Mabox Linux 20.02

Having convinced himself that the days of striking one-man distros were over, Mayank Sharma is pleasantly surprised when he finds one.

- Mayank Sharma

IN BRIEF

The distro is a concoction of tools from the CrunchBang and BunsenLabs projects that have been adapted for Manjaro Linux. The project blends the best characteristics of the Arch-based Manjaro Linux and exposes them via the lightweight Openbox desktop environment to create a fast and functional desktop distro.

SPECS

CPU: Any x8664 processor

MEM: 512MB

HDD: 6GB

BUILD: 64-bit only

Manjaro is one of the best renditions of Arch Linux for the desktop user and you can experience its goodness through about a dozen desktop environments. Mabox is a Manjaro spin that’s based on the Openbox desktop, which is rather strange since Manjaro already has a community-supported Openbox edition. However, not only does Mabox predate Manjaro Openbox, the project also does a wonderful job of adapting the Openbox desktop.

For starters, Mabox doesn’t use as many Xfce components as Manjaro Openbox, which makes it even lighter. Secondly, the distro has several home-brewed tools and utilities that help it distinguish itself and present a streamlined desktop.