Manjaro
Arch with a delay and a governance rough patch. Perfectly usable, just not our headline.
Facts
- Family
- arch
- Based on
- Arch
- Release model
- Curated rolling, delayed behind Arch
- Current
- 26.x
- Init system
- systemd
- Default desktop
- Plasma, GNOME or Xfce
- NVIDIA
- The mhwd tool picks and installs the driver.
- Systemd-free
- No
- 32-bit support
- No
- As of
- 2026-10-09
How the chooser scores it
Scores run from 1 to 5, and 5 is best for the user. They are opinion with a spreadsheet.
- StabilityStability: 3 out of 5
- Easy installEasy install: 4 out of 5
- Daily comfortDaily comfort: 3 out of 5
- Docs and helpDocs and help: 3 out of 5
- Fresh softwareFresh software: 4 out of 5
- GamingGaming: 4 out of 5
- DevelopmentDevelopment: 4 out of 5
- Old hardwareOld hardware: 3 out of 5
- ControlControl: 4 out of 5
- LightnessLightness: 4 out of 5
- NVIDIA, recent cardsNVIDIA, recent cards: 4 out of 5
- NVIDIA, older cardsNVIDIA, older cards: 2 out of 5
Caveats
- In March 2026 a community manifesto and a team strike put its governance in question. Check where things stand.
- NVIDIA 590 dropped Pascal, Maxwell and Volta cards. Those need the legacy 580 branch (AUR nvidia-580xx-dkms), which gets security fixes only until October 2028.
- Manjaro is in a governance rough patch, so we do not lead with it.
Community
Rate this distro and read what other people think of it.
Fetching opinions from the void...