Recently I downloaded manjaro plasma 24 and installed it on my computer by writing the iso file from the official site to a usb with rufus Now my computer has two systems (the other one is windows11) and I can choose which system to boot. I chose manually partitioning and set a space on my disk. When I finished installing manjaro and booted for the first time, I found that I could not normally use the package manager of manjaro I open it and when I try to update apps, it says “preparing” and gets stuck; when I try to remove firefox, it says “checking dependencies” and also gets stuck. Using the terminal also gets stuck. I am not able to download, update and remove apps using the package manager. Does anyone know what happened and what to do?
Did you update the database first?
We need your System Info’s:
inxi --admin --verbosity=5 --filter --no-host --width
And please format your Text! It is painfull to read.
What you mean with stuck? Is your whole desktop freezing?
Always use the newest Iso file, when possible. While Rufus works good, i saw for a certain user’s running into problems (it may depends on the Rufus version). Ventoy often does a better job there.
Sorry for my broken English. I am not a native speaker.
System:
Kernel: 6.9.12-3-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.2.1
This is downloaded from manjaro official site. The iso is manjaro plasma minimal. I checked the checksum and it matched.
In terms of “stuck”, when I try to download brave, the package manager is stuck at “preparing” and doesn’t process after a long time. I can’t close the window of the package manager, but I can minimize it. It is stuck at “preparing” but my device is not stuck. I can also search and view other apps on it.
How to do this? Do you mean updating it by mirrors? I’m a beginner at linux and don’t know much about this. I met the issue I mentioned in this post when I boot this for the first time.
I downloaded the latest version of rufus from its official site. I don’t know if I can delete this system and install a new manjaro while still maintaining the other win11 system.
Usually a poor choice.
Rufus is unreliable and the dev is hostile.
That said if you do use rufus you must use it in dd mode.
Still I do not suggest rufus.
Usually I would suggest ventoy.
https://www.ventoy.net
And yes, of course you can replace the existing install.
Whenever you get back to manjaro … you should ;
- Close and exit all instances of
pamac,update-notifier, “add/remove programs”, etc. - Run the following commands:
sudo pacman-mirrors --continent && sudo pacman -Syu
There is a button in the top right corner with 3 dots on the graphical pamac-manager. There you see it.
Idk if you using a Laptop or PC, but its also recommend to install Windows and Linux on 2 separated drives.
You don’t have too, but windows loves to destroying the Linux Grub Bootmanager, so it may worth to think about it 
I also use this command to refresh my mirrors before updating my system:
sudo pacman-mirrors --fasttrack
But as Megavolt also suggested: That Pamac also gives the option to Refresh Data Bases but also worth to look under Preference when you click on the button with the 3 Lines (top right at the Pamac GUI) and choose your mirror’s (from your country) at Official Repositories.
Yup, once you’ve created your Ventoy USB, you just copy your ISO there and boot… as many ISO’s as you like
As far as the package manager issues, I’d go for the terminal.
To select some fresh mirrors and run an update:
sudo pacman-mirrors --interactive && sudo pacman -Syyu
Then you can select your own mirrors - I checked about six last time I did it… and then ‘pacman -Syyu’ will ensure that you download the database and update the system correctly.
After that, you can open your ‘add/remove’ software again and test it, don’t forget to check if you enabled features in settings - like AUR or Flatpak - if that’s where you wish to install from.
To run a Manjaro update you can try:
pamac upgrade --enable-downgrade --aur --devel
If these are hard to remember, learn how to make abbreviations - using FISH terminal, any time you use an abbreviation it will show you the full command.
Thanks. I now know ventoy is better than rufus. And I did use dd mode.
When I was configuring the installation, I used the same boot manager as windows. Can I use any package manager that can replace the manjaro one?
I tried this and it is also stuck at “preparing”. The same as what I mentioned earlier.
What @megavolt said - also have a look at the menu entry called: Settings
There you could (if you wanted to) adapt which mirrors you use - but the default is just fine.
No need to replace - pacman is the other one and it is already present and is even the preferred one by many, as it is the original Arch package manager.
To use it, follow @Ben 's advice.
I see, thanks. Can I update some apps directly in some apps, or download the Linux apps I want to use from the official website and source code hosting platform?
Generally not - that is what the package manager is for - it is supposed to “know” the state of your system and what and which version is installed on it.
Same as above - generally not.
It’s your system - you can do whatever you want with it and to it.
But then, the package manager (and you) may run into problems pretty quick.
If you use source code and compile it yourself, you better know what you are doing and also how to undo whatever installing apps that way may do.
“They” invented the package managers so that you would not have to deal yourself with all the dependency issues that will arise when you compile and install software from source yourself.
Thank you. I just ran
sudo pacman-mirrors --interactive && sudo pacman -Syyu
and it worked. All my apps are updated to the newest version by the terminal. But I still fail to update, download or delete apps in pacman. The “preparing” issue remains.
?
But you just did, as you said. 
But I have downloaded some applications from their official sites or github. They work properly. These applications are also available in pacman. Thank you for your advice.
I could update the whole system and all of the apps with the command in the terminal. But pacman still remains the same.