Manjaro 1.8.3 Review : The “Noob Friendlier” ArchLinux

First of all, I want to introduce myself about my involvement in Linux world. I've been using Linux based OS for more than a year, so I'm definitely not a pro in here but I think my one year of experience is enough for this small review. My first distro was Ubuntu 11.10 and moved to Ubuntu 12.04, and then I started to get attracted by the user-friendliness of Linux Mint and ended up with LM 13 and 14 for more than half of my year in Linux. And then I started to get bored with that “friendly” OS and thinking of getting something more fun to learn more in this world, so I decided to change my OS.

The first distro caught in my eye was LMDE (the Debian based of Linux Mint) because of the rolling release system (means we don't have to reinstall the distro to get the most updated softwares), so I visited the community's forum and found that the ISO image of LMDE is not updated for almost 8 months and they answered my question and asked me to wait for someday in this month (January 2013) as they planned, so I waited and waited for some days (a week maybe) and still got no improvement. While my desire of testing a new distro is so uncontrollable (lol), so I decided to turn my direction to another distro. Surfing the net for a day and found out the fastest distro (ArchLinux) based user friendlier Manjaro from distrowatch.com and first thing came in my mind was “This it is what I want for my older spec laptop”. So I downloaded the MATE version of the ISO image because I'm bored with Xfce desktop as I used it in LM for too long and the other version is just too heavy for my “old friend”. The ISO image is 1.2GB, downloaded it for quite a time because of my slow internet connection (this is the reason I didn't install the un-updated LMDE). So, this is where my introductions finished and where this review begin.

Installation Process

Before continuing any further, this is my laptop spec:

Processor : Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU T5870 @ 2.00GHz × 2

Graphic: Intel® 965GME/GLE x86/MMX/SSE2

OS type: 32-bit

RAM: 1 GB

I wrote the image into my 8GB USB flashdisk and booted it perfectly in my system, it displayed me the MATE desktop with a green background desktop which is not so attractive to me. The good things are it recognized my Wireless driver and touchpad immediately which I had to do it manually in both Ubuntu and Linux Mint. This is because of the manjaro-firmware package which is added by Manjaro developers which you can't find in ArchLinux (as I read it somewhere). And the next thing I did is clicking on the install Manjaro icon in the desktop to continue to installation process. The GUI is uglier than I thought, but as I saw it in the community's forum they are building a better GUI installer now which is good. I installed it with manual partitioning and directed it to mount 5 partitions (/boot, /home, /root, /media/data, and swap) and it did it without any problem. After finished the installation, I booted up the laptop and first thing in my mind was “This is so f**king awesome!” because it took for less than 10 seconds to get me into the login screen. The display manager is LXDM and everything was running without any problem.

Out of Box Softwares

The packages included in the MATE version of Manjaro are as follow:

Accessories: Calculator, Pluma, XTerm

Internet: Midori, Xchat, Avahi Server Browser, Pidgin, Sylpheed

Graphic: Gimp 2.8

Sound & Video: Xnoise

Office: Libreoffice installer

System: Gparted, Pacman-Gui, PkgBrowser, etc

Flash is included, so you can watch Youtube out of the box. There are something I find it missing is they don't include VLC media player which is included in other distros, but we can download it from the pacman-gui so this isn't a problem.

Software Management

The software management in Manjaro pacman, the same with ArchLinux as it is based on it. The difference is Manjaro provided it with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) using Pacman-GUI and PkgBrowser, but I find it very “unfriendly” and “ugly”. I think they should include a better one, for example gnome-packagekit, pacmanXG (which I'm using now), etc or make their own one. But after surfing at their forum I found out they are in the process of making it, the name of the software is pamac which is nice. Manjaro provided softwares from their own repositories which is enough for me, but some packages which isn't available in the repositories can be installed from AUR (Arch User Repository) by installing base-devel and yaourt. So you don't have to worry about anything about softwares here.

Conclusion

After using it for two days without any problem, I think this is going to be my daily use distro before I get bored with it (lol). There are a few pros and cons about this distro for me:

Pros:

- It's fast, I used MATE before in my Linux Mint and changed it immediately because it was too heavy, but Manjaro gives me a different effect of it.

