Distribution
Archman 2024-12
Nate Drake takes this Turkish Arch-based distro for a test spin. Is it as lightweight and stable as it claims?
IN BRIEF
While the modified Xfce interface is a true Turkish delight, we struggle to recommend this distro as a daily driver. Installing applications was difficult and there’s no dedicated wiki.
SPECS
CPU: 1GHz Mem: 1GB HDD: 2GB Builds: x86_64
T his rolling Linux distro is based on Arch Linux. Like Manjaro, the project website states that it’s a more user-friendly version of its parent OS. The latest stable release runs the Xfce 4.18 desktop, though we noted other downloads running MATE. We can’t be sure, though, as Archman is developed in Turkey, so the main site is in that language. Nevertheless, we were able to download the 2.6GB ISO without issue and boot into the live environment. This launched the Calamares installer, which guided us through the setup process. System encryption is supported. After choosing the hard disk, installation completed in just over 3.5 minutes, putting it on a par with similar Xfce-based distros like Xubuntu.