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Manjaro Linux

Manjaro is an incredibly popular Linux distribution these days. It is based on Arch Linux but with some big differences.

How Manjaro is different from Arch:

First of all, it comes with an installer which is one barrier to entry for people thinking about installing it. Manaro is also meant to be user friendly and easy to use. This is kind of the opposite of what Arch is known for. It is described as a replacement for Windows or Mac OSX. To be fair the average user probably could just replace either of these two systems with Manjaro.

It is also more stable than Arch since it only updates packages after they have been tested for a while. They won’t be quite as up to date but they won’t break as often either ( they are still pretty new ). Manjaro still uses a rolling release model so you won’t need to re-install your system when a newer version comes out. You only need to run an update which pulls down the latest version of each package.

Manjaro Linux comes in a few different flavors or official editions. These are:

These are generally going to come with Manjaro’s own theme which looks pretty nice. There also exists a bunch of different community editions with other desktops including:

Manjaro vs Ubuntu

Ubuntu is still more stable and is a pretty safe choice. That said, Manjaro is stable enough and doesn’t have as many issues as you might imagine. It is quite a bit more stable than Arch. It is also seen as more “hip” and “cool”. Realistically though, Manjaro gives you a great deal of flexibility and control while also making things easy. It is a clean system. It is probably at least as easy to use as Ubuntu and I think it actually does make a good beginner system.