Manjaro-Based Mabox Linux 26.02 Released with New Audio Menu

Mabox Linux, a lightweight rolling-release distribution built on Manjaro and centered around the Openbox window manager, has introduced its new 26.02 release.

One noticeable addition is an updated audio menu. Users can open it with the W-a shortcut or by right-clicking the panel’s volume icon. The menu offers fast access to sound controls through pavucontrol, lets users launch audio players such as the Mabox mini player or PyRadio (in terminal or toggle mode), and includes the Cava visualizer.

The Cava Colorizer component has also been completely redesigned. With the refreshed default setup, sound visualization appears more fluid and dynamic, and new configuration options make it easier to tweak how the visualizer looks and behaves.

The screenshot and screen-capture utility — a lightweight frontend powered by FFmpeg and activated with W-PrtScr — now properly records audio. Within its settings, users can choose screenshot formats such as PNG, JPG, or WebM.

For desktop recording, the tool now supports enabling or disabling audio, selecting container formats (MKV, WebM, or MP4), and adjusting frame rates. Recordings can be stopped directly from the system tray icon.

Another significant change is that the Picom compositor is no longer enabled by default. This improves compatibility with older hardware, where compositing may cause performance or rendering problems. Users can still toggle Picom manually using W-p and enable it permanently through the Autostart settings if it runs smoothly on their system.

As with previous updates, this release also brings a range of smaller fixes and refinements across Mabox tools. Installation images for Mabox 26.02 can be downloaded from SourceForge or the project’s official repository.