Check out our Monthly Survey Page to see what our users are running.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Manjaro Linux 18.1.0 'Juhraya' has been officially released

By - | Views: 33,855

Manjaro, the Linux distribution based on Arch has just put out a major new release with Manjaro 18.1.0 - Juhraya.

Something of a controversial decision was the Manjaro team were possibly going to replace the FOSS office suite LibreOffice in favour of the proprietary FreeOffice. After they took on plenty of feedback, they decided to drop that plan. Instead, when installing you now get the choice between the two or no office suite at all. Additionally according to what the Manjaro team said, SoftMaker (the developer), actually expanded FreeOffice to support more Microsoft formats due to the demand from the Manjaro community so thats' quite nice.


Pictured: Manjaro KDE Plasma Edition.

One of the other big additions in this release is the inclusion of their new software store named "bauh" (formely fpakman).

Bauh is a graphical package manager for both Snaps and Flatpak giving you the best of all worlds. So Manjaro now supports Snaps, Flatpaks and the Arch AUR.

You can download it here where it gives you a choice between XFCE 4.14, KDE Plasma 5.16, GNOME 3.32 or Architect which enables you to customise basically anything.

If you missed some recent Manjaro news, they actually formed a company to work on it professionally.

Personally, I've been using Manjaro now for around two months as my main daily driver and it has been a fun experience. I was fully expecting at least some kind of instability but it has been really smooth.

Like my wallpaper? You can download the source file here. It's under the CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license (info), created by Frank during one of our older competitions.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Distro News
22 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
45 comments
Page: «4/5»
  Go to:

eldaking Sep 13, 2019
Quoting: 14The backend is not agnostic; I see your point. The distributable product is, though. After reading the entire interview, it sounds like they're making Steam for apps. As long as app publishers don't exclusively build Snaps akin to game publishers choosing Epic, I don't see much of a problem with what Ubuntu is doing. As long as we all have free choice and the choices are pretty equal, I think the Snap Store will be a good option for users that don't use computers as a hobby but are running Linux.

I see a big issue with promoting a "solution" to distributing software across all distros that doesn't try to work together with other distros at all, but rather tries to retain control over the entire thing. Feels more like a takeover than a contribution. And it relies on proprietary software, which is enough reason to prefer other alternatives and bonkers for the makers of a popular distro. It is way too closed and centralized - I absolutely don't want Linux software installation as a whole to depend on a single company and their closed service. So I feel that any software that chooses to use snap instead of other solutions is a loss.

It also promotes proprietary software and does a lot of things for the convenience of developers/maintainers at the cost of disadvantages for end-users, which is not exactly good.

I mean, it is not the end of the world, but there are too many issues for me to see it as a step forward... in particular when there are other efforts that don't have those issues.
14 Sep 13, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: eldaking...I absolutely don't want Linux software installation as a whole to depend on a single company and their closed service.
I completely agree with this!

Quoting: eldakingIt also promotes proprietary software and does a lot of things for the convenience of developers/maintainers at the cost of disadvantages for end-users, which is not exactly good.
Being nit-picky here, but the disadvantages to end-users I think you're talking about probably wouldn't be realized by them, only the superusers and nerds. The convenience and simplicity would only feel like an advantage to the layman I think.
eldaking Sep 13, 2019
Quoting: 14
Quoting: eldaking...I absolutely don't want Linux software installation as a whole to depend on a single company and their closed service.
I completely agree with this!

Quoting: eldakingIt also promotes proprietary software and does a lot of things for the convenience of developers/maintainers at the cost of disadvantages for end-users, which is not exactly good.
Being nit-picky here, but the disadvantages to end-users I think you're talking about probably wouldn't be realized by them, only the superusers and nerds. The convenience and simplicity would only feel like an advantage to the layman I think.

Sure, most non-techie users aren't aware of the issues, or don't know of the alternatives. I don't think this means they aren't affected or wouldn't care if they knew... many of the advantages of the system for the end-user, like sandboxing, wouldn't be visible either.

From a simplicity/convenience (for users) point of view, I think a great GUI frontend for apt would be the best thing they could make. Display a curated selection of software that is easy to find and to understand and just install it normally.
lectrode Sep 13, 2019
I'm a former user of Linux Mint, Xubuntu, and Debian. I've been using Manjaro since December of 2015. I also manage ~20 towers/laptops for friends/family, all running Manjaro. I made the switch on my computers after looking for a good rolling release distro that supported Xfce.

In my experience, Arch/Manjaro are king when it comes to having access to a massive amount of the latest/greatest software without having to sacrifice stability. Manjaro's update announcements will have instructions in the rare event you need to take manual action for successful updates.

Quoting: 14In my experience, when you install Manjaro into a VM, it will install every Nvidia driver!

These packages are installed on any manjaro system. They are required by the Manjaro Hardware Detection tool (mhwd). These are not the actual drivers, just profiles/ids for detecting when those drivers are applicable.

core/mhwd-amdgpu 1.2.1-1 [installed]
core/mhwd-ati 7.7.0-1 [installed]
core/mhwd-catalyst 1:15.201.1151-2 [installed]
core/mhwd-db 0.6.3-12 (base) [installed]
core/mhwd-nvidia-340xx 340.107-1 [installed]
core/mhwd-nvidia-390xx 390.129-1 [installed]
core/mhwd-nvidia-418xx 418.88-1 [installed]
core/mhwd-nvidia-430xx 430.40-1 [installed]
core/mhwd-nvidia-435xx 435.21-1 [installed]



Quoting: 14I find myself annoyed finding things installed that I wish weren't. And I find the system updater program overwriting my mirrors list annoying

There are minimal ISOs available that do not come with snap and flatpak, amongst other things.

