Manjaro-Bspwm

Manjaro-Bspwm is an open source distribution of Linux, a community derived edition that uses the minimalistic Bspwm tiling window manager on top of the latest upstream Manjaro Linux operating system. It is suitable for programmers who are looking for an Arch Linux alternative with a tiling WM.

Available for download as Live DVDs for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures

This special Manjaro edition can be downloaded from Softoware or from its official website as two Live DVD ISO images of approximately 1GB in size each, which must be deployed to either DVD discs or USB flash drives in order to boot them from the BIOS of a computers. Both 64-bit and 32-bit instruction set architectures are supported at this time.

Manjaro-style boot menu

The boot prompt of the Live DVDs is identical with the one used in the official Manjaro Linux distributions, allowing the user to start the live environment with free or non-free drivers, run the HDT (Hardware Detection Tool) utility to view detailed information about your PC’s hardware components, boot an existing operating system from the first disk, as well as to run a memory test.

A window manager for advanced Linux users

As mentioned, this Manjaro edition’s main emphasis is on the Bspwm tiling window manager, but before you can access it, you’ll have to login in using the “manjaro” username/password combination and then start the graphical desktop with the “startx” command (without quotes).

The window manager is extremely basic and can only be used with the keyboard. As discribed on its official website, Bspwm main feature it the ability to display windows as the leaves of a full binary tree.

Bottom line

In conclusion, Manjaro-Bspwm is a very basic operating system specifically designed for a small category of people, mainly programmers and hardcore hackers who love tiling window managers like Bspwm. Do not hesitate to check out the i3 and awsome editions of Manjaro, all of them being available for download on Softoware.

What is new in this release:

• The default kernel series has been changed to 3.4-longterm for better upstream support
• LXDE got updated to 0.5.5
• Gnome Package Kit has been replaced with the Kalu upgrade notifier, and - exclusively for Manjaro - a user-friendly interface for pacman (the pacman-gui)
• Comes with an installation guide for beginners
• The CLI installer has been enhanced with additional language support, optional network configuration, hard disk encryption, and several bug fixes
• A 'Testing Installer' option has been added with support for new advanced features including btrfs, nilfs, luks, lvn, gpt, efi, and software-raid
• Plymouth - and its related bugs - have been removed
• Numerous bug fixes have been made, including the Resume/hibernate bugs affecting laptops