Sunday 26 May 2019

How to install Manjaro Linux in VirtualBox

Manjaro is a Arch-based Linux distribution featuring speed, power and efficiency of Arch Linux minus the effort and technical expertise to set things up by yourself. 

Arch Linux comes with a minimal installation where you go on and set up everything by yourself such as desktop environments, applications, codecs etc. Manjaro promises to reduce this pain (is it?) by providing a distro that has all these required pieces along with the benefits of Arch Linux. 

In this article, we will see some of the features which Manjaro has to offer and the steps to install Manjaro Linux in a VirtualBox. 

System Requirements 

The recommended system requirements include
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 30 GB of storage
  • 1GHz processor
  • HD graphics card 

Features of Manjaro Linux

  • Unlike Arch Linux, it provides a easy, user friendly installation process. 
  • Installation of necessary software like drivers, media codecs, desktop environments is default.
  • Speed, power and efficiency.
  • Rolling release model to keep your system always up to date.
  • Access to Arch User Repository. 

Download Manjaro Linux

Manjaro has four different flavors, out of which the Architect edition comes without a desktop environment. The other three flavors are Xfce, KDE and GNOME. 

You can grab a Manjaro ISO from the official download page. 


I have downloaded the KDE edition for installing Manjaro in VirtualBox. 

Setting up Virtual Box

Before you start the installation process, you will have to set up a Virtual Machine which includes assigning RAM, storage, creating a virtual drive etc. This may help:


Once you have downloaded the ISO file and set up VirtualBox for Linux, start the Virtual Machine. You will see a welcome screen.


Select the option Boot : Manjaro.x86_64 kde to boot to Manjaro Live session. 


You can see an option to Launch Installer under INSTALLATION option. Click on it to begin the installation procedure. 

The installation process consists of various settings that are helpful. The first screen is a Welcome screen displaying the Manjaro Linux version. Click on Next to proceed with the settings before installation. 


Under the Location tab, select your Region and Zone and click on Next. Chances are that it will automatically detect your location. 


In the next screen, select your keyboard layout. The default for Indian was Hindi, so I had to change it to English (India, with rupee).


In the next screen - Partitions, it will ask for the partitioning. Since you are installing it in a VirtualBox with a new VirtualBox hard drive, selecting Erase disk wont create any problem. It will assign a default swap partition for your system. Click on Next to continue. 


Next screen asks you for the user details. Create a new user, assign a password to it and also for the root user and click on Next. I will prefer not to have the same password for root and the user in case I run something as an elevated root process which I shouldn't. 


The next screen Summary displays all your settings. Click on Next to proceed to Install options and continue. 


Installation of Manjaro Linux will take some. Wait for it to finish and then reboot. 

Once you reboot, you will see the Manjaro Linux homescreen, congratulations! Enjoy the powerful Manjaro without the hassle of configuring and setting things up manually which you do in a Arch Linux installation. 


Let us know in the comments if you face any difficulty in installing Manjaro Linux in a VirtualBox. 

0 comments:

Post a Comment