This article provides an exhaustive review of minstall 2.1, exploring its origins, key features, step-by-step walkthrough, comparison with other installers, and why it matters for the future of lightweight Linux. Minstall is not a standalone operating system; it is the bespoke installation framework for Mabox Linux . Mabox itself is a derivative of Manjaro, which is based on Arch Linux. However, unlike the complex, command-line driven archinstall or the archaic Arch Linux manual installation, Mabox targets users who want the rolling-release power of Arch with the polish and convenience of a desktop-ready system .
Early versions of Mabox relied on the Calamares installer—a popular, cross-distribution graphical installer. However, the development team, led by Stefen (aka 'Pobega'), decided that Calamares was too heavy, too slow, and introduced unnecessary dependencies. This led to the birth of (short for "Mabox install"). minstall 2.1
| Installer | Graphical? | Resource Use | Arch-based? | Beginner Friendly? | Time to Install (SSD) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | No (text) | ~20 MB RAM | Yes | Medium (requires basic partitioning knowledge) | 4–6 min | | Calamares | Yes (Qt) | ~200 MB RAM | Yes (Manjaro) | High | 5–7 min | | Ubuntu Ubiquity | Yes (GTK) | ~300 MB RAM | No (Debian) | Very High | 8–10 min | | Arch Linux (manual) | No (shell) | ~5 MB RAM | Yes | Very Low (expert only) | 15–30 min | | archinstall | No (text) | ~15 MB RAM | Yes | Medium | 3–4 min | This article provides an exhaustive review of minstall 2