Random application crashes and full system freezes across multiple different systems

Intel Arc GPU and Nvidia GPU are known to cause issues across all distributions.

The rolling release model combined the branch model means the iso-snapshots (stable branch) is likely to be many weeks behind the upstream (kernel.org) releases.

My personal opinion (experience)

  • using AMD based systems
    • always keep the board’s firmware up-to-date
    • always use the newest kernel (kernel.org) to match the firmware
    • use amd-ucode that matches firmware and newest kernel (kernel.org)

The above conditions is best achived on unstable branch

sudo pacman-mirrors --api --set-branch unstable
sudo pacman -Syu
reboot
I have zero issues with AMD based systems

The wast majority of hardware vendors such as ASUS builds for Windows

Many years ago - I made a decision - always research Linux compatibility for my hardware - never buy hardware with a bad reputation for incompatibility with Linux.

For many years I steered clear of AMD systems (a 25y old aversion caused by AMD K5 CPU) and used Intel only systems with iGPU.

I used Nvidia Quadro P2000 GPU for a short while - testing if Nvidia was difficult to handle in the long run and I didn’t have huge issues - but I kept having those small annoyances - it became a stone in my shoe - and I switched it for a RADEON WX7100 - and the experience was so great.

I bought my first AMD based system in December 2022 because if Lenovo will provide me 36months onsite NBD warranty - so I bought a Lenovo Thinkstation P620 and shortly after that a Radeon 7900XTX GPU.

This is possibly the best system I have ever had the pleasure of running with Linux - of course it came with Windows - but it was wiped before first start.

I recently acquired a Thinkpad X13 AMD (gen.4) and of all the thinkpads I have used over the years it is outstanding.

I also have a variety of systems mostly Lenovo, all running Linux.

If you want to avoid switching to unstable branch, but want to test nonetheless - if I have peeked your interest into unstable branch - is to use the package manjaro-get-iso (testing and unstable) to get the latest development ISO (preview)

get-iso -p plasma

It will provide you with an ISO you can use to test one of your problematic systems.

You can install directly from http using this command

sudo pacman -U http://mirror.easyname.at/manjaro/unstable/extra/x86_64/manjaro-get-iso-0.12.1-1-any.pkg.tar.zst

You can configure grub to boot the iso directly - thus avoiding to write it to USB - amend the following to your situation

[HowTo] Boot Manjaro ISO directly with GRUB

3 Likes