Manjaro 20.1 Mikah got released

Manjaro 20.1

We are happy to publish another stable release of Manjaro Linux, named Mikah.

The Xfce edition remains our flagship offering and has received the attention it deserves. Only a few can claim to offer such a polished, integrated and leading-edge Xfce experience. With this release we ship Xfce 4.14 and have mostly focused on polishing the user experience with the desktop and window manager. Also we have switched to a new theme called Matcha. A new feature Display-Profiles allows you to store one or more profiles for your preferred display configuration. We also have implemented auto-application of profiles when new displays are connected.

Our KDE edition provides the powerful, mature and feature-rich Plasma 5.19 desktop environment with a unique look-and-feel, which we had completely re-designed in Spring 2020. The full set of Breath2-themes includes light and dark versions, animated splash-screen, Konsole profiles, Yakuake skins and many more little details. We have rounded off text editor Kate with some additional color schemes and offer Plasma-Simplemenu as an alternative to the traditional Kickoff-Launcher. 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 Gnome edition based on 3.36 series we include visual refreshes for a number of applications and interfaces, particularly noteworthy being the login and unlock interfaces. GNOME shell extensions are now managed using a new Extensions app which handles updating, configuring and removing or disabling extensions. A Do Not Disturb button was added to the notifications popover. When enabled, notifications are hidden until the button is toggled off. By default our own dynamic wallpaper changes its colour theme throughout the day. Additionally we updated GDM and improved our Gnome-Layout-Switcher a lot. We updated our list of pre-installed packages, zsh is the new default shell and applications are now sorted in folders in a clean app drawer.

Pamac 9.5 series received a few updates. In this round we optimized internal check dep algorithm for smarter performance, enhanced the alpm error handling, optimized internal search algorithm for better regex support and applied database performance improvements. We also now build AUR packages and install as much as possible of them in a single run.

Manjaro Architect supports now ZFS installation by providing the needed kernel modules.

Kernel 5.8 is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. Relative to the last installation media release, our tools have been improved and polished.

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


Download Mikah now

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Thanks to the manjaro team for his hard work.

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YAY for Manjaro!
Can anybody explain what meanings does the name “Mikah” have?

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Great news!
Manjaro is getting better and better… Thx manjaro team.

I noticed there is no minimal iso… (yet).
https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro/storage/kde/20.1/minimal/manjaro-kde-20.1-minimal-200911-linux58.iso/

Thank you so much for your work!

Wasn’t it the case before?

There are minimal ISOs for all official editions, but the links to download them aren’t correct.

The links direct to a sub-directory called minimal which is not present in each download directory.

In your case the download link is:
https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro/storage/kde/20.1/manjaro-kde-20.1-minimal-200911-linux58.iso

You can find all downloads for the KDE edition here:
https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro/storage/kde/20.1

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Thank you so much @bill_t
I ended up to those (incorrect) links, starting from manjaro home page and clicking the “Thy Manjaro” button, and then “Get KDE Plasma 20.1” which led me here:

Apparently the links need to be updated…
Again, thank you

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EDIT: Updated now!

Awesome, nice update Manjaro team :slight_smile:

Any specific reason why only gnome edition has zsh by default? Or other editions are going to switch to zsh too later on?

I guess this means a Qu’Onos release is in our future.

I am completely disappointed of Manjaro 20.1 KDE Release.

