Manjaro 0.8.9 review – KDE and Xfce desktops

Manjaro 0.8.9 review is a review of the latest KDE and Xfce editions of Manjaro, a desktop distribution based on Arch Linux.

Manjaro is one of just a handful of desktop distributions that are trying to make all the goodness of Arch Linux available to new and seasoned users alike. It’s matching along with Antergos and Chakra Linux in this regard, though it seems to be further along than Chakra Linux and running neck-and-neck with Antergos.

The main desktop environments supported are KDE, Openbox and Xfce, but there are community editions that feature other popular desktop environments like GNOME 3, MATE, and Cinnamon. When I started work on this review, those community editions had not been released.

A key feature that Manjaro and the other desktop distributions that are based on Arch Linux bring to the table is a point-and-click, user-friendly installation program. Another are user-friendly graphical package managers. Those are the type of programs I’m always looking for on any desktop distribution.

So since this is my first review of a Manjaro edition, the rest of this article presents my assessment of the KDE and Xfce editions of Manjaro 0.8.9.

Thus is the Installer: Manjaro’s graphical installer is called Thus. Aside from the graphical Thus, there is also a command-line/ncurses version, but at this stage, I have no interest in command-line installation programs, so nothing more will be written about the command-line/ncurses version.

With regards to the graphical Thus, how you access it depends on the Manjaro edition you are attempting to install. If it’s a KDE edition, access to it is strictly from its icon on the Live desktop. If it’s the Xfce edition you are attempting to install, access to Thus can be from the greeter application and also from an icon on the desktop. This screenshot is of the greeter application on the Xfce edition. You can see a button for the graphical Thus on the right of the application’s window.

The graphical Thus is modeled after Ubiquity, the graphical installation program of Ubuntu Desktop. But at this stage in its development, it’s still at least two steps behind Ubiquity. This screenshot shows the timezone configuration step on Thus. Unlike Ubiquity, it doesn’t use a Geo-location service for timezone detection, so that involves a manual process.

And this screenshot shows the Installation type step. If it looks familiar it’s because it’s fashioned after Ubiquity. This screenshot shows that there’s support for disk encryption and LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager. Unlike Ubiquity, Thus offers an option to create a separate partition to be mounted at /home (a partition where users’ home folders are located).

Whether using a standard or an LVM-based disk partitioning scheme, the installer always creates a separate boot partition. So when you choose to create a separate partition for /home, you’ll have four partitions – /boot, / (root), /home and Swap. And if the Manjaro installation is a standalone installation, all four partitions will be primary partitions.

With encryption specified (that is when you select the “Encrypt this installation for increased security” option) and when using a standard disk partitioning scheme, the Swap partition is never encrypted. As a result, you’ll never get the full benefit of what full disk encryption offers. You only get that if you opt for an encrypted LVM installation, because Swap is created as a logical volume under an encrypted physical volume.

Unlike the Ubuntu Desktop installer, Thus is not yet able to detect the presence of other operating systems or distributions on the target disk, so any attempt to dual-boot any edition of Manjaro on a single disk will have to involve manual disk partitioning. And when it comes to manual disk partitioning, LVM and disk encryption are not supported. This screenshot shows the file system options available when creating partitions manually.

This screenshot shows the user setup step of the installation process. There’s an option to specify a password for root, otherwise the standard user created at this step gains access to administrative privileges via sudo.

This final screenshot from the installer shows an error condition I encountered when attempting an installation using a KDE installation image. It occurred several times, but only if I chose an LVM-based installation type, and only when using a 64-bit installation image of the KDE edition.

The installer is about the only thing that the KDE and Xfce editions have in common. The default network security profiles are different, the graphical package managers are also different, and, of course, the system utilities are different. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that Manjaro 0.8.9 KDE and Manjaro 0.8.9 Xfce were from two different Linux communities.

Manjaro KDE: The KDE edition of Manjaro 0.8.9 comes with KDE 4.12.2. And that’s the very latest. On first boot, you are welcomed to the desktop by a greeter application called Turbulence, which is Manjaro’s version of Kaptan (from Pardus) and Kapudan (from Chakra Linux). But it does not offer nearly the same level of usefulness as those two. This screenshot shows its first page.

Aside from letting you specify what directories you don’t want in your home folder (they are all created by default), and change the wallpaper, Turbulence does not bring anything more to the table. It doesn’t live up to its name. Kaptan and Kapudan have more features. Even Mageia’s Welcome brings more to the table. In the future, the developers might want to add the ability to configure the menu style and enable/disable the firewall to the list of features configurable from Turbulence.

This screenshot shows the last page of Turbulence. It’s just a gateway to system-wide configuration tools and community resources.

The KDE desktop itself features the Kicker version of the Homerun menu. Homerun is a fullscreen application launcher for KDE, and Homerun Kicker is the non-fullscreen version.

Click on any image in this gallery to view the other aspects of the KDE desktop on Manjaro 0.8.9 KDE.