A new stable version of the Arch Linux-based Manjaro operating system has been released, with a lot of changes, improvements, and a new installer.

The new Manjaro 15.09 has been in the works since June and developers have finally managed to release the stable version of this new operating system. The version number for this new branch has been changed as well. It was initially promoted as 0.9.x, but following some discussions with the developers, the lead of the project, Philip Müller, decided to change it to time-based version. 15.09 just means 2015 and the month of September.

Manjaro is based on Arch Linux, so it has access to the official repositories and it shares many of the underpinnings. You can think of Manjaro as a much simpler to install Arch Linux, but there are enough differences to consider Manjaro a standalone and powerful project.

Manjaro 15.09 is here and ready for download

"Since June we are working on this release. First thing you will notice, this release was not tagged 0.9.0 as we would have normal done. Well, we had a discussion with all developers and decided to go for date tags from now on. Also new is: we ship with Calamares as an alternative graphical installer. It is now stable enough to be used on productive systems. You can still use Thus. Also our terminal installer got some small improvements," reads the official announcement made by Philip Müller.

According to the changelog, Xfce 4.12 has been implemented by default, the Linux kernel 4.1 LTS has been added (more are available in the repositories), the Menda themes have been re-based on the Vertex, the Calamares secondary installer has been improved, the Manjaro Settings Manager offers a simple way to manage the Linux kernels, the Pamac packame management tool has been upgraded to version 2.4.1, and users now have the option of choosing between OpenRC and Systemd.

You can download Manjaro 15.09 from Softpedia and give it a spin.