Is Manjaro for newbies?

I’ve been using Manjaro for 7 months now, and I’ve become passionate about it. I like having new features quickly, without sacrificing stability (which happened to me in my attempts with Arch Linux), its hardware and Linux kernels manager seem like very good utilities to me. In addition, pamac is a very useful tool to manage packages in Manjaro, much more friendly than pacman from Arch Linux, and with some similarity to apt from Debian/Ubuntu. Manjaro’s own documentation, added to the excellent Arch Linux documentation, make it a very easy distribution to use, and I will dare to say, that this ease is extended for newbies.

I’ll tell you my thoughts on Manjaro for newbies.

Well, I dare say that this distribution has enough stability to allow new users to enter the Linux world without major problems. I remember my first experiences in Linux, and I don’t see anything different. A couple of problems at the beginning associated with wifi, the graphics driver (NVIDIA), the external keyboard and learning package management and reading every time something got damaged (a new user reinstalls several times).

The first thing you want when moving to Linux is to have a simple transition to many applications that are normally had in Windows. This is achieved with the extensive official Manjaro repository, it complements quite well with Flatpak and if used in moderation (and selecting those with votes and versions preferably ending in -bin, if they are the recent version), the packages available in the AUR (the problems, nothing different from using PPA in Ubuntu and what it entails).

This extended offer with Flatpak and AUR leaves us with options of many common packages, official or unofficial Windows versions, recent versions of alternatives that offer excellent compatibility or that without being compatible are a good option to change the workflow and use them. But also the world of video games has its eye on the Arch Linux distribution, on which Steam Deck is based and therefore a potential for benefits in Arch derivatives.

If you choose a good desktop environment DE (this is independent of the Linux distribution, whether from Ubuntu to Manjaro), you will have a gain in experience and this recommended environment if you have good RAM, is KDE. And KDE has Arch Linux in high regard, to the point that its own distro project is based on it (Banana project). This also implies that KDE solutions will be very tested for Arch and derivatives.

The fact that Manjaro has its own repository independent of Arch Linux allows to have the testing strategy of the packages and to think about their stability before reaching us end users. And I must say that this, except for small details that its own forum warns how to correct, passes without major novelty (my initial transition to Linux was sometimes not knowing even where to look for how to fix a damage). This, if you know how to follow instructions, you can do it being a newbie in Linux. This separation implies that novelties can be delayed typically between 2 and 4 weeks, but you will not have to sacrifice stability and time fixing as many problems as would happen in Arch Linux (being mainstream instead of rolling release). The Manjaro repository is separated into unstable, testing and stable branches. If you are more daring, you can use the unstable and testing branches, and in turn contribute to making Manjaro even better.

If you decide to use Manjaro and being a newbie, with even more reason the recommended package management is with pamac instead of pacman. It is more friendly in commands and you can remember them easier, and with the help of KDE Discover you can even manage the installation of Flatpak packages graphically.

The forum and resources in general of Manjaro are very good, many suitable for any level of user. And without a doubt, you will also find collaboration on the network to support you on how to continue this path when migrating from Windows to Linux, not only to this distribution but to others, in your distrohopping adventure. And I remain attentive to support this path.

Recommendations

I have already published on other occasions topics related to Manjaro, so I recommend you take a look:

• “Distrohopping”: Switching Linux Distributions Without Losing Your Mind

• What to do after installing Manjaro KDE 24?

• Wi-Fi issues in Linux

• Wayland and Hybrid Graphics Issues in Linux

• Mounting a disk in Linux and dirty volume error

• Rust Ecosystem for the Linux terminal

• Configuring Starship on Manjaro and Zsh

• Install Docker on Manjaro

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This article was originally published in Spanish on 2025-05-01.