Software Update: Manjaro Linux 20.2

Manjaro Linux is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. The focus is on user-friendliness and simplicity. It can be run with an Xfce, KDE or Gnome desktop environment and it comes standard with a large number of applications. Manjaro Linux also uses so-called rolling releases and uses Pacman as its package manager. Version 20.2 has just been released and the announcement looks like this:

Manjaro 20.2 Nibia got released

Some might want to shoot for the moon – well, we shoot for the four moons of Nibia.

Nibia is a planet with multiple moons. In the year 2285, during his mission of vengeance against James T. Kirk, Khan Noonien Singh swore that he would chase Kirk around the moons of Nibia and beyond before giving up. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)

Gnome edition is the epicenter of new exciting features. It received a major overhaul, possibly the biggest update thusfar.

Gnome 3.38 provides performance enhancements, significantly improved application grid, parental controls, excellent welcome tour as well as many other features. the new OEM style installation makes the installation process extremely simple, and Gnome-Initial-Setup lets you easily install Manjaro for other people.

Manjaro’s Application Utility got also many improvements, letting easily choose your favorite browsers, office suites and password managers. We also included two excellent forms of automatic window tiling: the intuitive Pop shell and the touch friendly material shell† These can be enabled in the Gnome-Layout-Switcher.

Keybindings have also been improved to manage virtual desktops more efficiently. Automatic dark mode has gained more granular controls and also let’s you automatically change the theme of qt applications as well. Gnome edition also now comes with boot splash and graphical password dialogs for encrypted systems. We also trimmed the desktop so that it should now use approximately 40% less ram than before. we now also default to using Wayland on non-Nvidia hardware.

Our KDE edition provides the powerful, mature and feature-rich Plasma 5.20 desktop environment with a unique look and feel. The new release features Wayland improvements, grid-like system tray, new power saving options, improved settings-center, touch support in dolphin and much more. With a wide selection of latest KDE Apps 20.08 and other applications Manjaro-KDE aims to be a versatile and elegant environment ready for all your everyday needs.

With our XFCE edition, only a few can claim to offer such a polished, integrated and leading-edge Xfce experience. With this release we ship Xfce 4.14† The stable Xfce pairs well with the cutting edge rolling release that is Manjaro, offering reliable performance with no surprises.

Kernel 5.9 is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. with 5.4 LTS Kernel minimal-ISOs we offer additional support for older hardware.

Last, but not least, our installer Calamari also received many improvements. Among other things, it now supports encrypted systems without encrypted /boot partition. This enables graphical password dialogs, using non-us keymaps for inputting passwords and up to 1 minute shorter boot times compared to full disk encryption. Automatic partitioning still uses full disk encryption by default.

We hope you enjoy this release and let us know what you think of Nibia.