1.Manjaro 20.1 is incompatible with BIOS (doesn’t boot) only UEFI.
2. Welcome screen doesn’t have info about passwords for root nor user. Password is secret. We don’t have root privalages on Manjaro.
3. Can’t install anything in live nor configure without password when kdesu pops up.
4. Can’t find welcome sceen via menu nor krunner when I close welcome screen- ther’s no such thing as “welcome…” nor “intro…” typing shows absolutely nothing
5. Thunderbird is GTK and not suitable for KDE Plasma (KDE Plasma has integration of KMail and Kontakt and Kalendare and many more integrated apps- its all under “kde-meta-pim” which is missing
in the default installatation. Don’t give KDE user Thunderbird. It doesn;t belong to KDE.
6. KDE Plasma has Elise music player, which is part of default plasma software compilation. Instead we are given deprecated “Cantana” based on QtMPC which hasn’t seen any realease in 10 years (!)- the last one was in 2010 (see menu about… and click link for QtMPC)
7. Qbittorent is external, foreign app. and unnecesserily installed like bloatware. KDE has a long standing KTorrent, actively developed and part of the default kde software compilation. It should be there instead of Qbittorent.
8. Default installation is missing firewall. There’s nothing to chose from as default zone in KDE system tray in “antenna” -->settings —> general–> firewall zone. No service of nftables and firewalld is activated and running. Security is missing
9. Konsole has extremely small fonts (should be “medium” and size 12 at least)
10. Font throughout the system are too small (should be 11 and small 10). Nobody bothered to change then in default installation
11. Repo contains deprecated font format “ttf” the correct one is “OpenType”. Open Type fonts of IBM Pelex are missing.
12. Many user experience problems with VLC (developers use MS Windows), hence many KDE “pros”
use mpv+smplayer (+smtube) which is much more mature and stable on anly Linux Distro (I noticed that Russian hackers and developers that use kde use it, which is in line in mine experience and many good youtubers promoting libre software and Linux.)
13. Libre Office is Missing in the default installation. Version Still should be there.
14. Welcome screen didn’t contain info how to switch and makde LTS kernel the default one.
15. There are no responsiveness and speed optimizations. Udev rules for I/O scheduler are missing (BFQ for spinning drives, noope or none for NVMe or mq-deadline for SSD)
16. No fstrim scheduler is present
17. KDE Plasma default installation is missing QtWebengine based web browser, which is the default browser in KDE software compilation. Its called Falkon.
18. Eveyone is using uBlock Origing. No reason not to include it by default.
19. Icons Only Task Manageris dumb as hell. KDE is not Windows. If I wanted that idiocracy I would use Windows. Its yet another disappointing and unnecessary step to make KDE usefull, ie one more step of many to change Manjaro to be usable.
20. KDE Plasma is compiled with (unlike some other distros -e.g. Gentoo) with “kuser feedback”, which one cannot turn off. All data is still collected (e.g. in: /home/manjaro/.config/kde.org/) regardless of settings. Enough of it has been already said everywhere.
21. KDE panel is misconfigured. Its small and it has “desktop/workspaces/pager” with two “workspaces/desktops” stuck on top of each other on the very narrow panel, which is misconfiguration and should be two, but next to each other because all LCDs are widescreen. No point of cramming to somethething extremely small to to the point of unclickable.
22. Deskotp (right click deskop–>configure) is set to “folder”. There’s no need for “deprecated” desktop folder and have mess on the wallpaper while we have krunner (plasma user know what it is and how to use it. XFCE users don’t) and Home folder. It should be set up as desktop.
23.Clock is misconfigured for USA. USA is not the only country in the world. Everyone els like 99% of the Earth population use 24h clock. PM AM is idiocracy form medieval analog ages when they didn’t have possibility to use 24h clock.
24. Clock in tray is unnecesarrily polluted with short date resaulting (like pager) with crammed stuff, ie clock is even smaller (cramming and polluting - we can just hover or click to see calendar and events, of course you missed to installe kde-pim-meta…)
25. Steam, Not all Linux users are kids. Leave it in the repo. Kids use Windows anyway, so keep Manjaro professional and let the user install games.
26. Not everyone has a printer and even when they do it doesn’t have to be HP (extremely expensive toners). So what is that HP Printer thing doing in Manjaro? How many users have HP Printer? 99% or more don’t. Bloatware.
27. SSH and Avahi. No need for that. If the user wants it they will install it. No need for security holes, ssh-ing someone (ssh client, ssh server,…). Another unnecessary bloatware with potential security risks.
28. Software Token x2- another bloatware. Why do I need it? If I wanted bloatware I would use Windows.
29. AppImage software- why do I need it? Another bloatware and insecure with it. Enough has been said aboiut AppImage security everywhere. Linux is not windows and it uses more secure model of shared libraries (AppImage etc. are like exe and bat for Windows- downloaded from all over the internet- not good). And since Manjaro is Arch based. We got 99% software almost instantaneously (minus Manjaro stale time…). No need for this unsecure app. Anyway one can run AppImage without any additional software and in firejail if they want.
30. There’s “lost and found” menu in Kick-off with some further hp crap. What the hell is lost and found? Did you brake something??
31. Avif plasma-picture-plugin (systemwide) for displaying this type of modern photo compression is missing. There’s no thumb in Dolphin and Gwenview is not displaying them.
32. VAAPi is missing either VLC or mpv ($mpv --hwdec=vaapi --vo=gpu) uses over 30% CPU on Skylyke,
while older computer with Broadwell on Debian 10 Buster, uses 6% cpu (mpv --hwdec=vaapi --vo=gpu/vaapi). 99% laptops are Intel, yet manjaro has broken VAAPi. Hardware decoding=0.
33. Firefox is compiled with less secure clang instead of perfectly good GCC, there’s absolutely no need for clang. Latest GCC is extremely excellent and software runs faster with latest GCC.
34. Font rendering is midiocre. Its missing patched cairo and proper rendering like Infinality with color filtering.