- You don't have to re-install your OS to upgrade it. As it is based on Arch which is a rolling release distro, you will be given the most up-to-date packages from the repositories which means you don't have to re-install it unless you break it (this is also the con of rolling release distro).

- It detects your hardware automatically, unlike its “father” ArchLinux.

Cons:

- Hasn't got any good installer and package management GUI. “Professional and user friendly Linux at its best” is the motto of Manjaro, but their GUI is really ugly right now. And I believe they can do it better in the future as they promised, I hope :)

- As it is a new distro, so the artworks are still not so much like Ubuntu and Linux Mint have.

So that's my review about this distro, and I'm sorry if something I wrote here is wrong or anything but I really don't mean it. I just want to share my thought and really don't mean anything. Thanks for reading and please give me some comments if you want to share something about my article. :)

Review of My Life in 2012

Today is the first day since 2012 left us, with the joy and sorrow it brought to us. We know this will happen, because nothing is eternal in this world. 2012 left me without any parting word and 2013 came into my life without any welcoming word. Nothing really special with the change of this year, but at least I didn't encounter anything too bad, I'm still alive and kicking with such a good health, still living in this beautiful world, can still be here writing and sharing this post with all of you, I think it's enough for me, couldn't be better. Because I know as long as I'm still alive I could've do anything better than I did before. 2012 treated me real good, although it leave me some bad memories at the end. I did enjoy the joy and did manage to end all of the sorrow. I really hope the coming of 2013 will bring me something great, I also hope it will bring them to all of you too.
For me, today is not just the first day of new year like you all are celebrating right now, maybe. But today is also the day where I completely away from my DotA addictiveness for one full month. Seeing my little brother is playing it right now, doesn't even bring me any interest to see it. This is a great start for me to have my better life, I think.
Maybe my New Year eve last night is not as special like you all had. I was playing with my smartphone, made a dirty flash of the latest custom ROM from iceandfire (XenonHD 30122012); watched a couple of movie with my laptop that is currently using LinuxMint 14 Nadia Mate and running Xfce desktop; had a late supper with plate of fried rice and a glass of honey; played some games with my phone; and nothing else. Really just the same as I always do in my normal days, but as long as I'm happy with it I think nothing can be better. So why not.
And now, the day of New Year 2013 also seems the same like my normal life, only the one day off from work and college makes It difference. I'm now sitting in front of my laptop, typing this post, thinking of what should I do with my laptop after posting this. But I still think nothing can be better than doing the things I love, and this is just exactly the life I always wanted to have. No shit can be better than having this kind of life. So again, why not. As I was thinking what I should do, I decided to make a flashback of what I have did in 2012, which I think is a good idea. So, these are some big activities I did in 2012 that I want to share with you today because I just love sharing, so don't read if you don't feel like knowing and don't give me shit here :)
January, 2012
There was a big event that happened, forgot the day but definitely sure about the month. I was about having my college exam at that time and at the same time I was called to attend the final session of Sampoerna Wholesaler Apprentice 2011 (it was held in mid 2011 for the first session and ended in 2012 for final session). So I had to sacrifice my exams but managed to get the re-exam opportunity, the final session of that event involved me to present the business plan I've made for 3 months in front of my mom and some juries in that event. The event was held in Surabaya, we stayed in Taman Dayu Golf and Resorts for 3-5 days (I forgot). And I finally managed to get into the best five from 20-25 contestants (forgot again), got 10 million Rupiah, a certificate and an award.
February, 2012
Following the rules of Sampoerna Wholesaler Apprentice 2011 event, I had to implement the strategies I've made in the business plan for our store using the 10 million Rupiah budgets they gave to me as the best five. Only the five of us have to do this kind of thing. So, they don't give the money for prize, wtf. And the plans I've made in the business plan are: improving our security system, covering 62 mini-markets, improve our credit system, go computerize, improve our CSR. And as they only give us 10 million rupiah and according to our business plan we need at least 680 million rupiah (wtf can we do with that little money), so we made another proposal saying we can only implement 2 of 5 strategies in the plan. And we decided to use the money to put security system in our store and implement the strategy number 2 about covering mini-markets.
This month was a busy month for me, where I had to go around city looking for mini-markets. Finding is the easy part, but finding good customers is the hard part. Doing for a week of things planned in the plan, we realize mini-markets can't be serviced like we do in traditional and gross sellers where we are serving all the time. Their selling and ability to buy is not as big as them. So we decided to change the plan, from calling-delivering system to canvassing system. Where we bring all kind of cigarettes with a truck and sell to them on the place. I only do this once a week as I still have college to go. But the process of this activity is the greatest experience I ever have in my life. Managed to get 70+ of customers until now, but now we selected the best of them and smaller the sum into 48 until now. It's because I can't cover them all in a day and can't give them the best service in that hurry state. So I hope they understand it. :)
August, 2012
I wanna say this month brought me the greatest, the deepest memory in 2012. I had an alumni celebration with my Senior High School classmates, had pizza in the afternoon, went to Ocarina in the evening, played some cards in the night. That was a great day, how I miss that day. And in the late of the month, I went to Bangkok, Thailand with my ex and two of my friends. We had a five days stay there, doing a lot of fun things there. That was so great, maybe the greatest tour I've ever enjoyed until now. But I think I have to forget this, as me and her are separated now. And she has forgotten me completely now, what hurts me is she can does it in a mere one month. Now I realize even the greatest memory can turn into a most hurting memory in such a short time.
November, 2012
11th of this month, will remember this day forever. I finally decided to broke up with her, did this because of I can't take it anymore. We didn't text and talk for two weeks just because she doesn't like me playing with my computer and phone which is my hobby. So I thought I should take the action and I broke our almost three years relationship by myself. That was the bad part of this month, the good part is I was on Sampoerna Golden Voyage trip in this month. Read it here if you feel like to find out more about it.
December, 2012
I made the boldest decision in my life and decided to stop playing DotA, the game where I already played for up to 7 years. As I stop playing that game and I'm single this month, I did a lot at computer stuffs, especially Linux. Learned so much, like some terminal commands, modifying some codes, etc. I also made my first Tumblr account in this month, and started to learn some HTML and CSS codes to modify something on my blogs. I'm so sure this is the kind of life I always wanted to have, so I hope I can make a lot of better things in the future if my life stays like this, I hope. I think there's not a woman in this world that can endure me if I stay like this. But I believe if someone truly love you, nothing can be a problem. Or am I wrong?

