im quite of a noob in linux and this is basically my first distribution, and since i only have manjaro installed in my HDD without any other operating system, what are the basics to start downloading programs? (like ventoy, ISOS and any other program). im still trying out linux and want to install windows just to have an easy access backup, i appreciate any help or tutorials UwU
Hi!
Just open Add/remove software and search for any applications you need and click install
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helloo, what about other files like isos, when i tried downloading one ISO file it could not finish or find a place where to put it, and about .exe files, is it the same procedure? thanks!
Exe files are for Windows not linux iso files can easily be downloaded and creating a flashable USB is easy with USB flasher. If you make a list of programs you want we will be able to tell you if they are available in linux or suggest an alternative. But look in the add/remove software app and you’ll find most apps in there
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Hi!
All your downloads should be in Downloads folder. The path would be /home/user/Downloads.
You can download what you want but *.exe doesn’t work on linux.
I recommend you to tray and learn how linux works. File systems, paths, applications, etc. Linux could looks like win, but it doesn’t
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thanks for your reply, i am now currently wanting to install windows 10 in my hard disk.
i was thinking about using Yumi or Ventoy since i’ve seen they are trustable programs for this and idk if they’re available (cannot include links sorry lol)
Hi!
I use ventoy, it works really good for me, but there’s others like etcher, try some and keep the one that work better for you.
If you install win in the same disk of manjaro, it would break you grub, just have this in mind.
Welcome to the forum! 
Well, the first thing you should do after installing Manjaro is make sure your system is fully up-to-date and populate your repositories database. The best and quickest way to do this is to open up a terminal window and issue the following command… 
sudo pacman-mirrors -f 5 && sudo pacman -Syyu
Let the command finish, and do not shut down or restart your computer while the update is in progress, because this will result in leaving you without a bootable system. Depending on how many updates there are and the speed of your system ─ number of CPUs and amount of RAM ─ this could take quite a while.
As a general rule, I personally recommend that for a large system update, you would do this outside of the GUI, while working from a character-mode-only console, also known as a tty. UNIX systems are multiuser, so in addition to your GUI session, you always have several character-mode terminals available. The advantage of running a full system update via a tty while completely logged out of your GUI environment is that no shared libraries will be in use that are going to be overwritten by the update process.
After the update has finished, you should always reboot, because of the way kernels are updated in Manjaro. Manjaro supports having multiple kernels installed side by side, so that you can pick a different kernel at boot time ─ via the “Advanced Options for Manjaro Linux” item in the boot loader menu ─ but during an update, kernels of the same generation are always overwritten by the newer kernels of that same generation.
So for instance, if you have ─ just to use some random numbers ─ 5.4.61 installed and the update contains 5.4.64, then your 5.4.61 will be removed and and replaced by 5.4.64. However, if you also have a 5.7 kernel installed, then that one will in turn be removed and replaced by the updated 5.7 version, but you can still have a 5.4-generation and 5.7-generation installed simultaneously.
But ─ again ─ it’s important to always allow the update process to finish, because the existing kernels will always be removed first, and the new kernels will only be installed last in the process. Therefore, interrupting the update process would leave you without a kernel to boot with.
That all said, you’ve got different options for installing additional software on your system. First of all, there’s the software in the main repository, which you install by way of your package manager. You can do this with pacman or pamac via a terminal, or ─ especially since you’re on XFCE ─ the pamac-gui, i.e. the graphical version of Pamac.
For even more software, you can access the AUR. This is the Arch User Repository, a special repository run by Arch Linux, where trusted members of their community can upload software. Usually the software in the AUR comes as source code, which means that if you make use of the AUR, this source code will first have to be compiled on your local system. However, for some larger software suites that would take too long to compile, the AUR also offers binary and readily installable packages.
