Manjaro Openbox on a 7-year old Acer Aspire 5500Z Part 1

Category: Linux

Anyone who has been working with Linux distributions on different types of hardware is generally no longer surprised with the improved performance over mainstream OSs. Even the most bulked up KDE release can ably compete with pretentious MacOSX and superfluous Windows 7/8. That said, recent Linux distributions running Gnome 3.x and KDE 4.x can be a challenge for older hardware that would otherwise run fine on LiveCD based distributions such as Puppy Linux and Knoppix.

Enter Manjaro - a controversial Archlinux derivative that has been receiving attention from the Linux community as of late.

Archlinux and my two cents

Arch users tend to criticize derivatives of the fabled Archlinux distribution. Devoted Arch users accuse and lampoon distributions such as Manjaro and Archbang for missing the point by prepackaging the system. Having ran Archlinux for a certain time and consulted the forums on occasion, I'm often surprised at the vitriol from Arch community members towards users from popular derivatives.

However, I don't see anything wrong with derivatives at all. An operating system/platform is for getting work done and if a user prefers to build it from the ground up or get it up and running with a LiveCD without tinkering then that's perfectly fine.

Openbox

Everyone has a favorite desktop environment and I've leaned towards LXDE and Xfce over the last few years (with KDE on openSUSE only because it's the definitive DE for the lizard distro). Manjaro's default environment is a well-crafted Xfce system, but I opted for the Openbox release because I was curious if there were stark performance improvements running the low-key window manager on legacy hardware. 

My beloved Acer Aspire 5500Z had previously ran openSUSE KDE and Ubuntu for years before it slowed to a crawl and I knew the hardware would be able to handle LXDE and Xfce easily. But would just the Openbox Window Manager, coupled with Manjaro's Arch origins, provide significant impact to performance?

Target hardware specifications

Model: Acer Aspire 5500Z (2006)

Previous OS before Manjaro: openSUSE 12.1

Processor: Pentium M 1.73 GHz

RAM: 1.5 GB

Wireless/Network card: Intel Wireless PRO 2200 B/G

Graphics: Intel 915GM Mobile Chipset

Notes on Installation

Manjaro's developers are proud of the friendly installation process of their Linux distribution with good reason. For users who expected to wade through configuration files, Manjaro is certainly a leisurely jog with a FreeBSD/PCBSD-like setup guide that walks administrators through the installation. Anyone who has installed Ubuntu, Fedora or Mageia would no doubt miss the shiny GUI wizard (and promotional images), but would definitely appreciate the ease of use and the overall experience of Manjaro's setup.

Here are a few observations in brief:

1. The dd instructions for creating a LiveUSB on the Manjaro wiki didn't create a bootable LiveUSB from Fedora and the most updated version of Imgburn for Windows no longer supports creating bootable USB sticks (at least it didn't when I tried it in Windows). So, I turned to tried and tested Unetbootin, which worked as expected.

2. Boot up using the LiveUSB was unexpectedly fast, beating out my trusted LiveUSB Knoppix 6.x by almost half a minute on the Acer Aspire. Shutdown was even faster (Super+X)

3. Users accustomed to having an install icon on the desktop and the ability to press ALT+F2 to produce a command window will be surprised at Manjaro. Click Super+M or right-click the desktop to produce an application menu. Manjaro Openbox also includes the launcher Synapse which is triggered by clicking Super+S as instructed from the guide that appears on the Manjaro desktop. Users run the installation wizard by using Synapse or the application menu. Unlike the Enlightment desktop, I quickly got accustomed to using Synapse and the application menu despite my ingrained habit of using the ALT+F2 key combination.

3. Step 2 in the Manjaro setup involves formatting and creating the partitions but Manjaro's wizard refused to format the openSUSE system still present in the hard drive. Manjaro, however, includes GParted in the System menu. To work around this issue, exit the Manjaro installation wizard and run GParted to delete the openSUSE boot, home, and system partitions. Format the partition and restart the Manjaro installation.

4. A curious keyboard issue (that remained even after Manjaro installation) occurred while booting into LiveUSB. Numlock was automatically switched on and I had to disable the key using the FN combination of the Acer Aspire. Forums normally report they prefer this feature (Numlock activated on boot), but I found it odd that the Aspire encountered this issue only with Manjaro and not with any of the other Linux distributions I've tried previously. It was, however, a nuisance at best and  I chalked it up to the legacy BIOS and motherboard the Aspire was sporting.

Note: The Acer Aspire 5500Z does not have a Numlock configuration option in the BIOS.

5. The longest part of the installation was setting up Alsa and updating the Pacman repository. Unlike Archlinux, which cannot be installed without access to the repository, Manjaro completed installation despite failing to update or connect to the repositories.

Note: I was unable to connect to the repos due to my location in Shanghai, China and my ISP. I had previously failed to install Arch due to the same issue. Manjaro finished installation but even after running the proper pacman mirrorlist steps, failed to connect, update or install software.




Continued in Manjaro Openbox on a 7-year old Acer Aspire 5500Z Part 2