Maximizing Manjaro: Boost Pacman Download Speeds with Optimized Mirrors

As a seasoned full-stack developer and longtime Manjaro Linux user, I‘ve learned that one of the best ways to improve the user experience is to optimize package downloads using mirror servers. In this in-depth guide, I‘ll share expert tips and techniques to help you maximize download speeds and keep your Manjaro system running smooth and up-to-date.

Mirrors 101: Understanding Arch Linux Repos

Manjaro is based on Arch Linux and uses the pacman package manager to handle software installation and updates. Pacman pulls packages from a set of defined servers called mirrors. Each mirror contains a copy of the Arch software repositories synced at regular intervals.

By default, Manjaro configures pacman to use a generic worldwide mirror pool. While this works adequately for most users, you can achieve significant speed boosts by switching to a localized, low-latency mirror. The closer a mirror is to you geographically and network-topologically, the faster you can download from it.

Manjaro offers a curated selection of official mirrors in dozens of countries that are actively monitored for reliability and version parity with the main repos. There are also many unofficial mirrors maintained by universities and Linux user groups that can provide great speeds, although their quality may vary.

Benchmarking Mirrors the Easy Way

The easiest method to find the fastest Manjaro mirrors is using the pacman-mirrors tool. This handy utility tests the latency and download speed of mirrors in a given country or region and generates a ranked mirror list.

To use it, open a Terminal and run:

sudo pacman-mirrors --fasttrack [country]

Replace [country] with your ISO country code (e.g. ‘US‘, ‘DE‘, ‘FR‘) to limit the benchmark to mirrors in that country. Omit it to test all global mirrors.

pacman-mirrors will output its progress as it tests each mirror:

[=>                  ] 10% Testing mirror1.manjaro.org/stable
[==>                 ] 20% Testing mirror2.linux.pizza/manjaro-stable
...

After several minutes, it will display the top 5 fastest mirrors and save them to /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist. Here‘s an example result:

Fasttrack results for stable branch:
    1. 9.6 MiB/s - https://mirror.lty.me/manjaro/stable/
    2. 5.8 MiB/s - https://manjaro.ipv6.club/stable/$repo/$arch
    3. 3.2 MiB/s - https://mirror.cyberbits.eu/manjaro/stable/$repo/$arch
    4. 2.1 MiB/s - https://mirrors.dotsrc.org/manjaro-stable/$repo/$arch  
    5. 1.7 MiB/s - http://manjaro.mirrors.uk2.net/stable/$repo/$arch

In this case, the top mirror averages 9.6 MiB/s (80 Mbps), a huge improvement over the default worldwide pool which typically maxes out around 1-2 MiB/s in my experience. Keep in mind that your results will vary based on location and network conditions.

To put these numbers in perspective, here are some real-world download times for popular Manjaro packages:

Package	Size	Default Mirrors	Optimized Mirrors
linux kernel	72 MiB	1 min 12 sec	7.5 sec
libreoffice-still	285 MiB	4 min 45 sec	30 sec
rust compiler	380 MiB	6 min 20 sec	40 sec

As you can see, using an optimized local mirror can slash package download times from several minutes to mere seconds. When you‘re installing dozens of packages to set up a fresh Manjaro system, this speed boost really adds up.

After running pacman-mirrors, be sure to synchronize the new mirror list and refresh the package database:

sudo pacman -Syyu

Refining Mirrors with Reflector

For even more granular mirror control, Manjaro includes the reflector utility. Reflector can filter mirrors based on speed, age, protocol, and more criteria, giving you the ultimate flexibility to build a custom list.

For example, to find the 10 most recently synchronized HTTPS mirrors in the United States and save them to a custom mirror file:

sudo reflector --verbose --country ‘United States‘ --age 12 --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.custom

You can then activate this custom list in /etc/pacman.conf by uncommenting the #SigLevel line and adding:

[custom]
SigLevel = Required
Server = file:///etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.custom

Now pacman will use your handpicked mirror set for all downloads. I like to keep a few custom lists on hand – one optimized for speed, one for security (HTTPS-only), and a fallback list of highly reliable global mirrors.

Don‘t Forget the GUI

If you prefer a graphical interface, Manjaro‘s Pamac and Add/Remove Software tools make it point-and-click simple to manage mirrors.

In Pamac, open the hamburger menu and navigate to Preferences > Official Repositories. Click the "Mirror List" dropdown to select from Worldwide, your country, or a custom mirror file.