Given that the AUR was actually set up for Arch Linux and that Manjaro Stable is on average about six weeks behind Arch Stable due to more rigorous testing, there’s no guarantee that software from the AUR would work on your system, but let’s say that in most of the cases, it will. Most of us here have AUR software installed, including yours truly.
But wait, it’s not over yet. You have access to even more software than that, and all from within Pamac, because Manjaro also supports AppImage, Snap and FlatPak, which are three separate but somewhat similar methods of installing additional and sandboxed applications. And likewise, games usually come installed in a similar way through the Lutris and Steam frameworks.
What you should however not do ─ because GNU/Linux is most definitely not Windows ─ is look for software on the Web and then download and install that. There are several reasons why you shouldn’t do that, and I’ll briefly touch upon them below.
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You don’t know whether the software can be trusted, and especially not if it’s proprietary software.
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Most GNU/Linux software offered for download out on the Web comes as either a package in the Debian package manager format (
.deb), or an RPM-based package (.rmp) for RedHat-derivatives such as SUSE/OpenSUSE, Fedora, OpenMandriva/Mageia, et al. Manjaro uses the Arch package manager, and Arch is usually not supported by such websites. -
GNU/Linux is a multiuser system, and you generally want to install software so that it integrates with the operating system and becomes available system-wide once installed. If you install something by way of a browser ─ which excludes the
.deband.rpmformats, by the way ─ then it’ll commonly be installed in your user account only, and it won’t be integrated with the system. -
The distribution’s own repository is trusted. The software in Manjaro’s repository is known to work with Manjaro ─ the community will flag broken software, and then it’ll be fixed or removed, depending on which is appropriate ─ while you do not have this guarantee with anything else.
There are of course a few well-known open-source websites from which you can install additional themes, fonts, icons and such, and in general, these websites are trusted, albeit that some of the themes up there may already be outdated and no longer maintained, and those may then cause problems. But in general, this is easily verifiable ─ the themes usually have a date next to them, with notes from the developer ─ and for most part, it’ll work.
What’s important however ─ as a bottom line ─ is that if you’re new to GNU/Linux and you come from the world of Microsoft Windows, then you’re on a different planet now. You really are. Things that you took for granted in Windows as supposedly being how a computer works, were in fact not how a computer in general works, but specifically how Windows itself works.
As an example of that, there’s the fact that Windows approaches storage as separate volumes, with a drive letter, while in UNIX systems, you don’t have drives and volumes, but instead you have a uniform directory hierarchy with a single root directory, and everything else is just a directory (“folder”) below that. The contents of some of those directories could be living on your root filesystem, or on a separate partition, or on another machine in the network, but to the end-user, it doesn’t make a difference, because the hierarchy will always look the same, and your files will always be in the folders you’ll expect them to be.
Another major difference is in the way Windows and UNIX respectively regard something as executable. In Windows, you have the DOS (and CP/M) legacy that a file is executable if its name ends in a certain suffix, such as .exe. In UNIX, a file is considered executable if it has an execute permission bit set in the filesystem, and for the user trying to execute it. This permissions system is very different from how Windows works, and much more robust.
There is a lot for you to learn, if you’re interested. Luckily, both the Manjaro Wiki and the Arch Wiki are very good ─ in fact, they’re so good that even the developers of other distributions will often consult them.
In addition to that, the forum also has a search function, and you’ll find lots of useful information here. Sadly enough, this forum is actually still very new, because the old and trusted forum broke down just a little over a month ago, and we had to start all over again. But the old forum ─ or what could be salvaged from it ─ is still available as a read-only archive. You’ll find many HowTos and other tutorials there, and we’re slowly starting to build up the same wealth of information again here on the new forum. 
You’ll have to be careful with that, because Windows doesn’t play well with pre-existing operating systems on the same machine.
The general advice for people wanting to dual-boot Windows and GNU/Linux is to always install Windows first and GNU/Linux last. The GNU/Linux installer will then pick up the presence of Windows and will add it to the boot loader menu.
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