Manjaro Linux vs KDE Plasma

Manjaro allows the user to access of the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

All desktops look good by default.

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.

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.

The Manjaro community is very helpful, and there are lots of tutorials.

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.

Also available as independent variants.

By using Xfce or Plasma (or LXDE, Fluxbox, supported by community) as default desktop environments, Manjaro is able to have a low memory footprint.

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)

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.

Works perfectly.

Included file manager provides several icon, list and detail views to choose from along with features such as tabs, bookmarks, tagging, previews and metadata, network file access, bluetooth file transfers to/from devices and excellent removable storage integration while remaining fast and easy to use.

There are many customization options and possibilities to tweak the desktop, including widgets.

The design of the three built-in desktop themes; Air, Breeze, and Oxygen, are very beautiful to some.

Standards adherence allows for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops, with similar Wayland support being worked on. Applications not written with Plasma in mind work very well in Plasma as a result. The development team has also been instrumental in standard creation and adoption such as NETWM, X11 clipboard, icon themes, mimetype handling, application menu standardization, system tray protocols and notifications and more.

Nearly all actions can be driven with keyboard commands. Window management, including effects such as desktop overviews, can be triggered with a keyboard control (or mouse gesture) and some even support filtering results (such as windows shown) by typing. The KRunner tool (default keybinding: Alt+F2 or Alt+Space) provides searching local files, online sources, unit conversions, math and more all from a keyboard driven interface.

Plasma Desktop generally comes packaged with a full set of applications to get users started, including a file manager (Dolphin), advanced file manager and browser (Konqueror), image and document viewers (Gwenview, Okular), the Calligra office suite, CD and DVD authoring (K3b) and dozens more. The desktop can be installed and used without these applications, but they add significant value for many people.

Plasma Desktop comes with an integration search system that makes it easy to find local files, emails, contacts, events and more. The file manager supports tagging and rating files as well as full-content searching and the KRunner command window and the Milou desktop widget makes searching for files, emails, applications and other content by name, subject, category, tag, fulltext, etc. very simple. It does this with essentially no noticeable interference with day-to-day usage of the computer, thanks to the scheduling built into the backend system (Baloo).

Plasma Desktop provides seamless "zero config" integration of your Android device with your laptop and desktop machines via KDE Connect. Phone calls, SMS messages, cross-device copy and paste, media remote control, cursor control and more are supported.

The technology that Plasma Desktop is built on, simply called "Plasma", also provides interfaces for phones, tablets, netbooks, and media centers in addition to the desktop. These additional interfaces use the same underlying frameworks and therefore work well together and have a unified feel to them. They also support a common set of applications across them which adapt to the input methods and screen sizes.

Scales well with laptop and big home theater screen simultaneously.

What make plasma so nice is the galaxy of apps, sharing same look and feel, configuration and behaviour.

KDE 4 is a great evolution on the classic Win95/Gnome/XFCE approach. It's moving in innovative directions while respecting the classic metaphors.