That's all about me, once again don't hate me if you don't want to read this. I know, haters gonna hate but I really hope I don't invite any hater here :) Lastly, Happy New Year 2013 and may God bless all of us, I meant it. :) Just had a dinner at seafood restaurant with my family, I think this is the closing of my New Year.

Good Bye Christmas tree, get the New Year Snowman for "FREE"!!

Christmas has passed, so does the Christmas tree that was on my blog couple of days ago. But it's not done yet, the tree is not gone just like that, but it's now replaced by another great thing. It's a brand new New Year goodies, and what makes it special for me is I made it "by myself". Using the code provided by the Christmas tree I've got, see this post for more information about how I got the tree. I edit the code from the tree, removed and added a large amount of lines from that code to make it looks like it is now.
It's not that good, but for me a newbie in CSS+HTML codes this is such a great jumping step that I'm so proud with now :)
As this code is "half-written" by me, so I think I have the rights to distribute it here. Feel free to get the code here. Just extract the code, copy and paste the code in "CSS-NewYear2013.txt" to the custom CSS code section and "HTML-NewYear.txt" to custom HTML/description code section in any blog/website (tumblr, blogger, wordpress, etc) you have. Feel free to comment me for any advise or critic.
I just love sharing things, don't mean anything here :)
Wish u a Happy New Year, may your wishes come true and God bless you all :)

