Manjaro To Arch Conversation

Manjaro is one of the most popular Linux distro, no confusion here. Its easy installation process, supportive hardware with easy Arching makes it so much popular. Manjaro is the best choice for those beginners who wants to use Arch in any way. But there’s some annoyance about Manjaro too. Manjaro is not as bleeding edge as Arch — holds back the update for some time, often breaks by switching DE, and a little bit bloated. So, users may later want to switch over to arch, but still fears the hassle of Arch Installation Process. This is a guide for those who want to install arch with less hassle or wants to switch over to Arch from Manjaro.

Step 1: Changing the Pacman Configuration

Pacman, using libalpm, will attempt to read pacman.conf each time it is invoked. This configuration file is divided into sections or repositories. Each section defines a package repository that Pacman can use when searching for packages in — sync mode. The exception to this is the options section, which defines global options.

First, create a backup of your pacman.conf file by

sudo cp /etc/pacman.conf /etc/pacman.conf.bak

and then change your /etc/pacman.conf as below.

# /etc/pacman.conf
# General Options
[options] 
SigLevel = Never 
LocalFileSigLevel = Optional 
HoldPkg = pacman glibc 
Architecture = auto 
Color 
CheckSpace 
#ILoveCandy
# Repos
[core] 
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist 
[extra] 
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist 
[community] 
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# [Reborn-OS]
# Include = /etc/pacman.d/reborn-mirrorlist
# [antergos]
# SigLevel = PackageRequired
# Include = /etc/pacman.d/antergos-mirrorlist

Step 2: Change Your Mirrors

Go to the Pacman Mirrorlist Generator, select your country and hit the Generate button. And then paste generated lines in your /etc/pacman.d/mirrolist file. It will look like this-

# Arch Linux repository mirror list
# Generated on 2019–11–26
# Please use ‘pacman-mirrors -id’ To reset custom mirrorlist
# Please use ‘pacman-mirrors -c all’ To reset custom mirrorlist
# To remove custom config run ‘pacman-mirrors -c all’
# Bangladesh
Server = https://mirror.xeonbd.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
# India
Server = https://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Server = https://ind.mirror.pkgbuild.com/$repo/os/$arch

Step 3: Change Manjaro Related ETC files

Etc usually contains the configuration files for all the programs that run on your Linux/Unix system.

a) Remove Manjaro Release file

sudo cp /etc/manjaro-release /etc/manjaro-release.bak

And then Uninstall Manjaro Release file by

sudo pacman -Rns manjaro-release

b) Backing Up pacman-mirrors.conf

sudo mv /etc/pacman-mirrors.conf /etc/pacman-mirrors.conf.bak

c) Change os-release file

The os-release file contains the necessary information for operating system identification. It is set by the operating system vendor. Change /etc/os-release file like below:

NAME=”Arch Linux”
ID=arch
PRETTY_NAME=”Arch Linux”
ANSI_COLOR=”0;36"
HOME_URL=”https://www.archlinux.org/"
SUPPORT_URL=”https://bbs.archlinux.org/"

BUG_REPORT_URL=”https://bugs.archlinux.org/"

d) Change the issue file

The file /etc/issue is a text file which contains a message or system identification to be printed before the login prompt. Change the /etc/issue file like below:

Arch Linux \r (\l)

e ) Change lsb-release file

Change /etc/lsb-release file like below

LSB_VERSION=1.4

DISTRIB_ID=Arch

DISTRIB_RELEASE=rolling

DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=”Arch GNU/Linux”

Step 4: Do an update

Do an update by running-

sudo pacman -Syyu

and if it asks to replace any packages do so. 

and install some packages like pacman, systemd, your DE again by running-

sudo pacman -S <package name>

Step 5: Install and Uninstall Some Packages

Install kernel and other necessary packages by running

sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers acpi_call-dkms tlp pacman-mirrors grub

Uninstall all the packages related to Manjaro, such as Manjaro alsa and others.

Step 6: Bug fixing

Run

sudo tlp usb

to stop mouse freezing.

Open /etc/default/grub file and change the GRUB_DISTRIBUTIO to “Arch” and update-grub by running

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Restart your computer and you will find that your computer is running Arch now. If you face any problems, please let me know.