 Every once in a while I come across a distro that just makes me ask WTF? What is this distro? Because there are just a ton of Linux distributions out there, there's way more than you think and some of them are just kind of weird and you just need to look at them and find out why they exist and that's what we're going to do today. Today we're going to be taking a look at a Linux distribution called Mabox, Mabox Linux, M-A-B-O-X Linux and this is a distribution based on Manjaro. Now if you think that's a little weird, it's because it is. There's not very many distributions out there that are based on Manjaro. Usually they just base themselves off of Arch and then go from there but in this case we're looking at a distribution that's based on Manjaro which itself is based on Arch. It also runs the OpenBox window manager which is also fairly rare. You don't see too many distributions where their main thing is the OpenBox window manager. So I'm actually kind of looking forward to taking a look at this distribution. So let's go ahead and take a look at the website and then we can install it. So this is their website and I have to say this is a pretty website. Usually with these distributions that are more off the beaten path, their websites aren't so great. Sometimes they don't even have websites. They just use sourceforge for their website and while that's not necessarily indicative of whether or not the distribution is good or not, sometimes you can tell if they haven't put effort into building a website then maybe they haven't put so much effort into actually creating the distribution but not in this case. This case we have a really good website. There's an entire user guide here that will show you how to do several things including deal with their theme manager, their control center and stuff like that. There's a download button right front and center which is not something you can take for granted these days and then there's some information on the distro. So we know that they're going to be using the LTS kernel by default and because it's using Manjaro we can assume that there's going to be fresh software and they also have gone through and created several Mobox tools. So we're going to take a look at those as well. The last release of this was actually in November of last year so it has been a little while but it seems that they released twice a year. So I don't think that we can qualify this as an abandoned distro or anything like that. They just released twice a year and we haven't seen the first release for this year yet. So let's go ahead and actually just install this distro in a virtual machine. So let's go to virt manager here and I have the virtual machine set up so I'm going to get hit finish here hit yes wait for it to open up make sure that we're booting with the right drivers and then make sure this is full screen. So let's go ahead and see what this looks like. So it puts us right into a live environment. So first let's see if we can change that display resolution. So let's see if control alt t does a terminal which it does. That's an interesting looking terminal. So we'll do X render dash S 1920 by 1080 like that and we're good. Good cool. Now let's see here if we can find the installer install my box right here. So this is the Calamari's installer and we'll go ahead and just run through a quick installation then we'll look at everything else do next. That time zone is fine but I've noticed that their text and stuff here is a little off I wonder if we change that yeah if they made that window just a little bit bigger they wouldn't have the text up here in the map. So let's go ahead next and that's a fine keyboard layout. We don't need a swap in this virtual machine but normally I would select swap I will I will go ahead and change to BT butterfs because I just prefer it and if you wanted to you can encrypt your system from here we'll hit next we'll enter our credentials so my box VM and enter a very strong and complicated password make sure that it's the same for the administrator account hit next hit install and hit install now I think one of the reasons why some of that stuff that we saw in this dollar wasn't in the proper like positioning is the text seems a little bit bigger in this installer than what I'm normally used to seeing maybe that's just my brain playing tricks on me but maybe that's the reason why some of the stuff was like below a scroll bar so I'm going to cut the video here we'll come back when it's installed okay there we go it's installed now that's I'm gonna hit the restart button here and hit done and then it should pop right back up now that took about four and a half minutes or so so it wasn't very long installation at all so this is using the I believe this is light dm for their display manager so we'll enter our very strong complicated password and before we do anything else I'm going to open up that terminal again and do xrander dash s 1920 by 1080 like that and then we'll do that now is there a keybinding here for restarting openbox so we can kind of reset the wallpaper there I don't see one in the conchi but I might just be missing it that's okay I guess we'll just leave it there so this is the mobox 22 to her both I'm not sure if I'm saying that right either welcome screen it's very similar to what you get with men jarrow but it's a little bit different so we have the update system add kernel install popular app stuff same as you'd get in men jarrow there's a donate in IRC channel and button it as well and then we'll not launch that to start and just hit exit there's nothing there that is out of the ordinary obviously links to the quick start guide in the website in the forum as well so go ahead and hit exit there now this is the open box window manager and I have to say that I'm not that familiar with openbox I've never actually tried it long term I've used it for you know some reviews or whatever but I've never actually spent a lot of time in it so I'm not all that familiar with I know if you right click on the screen you get a menu here I believe this is also the tint to bar up here as well so that's why that looks a little bit different than what you'd see with like something like polybar so let's see here what kind of memory we're looking at so let's open up a terminal we'll zoom in well the first we'll see a free dash m multiple unit options don't make sense well I've never seen that before let's see if htop is installed htop is not installed what about neo fetch neo fetch is installed so we do have a custom icon here we're using let's see here about 465 megabytes of memory but this is not going to be accurate because neo fetch does not count memory the same way free does but free is not working this is the terminator