Managed to make a great Christmas tree on my Tumblr

Another achievement for me today, finally managed to make an early Christmas tree for my Tumblr. It looks great and I’m quite contented with this addition. :)
Of course I didn’t write the entire code for this tree, this code is made by someone I got from this link. But I’ve made some additions to it, the additions are not made without reason. These are the reasons for me to customize it a bit:
1. The sentence “happy holiday” in the original code isn’t what I want to describe in my blog, so I changed it to “merry christmas” instead
2. I removed the original code which make a banner “CSS3 Christmas Tree with Snow | Script Tutorials” on the top of the tree, that’s look ugly so I removed it. But I know this wasn’t made without reason, and the reason is the author want some credits for this code. So I’m now crediting him/her in another way, and that way is making this post and include the link of the source. I hope he/she doesn’t mind :)
3. Changed the original falling snow png. The reason is not that the original one isn’t good, but the url of the original falling snow is maybe dead and I got no falling snow show up using that code. So I make a google search to get another falling snow image and I got what I’m using it right now from here. It’s gif file while the original one is a png file. And the original code include 3 different png files for the tree, but I’m now using just one gif file and make it falls in three different locations using the original code transition effects.
4. Changed the original "head","body","header" in the code to "head-tree,"body-tree","header-tree" because it conflicted with the codes in my current Tumblr theme. And also the “div-class=”container”” to “div-class=”container-tree”“, the reason is same. :)
That’s all I want to share to u today, have a good day and God bless u all :)

Update: the tree has been copied to blogger now :)

Xfce+Compiz integration in Linux Mint 14

Finally, after a couple days of playing I decided to make this tutorial so others can get a share of the fun I did :-) This tutorial will work on Xfce environment and I think will also work on other DE (Desktop Environment). And I’m doing it in Linux Mint 14, but I think it will work also in other Linux distros.
First thing to do is installing Compiz. For Ubuntu/Linuxmint users, all u have to do is by doing:

The Boldest Decision I've Ever Made

This post is made to become a memorial for me in the future. What's so important? I'm going to stop my longest habit I ever had in my lifetime, it's DotA. Been playing this game since I was in my 3rd grade of Senior High School (about 7 years ago). Decided to make this decision since this last few weeks ago and followed by one of the people who got me into this game, Effendi Qin (he wrote about this in his blog one day before I made this post, lol). This game brings me a lot of experience in my life, what a great game made by Icefrog. can't even remember what was the map I was playing when I first got into this addiction. And now, after I've made into rank 186 in the evo−bronze event by Indogamers (the event just being reset and I've made the decision where I'm going to stop it after this season event over in the last few weeks ago). This game has wasted lots of my time (I think it's much more than I spent for my recently relationship with my ex, lol). Learnt so much about teamwork and situations handling from this game, the best game I've ever played in my lifetime.

Okay, since this post is meant to be a memorial for me, I'm gonna end this post here. So, let's hope I can make this decision last for forever. Good day and hope to see u again in my life blog. Thanks :-)

Love is Easy − Mcfly

Do do dodo do do,
Do do do dodo do,
Do do dodo do do,

Today,
I'm laughing the clouds away,
I hear what the flowers say,
And drink every drop of rain,
And I see,
Places that I have been,
In ways that I've never seen,
My side of the grass is green,
Ooh I can't believe that it's so simple,
It feels so natural to me,

If this is love,
Then love is easy,
It's the easiest thing to do,
If this is love,
Then love completes me,
Cause it feels like I've been missing you,
A simple equation,
With no complications,
To leave you confused,
If this is love, love, love,
Hmm it's the easiest thing to do,

Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do you,
Feel the way that I do?
Do I turn your grey skies blue?
And make dirty streets look new?
Hmm and the birds sing,
Tweeheeheeheeheeheeheet,
Tweedleheeheeheehee,
Now I know exactly what they mean,
Ooh I can't believe that it's so simple,
It feels so natural to me,

If this is love,
Then love is easy,
It's the easiest thing to do,
If this is love,
Then love completes me,
Cause it feels like I've been missing you,
A simple equation,
With no complications,
To leave you confused,
If this is love, love, love,
Hmm it's the easiest thing to do,

Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,

Wooh ooh ooh wooh ooh ooh oooh!
Wooh ooh ooh wooh ooh ooh oooh!
Wooh ooh ooh wooh ooh ooh oooh!
(What is it you want, Mary?
What do you want?
You want the moon?
Just say the word and I'll
throw a lasso around it and
pull it down. Hey. That's a
pretty good idea. I'll give
you the moon, Mary.)

