair them.
However we still need a final decision concerning Pamac, for new users it might in fact be the most userfriendly package installer 