terminal which is an interesting choice I've hardly seen that be the default terminal in any Linux distribution ever so that's interesting this is open box with the super desk theme we'll look more at the themes in a minute this is 900 packages this is arch so that's about normal this is using kernel 5.15.25 which is the LTS kernel as far as I'm aware so there's that so let's go ahead and close that now let's see here first let's go ahead take a quick look at the applications that are included I'm not expecting this to be anything out of the ordinary I'm expecting you to get pretty much the same stuff you'd get with manjarro so accessories we got clippet file manager which is probably going to be that looks like pc man fm I'm guessing about yeah that's pc man fm so we'll close that again and then let's see here we have a fsearch which is for searching the system calculator which is calculator late dm reader setting so you can change the wallpaper and stuff nitrogen xarchiver x tool xpads which is sticky notes and stuff I like how in in parentheses there they have this like a description of what this the thing is just in case you don't know that nitrogen is a wallpaper setter or that uh the pc man fm is a file manager even though it says file manager in the in the name let's see here for development we have genie and meld graphics we have color picker flame shot which is cool I love that they have flame shot installed by default no gimp here but you can install gimp easily enough multimedia audacious for music player mpv for multimedia player that looks like that's it so they haven't installed multiple media players which is nice a lot of distributions get kind of crazy with installing multiple applications that do basically the same thing so you'll see audacious and vlc or mpv and vlc or whatever for internet we have firefox text chat and links to a mail reader or web browser but i don't see a mail reader or web browser actually installed so i wonder if we click this what will come up nothing okay i'm assuming that's a menu feature and not something that they chose to do so office we have no library office here that's just a like a p i believe that's going to be like a pdf viewer and then we have the settings stuff so let's go ahead now and take a look at the configuration manager so here is there what i'm assuming is going to be their theme manager let's resize this to something a little bit different so we'll scroll down and see what themes that they have so they have several that are kind of manjaro-esque and we'll kind of starting off in the middle here so we'll scroll all the way to the top so we have adapt a several versions of adapt a art wiz i've never actually heard of that before beam these are gonna be like flat blue and then let's see here what i'm looking for is the dracula one i saw the dracula theme on their website i want to try that one here we go right here and how do we apply that a few moments later okay so it turns out i'm an idiot i know i know you don't really have to tell me that everybody already knew that when you click on these things it changes automatically i was sitting here i mean i sit here for probably five minutes actually looking for an apply button and i didn't notice that when i clicked on it it automatically changed again moron so yeah when you click on that you get the theme i believe you get the theme yeah you get the theme all the way through which is cool and so it's almost instantaneously switching so it's i'd say that it's not intuitive but if you pay attention it's perfectly intuitive if you don't pay attention and realize that things have changed that's kind of your own fault so they have dracula they have grub box they have several different i mean just a couple dozen themes here to choose from which is kind of cool and the fact that they include popular themes as well like dracula and grub box that's pretty sweet i have to admit what i don't see here is like a true dark theme so i'm what i'm not sure about like is if let's choose one that looks like a the dark theme so this one here looks like a dark theme let's open up another application here so we know like piece like the pcfm yeah that's still like basically a light theme i don't see one that is like actually like a true dark theme like there should be like i'm assuming i'm doing something wrong again but let's drill back up here go back to like dracula should be like a dark theme those are these drug box should be a dark theme but no i wonder if there's like something that we have to choose later on or in one of these other tabs here that will allow us to use it's like a dark theme i don't see one we'll come back through these and go through these a little bit more in a few minutes yeah i have to admit that it's a little odd that there's not and like a true dark theme here like they have ones that are like meant to be dark like dracula and grove box are meant to be dark but they're they don't really show up as dark they still have like a gray window body and all that's dark is the title header it's not that big of a deal but and it's possible that i'm just missing around you know missing it because you know i haven't gone through and actually tried every single theme here and i'm not going to but the point is is that well it has a lot of themes it doesn't seem to have a dark theme which is weird okay i'm assuming you could probably make your own because there is a button down here to create your own theme but how that would be done i don't actually know so let's see here we also have a tab here for appearance where you can change the font and the window title orders so that you can change like the buttons up here in the title bar we have some windows settings here so things like focus new windows when they appear and uh choosing which monitor is primary which is cool move and resize so it's going this is going to change the resistance against other windows and probably like the how accurate you had to be in the corners in order to drag the windows because if you notice like down at the bottom you have to be super accurate but it's easier up here at the top some mouse settings desktop settings so you can change how many workspaces you have margin settings so this is going to be like uh how close to the edges stuff is so this stuff doesn't get placed there and then some doc settings as well i'm assuming doc apps is what it's calling this stuff up here okay so that is the configuration manager i don't have to say that i was more impressed because if we go back to the website if we open up this Dracula one yeah if you see this like this has like a a complete dark theme that looks nothing like what we just chose some i have to be doing something wrong so let's go back to