14 DAY TRIAL // Manjaro, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and powered by the Xfce and KDE desktop environments, has been upgraded to version 0.8.12 and is now ready for download.
Even if everyone is looking forward to the new 0.9.0 branch of the Manjaro distro, with its cool installer and features, users will have to wait until that one is finished. In the meantime, the developers have put forward a smaller upgrade that takes care of some smaller problems, so it's easy to look at it as a maintenance release.
Manjaro 0.9.0 will integrate a large number of new features and important upgrades for the operating system, including a big version change for the KDE desktop and a brand new installer. Unfortunately, those are not quite ready for mainstream and it will take some time to prepare them for mass consumption. We might even get to see upgrade packs for 0.8.12 before we get to use a stable release of 0.9.0.
Manjaro 0.8.12 is a maintenance update
This is probably the most important thing that you need to remember about this release, but there are a few other things that need to be taken into consideration. There are a couple of features that are quite interesting and that we will be seeing in other distros as well, pretty soon.
"This release is predominantly a maintenance release and includes very few changes to system defaults relative to the previous 0.8.11 ISOs, with some notable exceptions, such as out-of-the-box support for the exFAT file system and the change to pacman 4.2. Otherwise all the usual upstream updates are included, along with the latest from the Xfce 4.11 development series and the KDE 4.14 series," said the developers.
The addition of support for Microsoft's exFAT file system was a nice surprise, along with the upgrade for the package manager. The default Linux kernel used is the 3.16 branch, but users have access to pretty much all the supported Linux kernels, including the latest ones.
More details about this release can be found in the official announcement. You can download Manjaro Xfce 0.8.12 right now from Softpedia, for the Xfce Edition, KDE Edition, and Net Edition. This is a Live CD and it works beautifully, no matter the medium you’re using, a USB key or a virtual environment.
