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Review: Manjaro Linux 26.0
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
On the whole, I greatly appreciate what the Manjaro project is doing. They have taken a popular base (Arch Linux), added a graphical installer, and provided some popular, pre-configured desktop environments. This makes setting up an Arch-based system quite easy. However, a lot of distributions do this. What makes Manjaro stand out from the crowd is the way it makes many common tasks easy and integrates components. There are lots of distributions in the Arch family which use the Calamares installer, but most don't provide office suite options and automate setting up Btrfs to be compatible with Timeshift. Most other Arch-based distributions don't have as much documentation, as much support for multiple ARM-powered single-board computers, or the option to run on phones.
Manjaro stands above most of its competitors by providing a new welcome window, solid documentation, integrated boot environments, a graphical package manager, and other little conveniences. Unlike many other Arch-based projects, Manjaro doesn't feel like Arch Linux with a graphical installer and some paint hastily slapped on it. Manjaro feels like a complete, well designed product that is made with the intent of making computing better.
While the Manjaro team have done a very good job, there were some elements that gave me trouble. Pamac was a bit flaky when I enabled Flatpak support in the software centre. It's a fast and friendly software centre, but it seems to trip over itself when working with Flatpak bundles.
My main complaint when running Manjaro, especially during the first two days, was it felt like the distribution was trying to do more for me than I wanted it to do. I liked the available tools and the options presented, but sometimes Manjaro did things for me which got in the way more than they helped. The shell aliases and command spelling correction, were two examples of this behaviour. These might be handy for newcomers, but they slowed me down until I disabled them and I feel as though command line correction has the potential to be dangerous. Likewise, Plasma tended to be a little loud, a little flashy, and a bit too quick to lock the computer for my taste. These are all things which can be adjusted in the extensive System Settings panel and, I will concede these complaints reflect my preferences rather than showcase real problems with Manjaro.
On the whole, I liked Manjaro. Some of the little issues, such as with Pamac, make me hesitate to recommend Manjaro to a complete Linux novice, but it is a solid, rolling release operating system which I think would suite most Linux users once they have a little experience with managing settings and packages.