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I find most of the points here as overstatements.
For example thunderbird works fine under KDE with only a few dependencies, and looks more consistent than the (in my opinion) over-complicated KMail.

Maybe some of the programs you mention, are bloatware, but there is an alternative. It is called minimal iso and it is what I prefer! Then I install the packages I want (libre office, firefox, thunderbird, gimp, blender, ardour e.t.c). And I have to remove only a few of the default (e.g konversation, yakuake …)
Manjaro 20.1 is an excellent and very carefully crafted release.

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You’re XFCE user and you think in Mail Program category. KDE Plasma users think in Personal Information Management category (kde-pim-meta). PIM is integrated throughout whole Plasma.
Manjaro is castrated. Nobody on KDE Plasma satrts KMail to send mail. You are thinking XFCE way, that when you want to send mail you click menu and click Thunderbird. We use Kontact or send information (mail, messages, pms, sms on KDE with connected Android) via various means of managing PIM and calendar events, system integrations with messages, calendar, events, receiving messages and so on throughout the system based on entire personal information management. We do not micromange and browse menus to click on dedicated software to send email. We KDE Plasma users use different paradigm. We have KDE PIM, Akonodi Server and MySQL integrated though the system. Thunderbird is not part of this paradigm and its silly to even propose Thunderbird on KDE and think of just email client. Thunderbird is a foreign software on KDE.

The release text for gnome is mostly from the past release in the spring. This because both me and @Ste74 have had long standing hardware issues, and the gnome edition developement has mostly been limited to bug fixes. This should change within a month or so. So yeah, zsh has been the default since February or so.

Different maintainers. Besides, isn’t gnome always the harbinger of new features? I’m hoping to convince other editions to adopt zsh too, but they might be waiting for people to get used to the idea first.

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You seem to have many interesting ideas to tweak the kde edition. How about opening a dedicated topic in Feature request category? You can also send a merge request to the desktop-settings and iso-profiles repos in manjaro gitlab :slightly_smiling_face:

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No, actually Im a Linux (exclusively) user, who just prefer and love KDE as my desktop environment, but I could happily live with XFCE, or MATE or whatever … (Unfamiliar with GNOME though!)

I never claimed to be a KDE expert in anyway…
But I see your point, the way every KDE application integrates with the DE.

However I don’t think that particular pattern suits my needs. And if someday the Manjaro team decides to go that way, I’ll have to uninstall a lot of stuff to make KDE look and feel my way …

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I think it would be better to stay with the more widely used option. Most scripts on net are bash, and they are not always completely compatible with zsh. It is not a major problem to advance users who would know the difference and switch zsh to bash or modify scripts, but manjaro is increasingly being adopted by beginners and it would be very confusing for them. Those who know about zsh almost always know how to switch to it

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Script files should and will use a shebang and not be executed with your standard shell.
If you’re using some scripting in everday life on the command line however - there will be some gotchas.