Manjaro often gets praised for its software selection, stability, and convenient rolling updates. I spent an afternoon testing it on a rarely used PC. KDE looks polished and runs smoothly, but the system never felt familiar; overall it was less convenient than the Debian family. That may simply be a matter of habit. Since installing an input method on Manjaro is a common question, I used the test to set up the latest fcitx5.
Install fcitx5
sudo pacman -S fcitx5-im fcitx5-chinese-addons fcitx5-qt fcitx5-gtk
# Install the Fcitx5 core, configuration tool, input method engine, and Chinese input modules
sudo nano /etc/environment
GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx
QT_IM_MODULE=fcitx
XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx
SDL_IM_MODULE=fcitx
GLFW_IM_MODULE=ibus
Log out and back in, and the input method icon should appear.
Add dictionaries
sudo pacman -S fcitx5-pinyin-zhwiki
# Install the Chinese Wikipedia dictionary
sudo pacman -S fcitx5-pinyin-moegirl
# Install the Moegirlpedia dictionary
The Pinyin problem
After installation, switching to the Chinese input method showed that Pinyin was unavailable. Several tutorials did not solve it. A system update fixed the problem. If the same thing happens, try updating the system before digging through more configuration.
A few final notes
Manjaro still does not feel comfortable to me, and I would not recommend it to beginners right now. UOS Home edition is the stronger recommendation. In recent testing, the freeze issue reported in the latest version appears to have been fixed, installation is straightforward, and there is plenty of software. Even the native Linux version of WeChat is tied to UOS, which says something about the support the system receives.