Manjaro Linux – on ezbook 3 pro REVIEW (after two weeks)

[Dimitrios]

ok…..after two weeks of running my ezbook 3 pro v6 with manjaro linux (xfce) lets try to post a short review….

1. Hardware.

Everything works out of the box. Sound is excellent and we have the option to overload the speakers to get more powerfull sound (although at full there is distortion).

fn+f keys for sound and brightness and mail work out of the box.

camera works but its a bit laggy (tested only in vlc)

Battery lasts for over six hours but haven’ t tested it thoroughly. I suspect 7 plus hours running time for me (mostly working on documents and spending time on the internet (you tube, news sites etc).

Internal m.2 ssd (a cheap recadata 120bg from gearbest) runs perfectly and with full speed but I am reluctant to install thew system on it yet, due to some strange boot errors (ATA related) at boot. Right now it serves as a data disk (music – movies etc).

My only complain concerning the hardware is the keyboard and more specifically the space bar, which sometimes fails to register when I press it lightly with my right thump. When I use some “force” it always registers

Touchpad works out of the box. And you can add multi-gestures support with libinput-gestures (for this see my guide to manjaro thread). The only problem I encountered is its failure to work after a suspend. I had to shutdown and after I booted up it worked again. When I just rebooted it still didn’t work.

System temperatures are very low. I saw temperatures more than 40C only when watching HD in youtube or other flash videos and when I benchmarked the laptop.

2. OS – Software

I have installed Manjaro xfce on the internal emmc, which in my case is a sandisk one.
It boots in about 15-18 seconds to the login screen  and after the login to full desktop (running docky,conky, dropbox ) in 3-4 seconds more.  (I suspect that if I address the boot errors, the boot time will decrease significantly)
In all the system boots  very fast.
Apps start very fast even, heavy ones like libre – office.
I have installed a lot of different apps from official repos and aur with no problems at all (dropbox, spotify, audacious, clementine, deluge , steam (but havent gamed yet)).
Beautification is possible in a matter of seconds. Since I use macs, I tried to  make look like os x as much as possible.
Up to now system is rock solid and fast. Manjaro is based on ARCHLinux so a bit of command line is needed (for example when I formatted the m.2 ssd system failed to boot  due to fstab (failed to mount the m.2) so I had to make a small change to the fstab in terminal).

Some screenshots of my desktop:

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[Chris G]

Great post, so overall recommend for Linux Manjaro? Also what version do you own? The V4? Or newer?

Chris | Admin
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[Dimitrios]

Thanks ….
Manjaro is highly recommended for the ezbook 3 pro.
I have a bios of 6-12-2017 so probably my ezbook  is V6…

[Dimitrios]

Booted with 100% battery ….
I am surfing the web for 40minutes now. ….and I am using pacman to install and remove apps ……
BATTERY IS AT 95%

screenshot below

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[Dimitrios]

After 3 hours of working on google docs, during which I was listening to music for bout 30 minutes with audacious, I have 65 % battery:

[dimitrios@dimitrios-laptop ~]$ uptime
23:59:05 up 3:00, 1 user, load average: 1,79, 1,37, 1,20
[dimitrios@dimitrios-laptop ~]$

All the tests I do for my type of usage result to more than 8 hours battery time……

I am truly amazed!!!!!!! Truly truly amazed….
Lets hope thee battery quallity is good, or that i can find a replacement when the time comes.

The only deeply deeply disturbing thing is the ()*&(^&$$#%^(&*() space bar and it;s often failure to register unless I give a firm press……….

 

 

[Ernst Kuzorra]

Is this docky in a standard configuration or did you tweak it somehow to make it look like this?

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Kuzorra

[Dimitrios]

Its a bit tweaked

[Ernst Kuzorra]

Like?

(Don’t want to spam your thread, maybe you can send me a PM)

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Kuzorra

[Dimitrios]

Dear Martin, in  my system there is no screen tearing, which is odd because the xfce compositor is terrible.

I am using the intel video driver, not the mesa one.

Since you are using gnome its most probably its compositor.

Go to the manjaro forums and you will find allot of threads regarding  screen tearing.
Some people  install compton as compositor.
I have the same exact issue in my desktop with manjaro xfce in firefox and some other programs.  When I disable the xcfe compositor it goes away. It also goes away when I enable compiz. But I dont like compiz….so……

[Dimitrios]

In laptops like the ezbook 3 pro…. and as a general rule…. I suggest you avoid all the heavy DE and WM.
XFCE has a very small footprint, its low on resources and more or less feature full. Ok it has some glitches there and there… but we have to take things under perspective.
I got a very fast 200 Euros laptop with great battery time and well build….. I cannot ask for more……

 

[James Luke Schlebach]

Hi there, how did you install Manjaro?

I seem to be having troubles booting into my live USB!

[martin h]

Manjaro Linux – EzBook 3 Pro (sanDisk emmc) INSTALLATION GUIDE – Customization

 

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