14 DAY TRIAL // Manjaro GNOME, a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux and fully compatible with the Arch repositories, has been finally upgraded to version 0.8.13.1 and is now ready for download.
It's been a while since the release of the previous Manjaro GNOME distro, but developers have finally gotten around to releasing the 0.8.13.1 version, which is now the most advanced of the bunch. We need to keep in mind that an upcoming 0.9 version is also in the works, and it will be here in the coming months.
Manjaro GNOME uses and almost vanilla version of GNOME, so it's difficult to say what kept them from releasing the new version. Unlike other flavors of the distro, which tend to modify heavily the desktop environment, the GNOME edition is a little bit more tame.
Manjaro GNOME now comes with GNOME 3.16.2
"The Manjaro community is proud to present this (somewhat overdue) update to the Gnome Edition installation media. This release keeps to the style of the 0.8.11 release being that it is highly vanilla, but, of course, is up-to-date at the time of build and includes the latest Manjaro back-end infrastructure. Note this means a very vanilla Gnome configuration, it doesn’t mean 'minimal', the full set of Gnome software and other apps are provided out-of-the-box," reads the official website.
According to the changelog, GNOME has been upgraded to version 3.16.2, Linux kernel 3.18.18 LTS is now used by default, and systemd has been updated to version 222.
Moreover, Xorg-server 1.17.2 and fixes have been implemented, Mesa is now at version 10.6.2, and Firefox 39 is provided by default. A lot of other packages are available in the repositories, including other supported Linux kernels.
You can download Manjaro GNOME Edition 0.8.13.1 from Softpedia. It's also a Live CD, so you should have no problems testing it, even in a virtual environment.