The mirrors list is updated as new mirrors are added and old mirrors go away, in addition to updating which servers provide the best connection (lowest latency). If you want to manually limit which servers it pulls from, I recommend setting specific countries with the following:
sudo pacman-mirrors -c my,countries,here
You can see what countries have mirrors with pacman-mirrors -l


Last edited by lectrode on 13 September 2019 at 11:05 pm UTC
Gazoche Sep 14, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter
Quoting: Nanobang
Quoting: 14
Quoting: NanobangAs I reinstalled Ubuntu Mate, I wondered why, if Manjaro could determine that I had an Optimus setup, would the DE offer me an option that would bork my OS? Rather than get an answer, I decided I wasn't ready for the thing.
In my experience, when you install Manjaro into a VM, it will install every Nvidia driver! Of course the VM is not using real GPU acceleration and those drivers are useless in the VM. I don't think removing the drivers was an option, either, because it was a dependency of the hardware detection tool, which was a dependency of the Manjaro Core suite.

Interesting. So something about an Optimus setup confounds Manjaro? Maybe they'll integrate Nvidia's Optimus GPU switcher and somehow use it to present a better GPU selection for the Optimus-burdened user.

Correct, until recently* Manjaro had only limited support for Optimus. They only offered the bumblebee+bbswitch method, which is really not enough in this day and age. Worse, that method can make the distro impossible to install on some machines because it causes ACPI lockups. That's another reason why I really don't want to recommend Manjaro for gaming. If you have an Optimus laptop, prefer Ubuntu or PopOS.

I wrote optimus-manager in an attempt to provide better support for Optimus machines in Arch-based distros such as Manjaro, but it's still a hacky solution.

* (I said "until recently", because Manjaro has just added support for the new Prime offloading method. I'm not sure how they handle it and how it cohabits with their bumblebee+bbswitch method, it's something I need to test.)
14 Sep 14, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: lectrode
Quoting: 14I find myself annoyed finding things installed that I wish weren't. And I find the system updater program overwriting my mirrors list annoying
The mirrors list is updated as new mirrors are added and old mirrors go away, in addition to updating which servers provide the best connection (lowest latency). If you want to manually limit which servers it pulls from, I recommend setting specific countries with the following:
sudo pacman-mirrors -c my,countries,here
You can see what countries have mirrors with pacman-mirrors -l
Thanks for the pretty informative post. You cleared up the Nvidia "driver" piece. However, I have already performed the mirrorlist preferences. The problem is I don't seem to be able to type in my own mirror entry into the file. Manual touches get overwritten. Plus, and this might be outdated information, I think the update program (Octopi?) performs a pacman -Sy just to check for updates. If that is happening, it breaks the release consistency with the stuff you already have installed.
LungDrago Sep 14, 2019
Quoting: Grabby* (I said "until recently", because Manjaro has just added support for the new Prime offloading method. I'm not sure how they handle it and how it cohabits with their bumblebee+bbswitch method, it's something I need to test.)

Do you mean the on-demand GPU switcher that was talked about a bit here on GoL?
Whitewolfe80 Sep 14, 2019
Quoting: 14
Quoting: pbProprietary office suite? Software store? I thought Manjaro was just arch with more conservative approach to packages, but it seems that it's to Arch something like Ubuntu to Debian? I'll stick with the vanilla distro, thank you very much. ;-)
Not trying to sound like a snob, but I've been feeling the same way the past few weeks about Manjaro. I may reinstall the kids' computers with the Architect ISO next time. Even then, I'm not sure. Using installer helpers for Arch is not supported, but that might be my next step... I'm also watching EndeavorOS to see what they're doing.

Tried Endeavor last week still wip a few issues but there is def potentially
Linuxer Sep 15, 2019
Quoting: rat2000
Quoting: DorritI find Snaps/Flatpaks and AUR mutually exclusive.

How so? I use Manjaro for like 1 year now, and I use some packages from AUR and some from Flatpak and they work very good. Please elaborate...

Or snaps for that matter; as long as user gets whats desired and all work. Snaps have always worked fine for me.
oldrocker99 Sep 16, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
After 11 years of Ubuntu, and a couple of derivatives, I wanted to compile my go-to music player, Aqualung. I had done it several times in the past 3 years:><::><:, and couldn't even compile GTK2, which is a dependency for Aqualung.

I knew that Aqualung is in the AUR. I tried Manjaro. It completely compiled Aqualung in under five minutes, with two clicks and my password.

I'm hooked. There are packages in the AUR long ago abandoned by Canonical, and programs I love, like exfalso and pypar2.

It is faster than Ubuntu, running roughly 1/5 of the daemons that Ubuntu does at idle. I have gotten some improvement in game speed, not to mention the system overall.
Steam, of course, is preinstalled.

Give it a shot; so far, the best distro I've ever used.


Last edited by oldrocker99 on 16 September 2019 at 12:27 am UTC
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.