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Manjaro Linux is a fast, user-friendly, GNU/Linux operating system based on Arch Linux. Distributed for free, it aims to be a comparable replacement to Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS, allowing users to accomplish the full spectrum of personal computer tasks.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)
Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked).
Pro Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm).
Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include:
- The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers
- Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware
- Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers
- Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary)
- Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus)
- Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own)
Cons
Con New packages and security updates are held for testing longer
Packages are usually about two weeks behind Arch's stable repository. While some urgent security updates are released as soon as they become available, other security updates are held for testing longer.
Con The Manjaro unstable repository is slow to sync with the Arch stable repository
The Manjaro unstable repository syncs with the Arch stable repository and if any package has moved, it gets moved to stable.
The issue here is that this is not done frequently, which means that Manjaro may be getting package updates much later than Arch.
Con It's NOT Arch
Although it's based on Arch, because of the mass of changes made by the Manjaro maintainers, it's not fully compatible with Arch or the AUR. It comes with own repositories which are synced with the Arch repos. But syncing takes time because the maintainers are looking for bugs before they're syncing. So security patches are not available at the time they're released for Arch.
Con Calls itself "stable," but actually just holds Arch Linux repositories back for a week
Con You can't change the default theme in certain applications
Although it is possible to change the default dark theme, this has no effect on Firefox, which appears to have the dark theme "hard coded". Hardened Linux pros may find a way to change this, but for the rest, it renders an otherwise nice distro a no-go.
Con Calls itself "stable," but actually just holds Arch Linux repositories back for a week.
Con Daily manual updates
Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every day, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Pro Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm)
Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include:
- The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers
- Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware
- Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers
- Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary)
- Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus)
- Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own)
Con Security issues
Since packages are not updated as fast as in Arch, critical security updates may not come as fast as needed for packages that may have issues.