Mr. Philip Müller of Manjaro team has announced the availability of Manjaro 18.10 Illyria. This a stable snapshot of beginner-friendly Arch-based GNU/Linux distribution. Manjaro Illyria brings a set of updated packages and refined user experience. It includes the latest cutting-edge technologies like Xfce 4.13 and Plasma 5.14.

Manjaro 18.0 Illyria File Picture

What is interesting with Manjaro Illyria?

Well. The interesting part about every distribution release is the features and changes it brings. If a release is coming with less number of changes and improvements, then it is not considered as interesting at all.

Let us see, what are the main highlights in Manjaro 18.10 Illyria release.

Introducing Xfce 4.13

Manjaro is one among the few distributions which provide a decent Xfce experience. It is the flagship desktop environment of Manjaro and has received a lot of focus than any other flavor.

Manjaro Illyria brings the Xfce 4.13, the upcoming stable release of Xfce. This release mainly marks the Gtk2.x to Gtk3.x migration and also brings other improvements.

The main focus in Manjaro Illyria was polishing the user experience on desktop and window manager. It has also updated most of the components from Xfce 4.13. With the updated technology stack, Xfce edition is now able to provide a new theme called Adapta-Maia.

In Manjaro Illyria Xfce edition, you can also configure multiple display profiles which will be auto-applied on connecting new displays.

Plasma 5.14 and KDE-Apps

In addition to the flagship Xfce edition, Manjaro provides a powerful, feature-rich KDE edition which comes in a decent look and feel. Manjaro Illyria brings Plasma 5.14, along with KDE-Apps 18.08. The new display configuration widget in Plasma 5.14 is helpful for managing screen during the presentation. It also includes features like smooth switching of primary monitors, SSH-VPN supported network widget, speaker test feature in audio widget .etc.

Linux Kernel 4.19 LTS

Manjaro Illyria ships Linux Kernel 4.19 LTS, which is a long-term supported Kernel and provides better hardware compatibility.

The Kernels can be easily added or removed using Manjaro Settings Manager(MSM). Presently, it includes eight kernel-series ranging from 3.16 to 4.19.

Other updates

Other updates in Manjaro 18.0 Illyria includes improved Pamacs package manager, Manjaro Hello with updated functionalities and other package updates.

For a complete list of changes in Manjaro 18.0 Illyria and associated discussions, see the release announcement published on Manjaro forums.