With the help of Plasma Desktop 6, the latest release of the Arch-based Manjaro Linux has come a long way to making it a desktop for everyone.

Arch Linux is not for the faint of heart. The reason for this is the installation, which is no walk in the park (unless said park is a convoluted mess of climbs, pitfalls, rope ladders, and monsters).

That's why, years ago, several distributions started popping up to help make Arch a bit easier. Those distributions focused on greatly simplifying the OS installation and subsequent software installs.

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For the most part, those distributions have succeeded in their mission. One of those spin-off distributions, Manjaro, has done a truly fantastic job of bringing Arch Linux to the masses, and with the latest release, the development team behind the distribution has created a brilliant take on Arch Linux.

It's easy to use, rock-solid, and beautiful. After testing Manjaro 24.1 for a few days, I came away seriously impressed and with only a single gripe.

First, Manjaro "Xahea" ships with kernel 6.10, which adds even better performance, stability, and hardware compatibility. Along with the new kernel, you also get the latest version of the Z File System (v 2.2.6), System d 256.6, Mesa 24.2, LibreOffice 24.8.1, and Firefox 131.

For desktop environments, you get Plasma 6.1.5 and KDE Gear 24.08, GNOME 46, or XFCE 4.18.

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Manjaro is a rolling release distribution, which means all of the software is maintained in a constant state of newness. If you prefer to always have the latest releases of your OS and included software, a rolling release is the way to go.

The Manjaro team also follows a cascading stability approach, which allows you to select which version of the OS you want to use. You can select between base, unstable, testing, and stable. Unless you like the idea of testing software, I would always stick with the stable release. There are also the home and business versions of the OS, of which you will clearly want the home edition.

As you can see, other than the new kernel, updated software, and latest toolchains, the "newness" comes by way of the desktop environments.

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I tested the Plasma Desktop version of Manjaro and came away duly impressed.

First off, the Plasma desktop is gorgeous. From the login screen to the desktop, the KDE design/development team has done a brilliant job with Plasma. I've become a big fan of the floating panel, the desktop configuration process, the accent colors, and all of the tiny details the team has put into the DE. My only complaint (and I believe this is a Manjaro thing) is that changing the panel and menu from dark to light doesn't seem to want to take effect until you log out and log back in. Once you've done that, the theme is exactly how you choose.

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I'm still unsure why so many Linux distributions have chosen to default to dark themes, but that's just me.

Another thing users who are new to the Arch world will appreciate is the Pamac GUI software installer. This tool now looks and behaves more like a traditional app store. The big difference is that it's not even remotely cluttered. The Pamac UI is incredibly easy to navigate, with a sidebar and tabs to select what you want to view and a sort-by filter. With Pamac, installing software on Manjaro is a treat.

The performance of Manjaro is on par with just about any major Linux distribution on the market. Apps open quickly, software installs with expedience, and windows move about smoothly. Part of this has to do with how well the Plasma desktop performs (which has advanced leaps and bounds over the past few years).

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There's one pretty cool feature that comes along for the Manjaro ride. During installation, you get the choice of selecting which office suite you want to install. There are only two options: LibreOffice and Free Office.

Out of curiosity, I went with Free Office and was really impressed with the experience. Free Office is more like what you remember MS Office to be before it jumped into the cloud. Both the interface and usage will be instantly familiar to anyone. On top of that, Free Office does a great job of working with files from MS Office (or Office 365). If you do a lot of document/spreadsheet work and have to collaborate with those who use Office, Free Office will serve you well.

Finally, from within Settings, Majaro allows you to customize the login screen look. You get five different looks out of the box, each of which is beautiful in its own right. You can also select your boot splash screen image, which is a really nice touch. The only caveat to that is you don't get a thumbnail preview of the splash screen image, so you have to select based on name alone.

Honestly...not much. The only real nit I had to pick was the need to log out and back in to get the theme to apply to both the panel and menu. My only other complaint is that Manjaro doesn't ship with an email client. That's not really a problem because you can choose from several in Pamac.

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It's pretty great when you test a Linux distribution and find yourself struggling to find anything wrong with it, but that's the case with Manjaro 24.1 and I'm all for it.

If you're interested in getting the latest version of Manjaro, you can download the ISO from the official site.