I just want to state some first impressions and some issues as a first time user of Manjaro. I’ve been a Linux user since the late 90’s and know my way around pretty well for the most part but my experience has been mostly limited to Debian and derivatives.
The install went smooth and was quick. After the first reboot, which was also quick, I found Manjaro to be quite responsive and snappy to use. The default desktop was good looking for the most part. I chose the Cinnamon desktop version which is also relatively new to me. I’ve used XFCE for the better part of the last 20 years almost exclusively but needed a change. Other than the default panel size, which is huge in my opinion, the desktop is pretty intuitive at a glance. So far so good. Just some minor adjustments for preference.
On to some issues. I fired up the graphical package manager for the first time to get the packages I like to use that are not installed by default and update the system. Again, pretty intuitive. I selected the packages, click apply, I am presented with a password request. Neither root or user password would satisfy the request. I searched the forum for a solution. Everything seemed to point to polkit/polkit-gnome but it is installed. Further investigation showed polkit was not running. I started it with
systemctl enable polkit.service
It complained that it shouldn’t need to be enabled this way and should be started automatically. Then I started it manually
systemctl start polkit.service
It started without argument and I proceeded with the package manager and it worked as expected. It also survived a reboot. I’m not sure why this is but it works. The next issue, which I have not looked into yet is bluetooth audio. I connected my phone, graphically, started an audio stream. Volume was extremely low even though it was set to max on the phone and the laptop and it was choppy and broken up. To double check this I tested it with another laptop and a bluetooth speaker and it worked as it should. It seems there is something I’m missing in Manjaro. I tested the volume with a video via Youtube. The sound was smooth but lower than it should be considering I had it set to max. I need to look at this in more detail. Any suggestions would be welcome.
All in all Manjaro is quite fast and user friendly on this 2014 era laptop. Unless I find something fatally wrong it’s going to stay here.