The December 2023 release of refreshed ISO images brings the latest LTS 6.6 kernel. Of course, there is still an ISO available with the slightly older LTS 5.4 kernel version – which may be a good choice for some older hardware.
Supported kernels
Currently supported “longterm maintenance” kernels:
| Version | Release date | Projected EOL |
| 6.6 | 2023-10-29 | Dec, 2026 |
| 6.1 | 2022-12-11 | Dec, 2026 |
| 5.15 | 2021-10-31 | Dec, 2026 |
| 5.10 | 2020-12-13 | Dec, 2026 |
| 5.4 | 2019-11-24 | Dec, 2025 |
| 4.19 | 2018-10-22 | Dec, 2024 |
Of course, you can easily install all of the above, even several of them side by side, and decide which one to run at boot time. This is possible because Mabox is based on Manjaro.
A few things worth looking at…
Tint2 + Jgmenu = powerfull panel
The Tint2 panel and Jgmenu are known for offering advanced users incredible capabilities and customization options. We use these possibilities in Mabox. See how we combined Tint2 with Jgmenu to provide new features…
One of the unique features of the Tint2 panel is the ability to connect your own actions (commands/scripts) to events such as left/middle/right click, mouse wheel up/down on panel elements. Check it out 🙂
Conky Widgets on steroids
Conky in Mabox has been equipped with additional features that you will not find in any other Linux distribution. Here again, the wonderful Jgmenu was used with the addition of excellent glue – Bash scripts 😉
Be sure to check out Conky’s context menu and the possibilities it offers…
F12 – Quake console
The much-loved Quake-style slide-out terminal is accessible by pressing F12 (action is start/hide/show).
There is a helpful cheat sheet available as Conky. To see it, right click on any Conky -> select Conky Manager and then run the Conky config called Tiling Terminal.
And last but not least…
Colorizer close to its final 1.0 release
The latest improvements to Colorizer will bring a lot of fun to those of you who enjoy desktop ricing:
– Openbox, Menu and Conky modules already have the functionality to save/quickly restore settings
– new font configuration module – one place to configure fonts (for Openbox, GTK, menus, Conky)
Be aware, some users report spending hours and hours doing this 😉
There are still two important functionalities missing from the final version:
– module for configuring and coloring the Tint2 panel
– quick save/restore meta theme for the entire desktop
Both are already in development…so stay tuned 🙂
Note for new users
Mabox has many of its own specific tools and solutions, but don’t feel overwhelmed by them. There’s no rush… take it easy – Mabox is friendly and fun to use in its simplest form.
Perhaps once you like Mabox, over time you will want to make it your own and special:
– create your own color theme for Mabox – that’s what Colorizer is for
– customize Menu and Sidepanels by adding your own commands and scripts
– …
Take your time… and enjoy Mabox 🙂
Download
ISO images can be downloaded as always from SourceForge or from repo.maboxlinux.org
Two images are available:
– with the latest LTS kernel – linux66
– and with a slightly older LTS – linux54
If you really need an ISO with a different kernel… let us know on the forum… we’ll see what we can do 😉
Support Mabox
If you like Mabox, you can support its maintenance and development on Ko-fi or here.
Hi. First of all, I love this distro! It’s so different and sensible.
I have a question. When I first booted into Mabox, the panel contained a speaker icon with a drop-down menu to choose classic albums and other preloaded music. As I was doing my initial tweaking, I was listening to Pink Floyd. After I restarted my laptop, this icon and the drop-down menu disappeared. Can anyone tell me how to bring this back? I really like that feature. Thank you so much for creating and maintaining such a brilliant system!
Hi Alex 🙂
The command for this menu is:
mb-music -s
if you like to try it from terminal use:
mb-music -s 2>/dev/null