Today I tested the newly released Manjaro 0.8.0 KDE i686 . I know this distro for quite some time now : the last time I used it that was their XFCE version. Then it was quite acceptable and even that there were problems it was still working.
But this release is a total disaster as far as KDE version is concerned : they have released their classic XFCE version once again and GNOME also.
Since I tested KDE I will mention the disasters I faced on this version.
It is a live DVD : Boots fine and you see a plain KDE Desktop.
I kept looking for their installer and contrary to their XFCE version they did not bother to place an icon on desktop so one can launch the installer : I kept searching for it in K Menu and after good five minutes I finally managed to locate the installer.
About the installer : It is the same old ArchBang Installer which these few newly forked arch based distros got adopted and works well on others but totally fails on Manjaro.
All the steps on installer apparently went smooth till GRUB2 installation : I opted to default i.e MBR and GRUB2 failed to install : I retried and this time I opted to install to the partition where I was trying to install Manjaro and as expected GRUB2 failed once again. So feeling fully pissed off I opted not to install GRUB2 and planned to boot it with my Arch Linux .
Once I had manually entered Manjaro kernel enteries into my Arch Linux GRUB2 I finally managed to boot Manjaro and more disasters were waiting ahead .
KDE being fully installed should present KDM to login to Manjaro but there was no KDM : just plain text based login prompt : with grim heart I issued my username and password and weirdly I could see my password visible . I issued startx and X tried to load but crashed in few moments leaving me at login prompt again .
I looked for nvidia drivers and they were already installed : looked for inittab to check if KDM was enabled there and to my amazement there is no inittab file present !
One more missing file offered by Archbang installer normally was rc.conf file so I had no idea what was autoset for my system by Manjaro during installation.
After these apparently visible disasters I lost my all excitement to probe anymore into this distro and I promptly formatted it without any hesitation.
In my humble opinion and with my brief but futile experience with Manjaro KDE I have no regrets to say that it is a total waste of bandwidth and time. Other than a polished new website and being accepted by DistroWatch added to its distributions list it seems to be poorly tested and rushed for release only .
This project was quiet for many months and suddenly it comes to surface with a bright new website : three different types of isos and lots of apparent attraction but on real test it failed like a hobbyist distro. And to reassure I had perfectly burned media : no bad download : no wrong md5sums etc.
Contrary to Manjaro , Bridge Linux , Nosonja and ArchbBang all work out of box and I have never faced any issues with any of these distros while installing them on numerous machines.
If Manjaro team wants to be more successful they have to release at least some test releases for public testing and bug fixing before they commit to a new release with broken wings as this 0.8.0 release.
Best wishes to Manjaro, see you next time when you can at least walk on your feet .
Regards