Oooooh no,
If this is love,
Then love is easy,
It's the easiest thing to do,
If this is love,
Then love completes me,
Cause it feels like I've been missing you,
A simple equation,
With no complications,
To leave you confused, No,
If this is love, love, love,
It's the easiest thing to do,

Do do do do do do do, (Hey!)
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do, (oooh this is love love love love love love)
Do do do do do do do, (oooh this is love love love love love love)
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do

Android 4.2 Update Review

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Yeah, just looking at the header can describe my purpose on writing this article. It's about the latest update of Android, version 4.2 still using codename Jellybean. Google released in 13^th November 2012, it's a really quick update made by Google (they released 4.1 in July 2012). That's why I just love Android so much, you can't get it from Apple. The updates included are:

• Multiple users (only available on tablets)
• Daydream
• Magnification gestures
• Photo sphere camera
• New keyboard with gesture typing
• New lockscreen with widget support
• Brand new notification bar with quick settings
• Brand new clock app with world clock, stopwatch and timer integration
• Wireless display
• Premium SMS confirmation
• Google apps updates like Gmail, Google Now, etc
• And many more

Sampoerna 99th anniversary Golden Voyage 2012

Now, 17th November 2012 at 22:09 WIB I'm going to write my experience that I just had from my vacation with Sampoerna which I just finished 7 hours ago. This vacation is brought to me by Sampoerna. The vacation is about 1300++ people containing 990 Sampoerna's customers (I'm included here) and crews from Sampoerna, Genta Tours, and BiruApi (event organizer) in a cruise for 4 days and 1 day in Singapore. This vacation was made to celebrate Sampoerna's 99th anniversary. This is not even special, what made it special is "the whole cruise is booked by Sampoerna" and "the cruise is from the world largest cruise company, Royal Carribean International". The name of the cruise is "The Legend of the Seas", a cruise that weighted about 70.000 tons, capacity up to 1.072 people, 264 meters long, eleven decks(floor), and it's a five stars cruise.
Four days on the ship, doesn't it make everyone got boring to dead? I don't think so, there are a lot of fun activities to do on the ship that just can't end! But Sampoerna won't make such a silly move to make you thinking that way. On that five days tour, we are given chances to visit three countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore.

"We are Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift

I remember when we broke up the first time
Saying this is it, I've had enough, 'cause like
We haven't seen each other in a month
When you, said you, needed space, what?
Then you come around again and say
Baby, I miss you and I swear I'm gonna change
Trust me, remember how that lasted for a day
I say, I hate you, we break up, you call me, I love you

Oooh we called it off again last night
But Oooh, this time I'm telling you, I'm telling you
We are never ever ever getting back together
We are never ever ever getting back together
You go talk to your friends talk
To my friends talk to me
But we are never ever ever ever getting back together

Like ever...

I'm really gonna miss you picking fights
And me, falling for a screaming that I'm right
And you, will hide away and find your piece of mind with some indie record that's much cooler than mine

Oooh you called me up again tonight
But Oooh, this time I'm telling you, I'm telling you
We are never ever ever getting back together
We are never ever ever getting back together
You go talk to your friends talk
To my friends talk to me
But we are never ever ever ever getting back together

I used to think, that we, were forever ever ever
And I used to say never say never
Huh, he calls me up and he's like, I still love you
And i'm like, i'm just, I mean this is exhausting, you know
We are never getting back together, like ever

We are never ever ever getting back together
We are never ever ever getting back together
You go talk to your friends talk
To my friends talk to me
But we are never ever ever ever getting back together

We, oooh, oooh, not back together, we
Oh, getting back together

You go talk to your friends talk
And my friends talk to me
But we are never ever ever ever getting back together