this obviously missing something let me do some investigation okay as is usual when i come across a distribution that uses this or a window manager that uses this weird menu system i always miss the stuff up here at the top because i just assume this these things are shortcuts but there's actually a whole another menu here that i you know completely missed because blinder than a bat even with the glasses on so there's a whole bunch of stuff here so if we just go into the theme manager here we can actually see if we choose the Dracula theme here and then hit that that's what we're going to see there's the theme that we're looking for so they have a ton of stuff here so there's a Dracula one there's a grub box one we double click that hit okay there's going to be the Dracula or the grub box one and then there i mean there's just there's not nearly as many as that we're in the configuration manager so you can probably see why i was a little confused because they have multiple places where you can change stuff so there's this there's the look and feel here which is basically the xfce look and feel manager right here and then there's this bunch so there's this bunsen lab when there's the xfc one that i showed you then there's the configuration one that we saw first multiple different places to change a theme kind of confusing unless you've actually probably delved into the documentation which of course i have not so let's take a look a couple more of these themes so there's a Nordic one here we'll go to Nord and that's what you'd expect Nord and this bunsen theme manager changes everything that those other apps also control so this is what you probably should be using i have to say these themes are gorgeous like they're really good looking and if it was just a little bit easier to find that that'd be so good honestly that is a pretty looking desktop i've forgotten how much i like Dracula anyway so those are the themes let's go see what else is in that configuration menu so we have like a settings menu here that we can change some settings you also change the theme right from here what if we change if we change like two so that just changes the one thing not not all of them okay not like that one app we were just in you can also set a random thing which is cool you can change the icons and stuff all from this one menu that's that's kind of cool i just have to admit i wish it would change the entire theme from the menu maybe you can and i'm just not seeing it that's cool you can also change the logout dialogue and stuff from here what's in the right and left and main menu you can come on come back here you can change a lot of the stuff in the tint to menu up there as well right from here conkeys right from here you can change what conkeys you have all that stuff that that bunsen theme app does can be done one you know piecemeal right here change notification settings from here preferred applications power manager login settings auto start stuff the configuration file from for open box right from here so that is really cool i have to admit i'm really impressed with that and this dracula theme blows me away like this is this should be their default honestly i think that's really cool what's looking for some icon oh that's a screenshot button screenshot cool uh volume and then there's a little there's a little icon bar up here for all of your icons as well and then there's a power menu so i have to admit that's really really cool i wonder now that i've been here for a little while what the the update situation looks like so we'll do sudo pacman dash syyu enter our password and see how many past because this has not been updated this is iso has not been updated since november so let's uh make this a little bit bigger so there is yeah there's quite a lot of updates there not as many as i actually thought that there would be so it makes me wonder if they've actually updated this you know fairly recently i will update that for uh just to let it update but other than that i have to admit this is really quite cool i'm not sure i'm a big fan of open box like i'm not a floating manager kind of guy but if you are if you like open box i can see this being really interesting to a lot of people because some people don't you know enjoy theming and ricing as much as i do doing their own stuff like that they want to have all that stuff pre-made for them here you go this is pre-made and especially if you enjoy open box i don't have a lot to compare this to so i don't know what other open open box stuff looks like but this has really kind of blown me away in terms of look and feel and it's not bloated you know a lot of these distributions that you can kind of tell were made for just a small group of people that are just you know they a few people got together and decided that they were going to create a distribution a lot of those distributions tend to be bloated in terms of here's every application underneath the sun you know and you have nine different music players and a in gimp and creator both here you know stuff like that this was not that way you know it's very toned down there's a lot of it has the applications that you'd absolutely have to have like a music player and a video player but it doesn't even come with an office but you'd have to install that so there's not a ton of cruft there to kind of either slow you down or require you to uninstall it everything that you need you'd probably have to go through and install which is perfectly fine because everybody uses different stuff and then this way you don't have to actually uninstall stuff you don't want used when i came across this distribution i didn't really know what to think because i had no clue what it was i saw it in the google news feed i was like hey you know there's something else that i can make a video about i wasn't expecting to like it this much quite honestly now obviously i can't make a definitive judgment on whether or not it's stable or if it's going to stay maintained forever or any of that kind of stuff but just from the brief look that i've taken at it it's really good i really like it so that is my box linux if i'm pronouncing that right i still don't know if you have thoughts on this you can leave those in the comment section below you can follow me on twitter at the linux cast you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linux cast before i go i'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons robert cid devon patrick fred krammerd maglind jackson i from tulle steve severga linux garrick samuel mitchell art center carbon data jamie shawn odin martin e andy ross merit cam jash will you get out peter a crucible dark wind six primers and pre-m thanks everybody for watching i'll see you next time