Manjaro Linux usage notes


I’ve been using Linux Mint Cinnamon for many years. For the most part, I love it. It’s based on Ubuntu, very similar to Debian, therefore there are plenty of resources available online. But its GUI bothers me a bit occasionally. Let me give a few examples here:

  • The Eclipse IDE’s tooltip sometimes shows up in black background, which is annoying. I think it’s related to GTK bugs;
  • I use ownCloud. Its Linux client, when running, is supposed to have an icon in the system tray in the bottom left corner. I like that because that icon changes depending on if it’s in sync, and more importantly, tells me if my web server is down. That’s my “poor man’s web site monitor”. With Cinnamon, sometime the icon doesn’t show up!
  • I have to reinstall Mint every so often to keep up with its releases.

I’m not bashing Linux Mint here. I think it’s a great distro and the easy availability of resources online makes it a compelling distro, especially if you are a beginner. But I’ve always been curious about Arch Linux. So when I discovered Manjaro, a distro based on Arch with a great installer, I decided to give it a try. I’ve been using it for about a month. So far I’m loving it. Here are some notes for myself and I hope it helps you too!

  • I love the mhwd utility. I have nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU hardware. Properly configuring it has always been a hassle. With mhwd, it’s so easy: sudo mhwd -a pci nonfree 0300
  • Use the Add/Remove Software utility to install GVim. It’ll install the proper command line version of vim. I discovered that if you just install the command line version of vim, the left-button-select-middle-button-paste mouse action doesn’t work properly! I couldn’t live without it!
  • Software packages to install: Opera (uBlock Origin, Install Chrome Extensions, Vimium), Firefox (uBlock Origin, Vim Vixen), Chromium (uBlock Origin, Vimium), KeePassXC, VirtualBox, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, ownCloud client, Emacs (org-mode, Evil), flash plugin (both types), Terminator, ack, Android Studio
  • For wireless, I have ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-AC1900 PCI-E Adapter (PCE-AC68). I needed to have a wired cable connection before I was able to install wireless driver. I picked linux414-broadcom-wl. After that, the system also picked linux49-broadcom-wl. The driver works fine, and I can use 5G capabilities, in that it sees the 5G hotspot.
  • I have a router based NAS. Here is how I mount it.
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