When comparing Manjaro Linux vs Nix os , the Slant community recommends Manjaro Linux for most people. In the question“What is the most secure Linux distro?” Manjaro Linux is ranked 10th while Nix os is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Manjaro Linux is:
Manjaro allows the user to access of the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Arch User Repository access
Manjaro allows the user to access of the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives.
Pro Support for multiple kernels
Manjaro has built-in support for multiple kernels as well as a way to easily install them. Using LTS kernel makes this distro stable and less buggy.
Pro Based on Arch and user friendly
Manjaro is an Arch-based distribution with all the benefits of the Arch ecosystem and community but with the added benefit of being much more user-friendly than Arch.The overall features it provides is hard to beat. Arguably be the best desktop distro with lts kernel. Consumes very less ram.
Pro Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)
Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; Snap support, Flatpak support and 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 Improved stability due to a longer testing period for new packages
Packages from Arch's repositories are tested (about two weeks) longer for stability and compatibility issues. Patches are applied, when necessary, before being made available in the stable repositories.
Pro Friendly community
If you ask questions of users in their forums or on other platforms, they are willing to help you. Also according to the developers, they are open to new ideas in order to make the distro better.
Pro Very good looking desktops
All desktops look good by default.
Pro Stable and consistently up to date
Manjaro receives regular updates, but more importantly these updates are stable. The updates are rolled out, which means you can easily update the software without needing to re-install.
Pro Installation is a breeze
Calamares installer and MHWD is the reason why this distribution is good for desktop user- friendliness! Audio codecs, latest packages,latest kernel and easy upgrade to the latest build makes it the best choice for new users.
Pro Good documentation and forum
The Manjaro community is very helpful, and there are lots of tutorials.
Pro A rolling-release distribution
Manjaro uses a rolling release method for all updates, so once a system is installed, as long as the user regularly updates there is no need to re-install.
Pro All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, Lumina, LXQT, Deepin, Enlightenment, etc. can be directly installed from official repositories
Also available as independent variants.
Pro Uses low memory
By using Xfce or Plasma (or LXDE, Fluxbox, supported by community) as default desktop environments, Manjaro is able to have a low memory footprint.
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)
Pro Different editions to select from + Manjaro community
You can choose between different Manjaro editions which have their own change in features, and there is also Manjaro community editions where the community can make their own changes.
Pro Steam installed by default
Pro Deepin desktop environment is worthy attraction
Pro Full access to AUR
Pro an Nvidia ISO version with drivers pre-installed.
Works perfectly.
Pro Great for Haskell development
It has all of hackage in it's package manager (which is confusingly named "nix" as well) due to being based around hashing and allowing you to compile in a sort of virtual machine (really just changing the PATH variable temporarily) it solves many of the versioning problems that you commonly have with cabal. Here's a tutorial (there's many others as well) http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~bernardy/nix.html.
Also I should note that you can use the package manager a la carte on Mac and most any linux distro.
Pro Upgrading the system is extremely reliable
Since NixOS stores all its packages in isolation from each other in /nix/store
and because of the declarative configuration model, upgrading NoxOS systems is extremely reliable. Furthermore, it gives you the ability to roll back upgrades.
Pro Extremely reproducible state of installation
Every package in your system is generated from a configuration file. This makes it very easy to reproduce that environment. Just copy the config file into a new machine and it's done.
Pro Versatile snapshot system
You can use and test snapshots without rebooting. Booting into snapshots or test configurations is possible without risking the system's stability.
Pro Has docker like system built in
Pro Allows parallel configurations for multiple projects
As everything is isolated, you can have on the same machine multiple configurations to meet project requirements that would be mutually exclusive on other OSes.
Cons
Con Slightly bloated
Con Can still be unstable
Here are the details of it.
Con Bad dependencies
This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank.
Con All the small community editions are gone
No architect edition anymore, no edition with a tiny stacking WM like openbox or fluxbox that could be used as install base.
Con No real installer
It just boots the livecd and copies the livecd to the disk which gives you no choices in software selection.
Con Installation is extremely buggy
There's no easy way to switch from local keyboard layout if non-Latin installer language is selected.
Con Very slow development for 32-bit hardwares
ArchLinux-32 community maintain their forums every day. They upload new ISO's every month. But Manjaro-32 community upload new ISO's in every 6 month. And provide only a DE-mate.
Con Weekly manual updates
Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every week, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users.
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.
Manjaro gets package updates a bit than Arch.
Con Imcompatible with Arch User Repository and archlinuxcn
Because Manjaro packages are not synced with Arch, using AUR or archlinuxcn could break dependencies.
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 Deepin desktop environment is not a worthy attraction, there is a problem with changing Multi language layout
Con Nothing new
There is nothing new in Manjaro compared to any other Arch based distribution.
Con Redundant
It's just Arch Linux with an easier installer so there is no reason to use it.
Con Same cons that apply to Arch Linux
Since it is based on Arch Linux.
Con It's Archbuntu
Con Black screen after boot, no login possibility
Con No gfvs pre-installed
So no Trash (and possibly smartphone file system access via USB) support.
Con Bad way of handling dependencies
Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Arch Linux and its derivatives have a bad way of handling dependencies. To handle dependencies, it installs a whole another program which contains the required dependencies.
Con The configuration language is hard to figure out
For good reason. It's a purely functional language. However not even close to bash.