Similarly, in Add/Remove Software, click the menu button and select Preferences > Official Repositories to access the mirror selector.

Both GUIs will immediately refresh the package lists when you save your changes. Personally, I still prefer the Terminal for the extra tunability, but it‘s great to have user-friendly options.

Prioritizing Security with HTTPS

In addition to speed, mirror security is paramount. Bad actors could theoretically compromise an insecure (HTTP) mirror to distribute malware-laced packages. Always prefer mirrors using HTTPS encryption to ensure a secure transport layer.

You can force pacman to use HTTPS by adding the following lines to /etc/pacman.conf:

XferCommand = /usr/bin/curl -L -C - -f -o %o %u
XferOptions = --limit-rate=4M

With these settings, all downloads will use curl over HTTPS with a conservative speed cap of 4 MB/s. Adjust the limit as needed for your connection – I‘ve found it helps prevent timeouts and keep simultaneous downloads stable.

Official vs. Unofficial Mirrors

When it comes to choosing mirrors, I strongly recommend sticking with the official Manjaro-approved set. These mirrors are actively vetted by the dev team for reliability, bandwidth capacity, and timely syncing with the master repos.

Unofficial mirrors hosted by volunteers can work great, but they lack the same quality assurance and may be more prone to downtime or staleness. That said, if you find a trustworthy unofficial mirror geographically close to you, it can be a speedy alternative. Just be sure to keep an eye on it and have official fallbacks ready.

Mirror Management Pro Tips

As a professional developer working on multi-GB codebases and projects with hundreds of dependencies, I rely on a finely-tuned Manjaro mirror stack to keep things running buttery smooth. Here are a few advanced tricks I‘ve picked up:

• Use the --refresh flag with pacman-mirrors to re-test mirrors daily and catch any slowdowns or downtime. Add it to a cron job for automatic updates.
• Monitor the Manjaro forums and mailing lists for mirror news and announcements. The dev team is very proactive about fixing problematic mirrors and adding new high-speed locations.
• Keep a list of your favorite mirrors (official and unofficial) in a custom pacman config file like /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.personal. This lets you quickly switch between different sets without overwriting your main mirrorlist.
• Take advantage of Manjaro‘s Snap and Flatpak support to diversify your software sources. These next-gen package formats use their own CDNs and can be faster than distro mirrors for some apps.
• If you maintain multiple Manjaro machines, consider setting up a local mirror server on your LAN. This can dramatically speed up downloads and updates across systems while conserving Internet bandwidth.

The Importance of Mirrors for Rolling Distros

Manjaro follows a rolling release model, meaning packages are continuously updated to their latest versions on a daily to weekly basis. Unlike fixed-point distros that only push updates every few months, Manjaro users can always access the bleeding-edge versions of their software (after a brief testing period).

This rolling model puts extra importance on having fast, reliable mirrors. Since system updates are so frequent, slow mirrors have a higher chance of falling out of sync and causing "package is out of date" or "failed to commit transaction" errors that can be tricky to resolve.

Moreover, new Manjaro ISO images are published monthly and require large data transfers to seed across the mirror network. High-bandwidth mirrors ensure that fresh install media is readily available to new users in their region.

In my experience, proactively optimizing your mirror list is one of the best ways to keep a rolling distro like Manjaro stable and frustration-free. The mirror ranking and selection tools covered in this guide make it simple to adapt your repos as the network evolves.

Conclusion and Resources

Manjaro‘s mirror system is a key ingredient in its winning formula of user-friendliness, reliability, and cutting-edge freshness. With a small time investment in mirror tuning, you can dramatically accelerate package downloads and updates while futureproofing your system.

If you‘re new to Manjaro or Linux in general, don‘t be daunted by the command-line tools and config files covered in this guide. With a little practice, you‘ll be flying through pacman installs and building a personalized mirror stack.

To learn more about Manjaro‘s mirrors and package management, check out these official resources:

• Manjaro Wiki – Pacman Tips
• Manjaro Wiki – Reflector
• Manjaro Forum – Mirrors and Packages subforum

I also recommend following the Manjaro Announcements section on the forums to stay apprised of mirror outages, new mirror locations, and other timely news.

As always, you can find more Linux guides and open source software tips on my blog and GitHub profile. If you have any questions or suggestions to improve this guide, feel free to reach out on Twitter or Mastodon.

Happy mirroring Manjaro users, and may your downloads be swift and secure!