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Manjaro has released a new stable update, the first point release in the Linux distribution’s current 26.1 “Bian-May” series. The update includes a fresh set of kernels and numerous package upgrades, such as KDE Frameworks 6.29, Mesa 26.1.7, QEMU 11.1, Firefox 154, Thunderbird 153.0.2, and VirtualBox 7.2.16.
Probably the most notable change is the addition of Linux kernel 7.2 to Manjaro’s officially supported kernel lineup. Linux 7.1.9 remains available alongside several long-term supported branches, including Linux 6.18.45, 6.12.104, 6.6.152, and 6.1.183. Real-time variants of the 6.1, 6.6, and 6.12 kernels are also maintained.
According to the Manjaro developers, the kernel updates likely resolve the AMDGPU regressions that affected some users in previous releases. Meanwhile, the distribution reminds users that Linux kernels 6.16, 6.17, 6.19, and 7.0 have reached end of life and recommends moving to Linux 7.1 or a supported LTS kernel instead.
On the desktop side, KDE users receive KDE Frameworks 6.29.0. Plasma users relying on SDDM can now migrate to the newer Plasma Login Manager if plasma-login-manager version 6.5.90-1 or later is installed. The change is optional and requires users to disable SDDM and enable the plasmalogin service manually.
Manjaro’s GNOME edition gains a visual improvement for Papirus icon theme users. A new Papirus Folder Colorizer GNOME Shell extension automatically adjusts folder colors to match the accent color selected in GNOME Settings when using the Papirus Dark or Papirus Light icon theme.
On top of that, accent colors selected through Manjaro’s Layout Switcher can also synchronize with folder colors when the required supporting package is installed.
The graphics stack has been updated to Mesa 26.1.7, while virtualization users receive two upgrades: QEMU 11.1.0 and VirtualBox 7.2.16. Mozilla’s applications have also moved forward, with Firefox updated to version 154 and Thunderbird to 153.0.2.
Another change users should note concerns NVIDIA hardware. With Manjaro moving to NVIDIA’s 590 driver series, Pascal-based GeForce GTX 10-series GPUs and older architectures are no longer supported by the current proprietary driver. Systems using Pascal, Maxwell, or older NVIDIA GPUs need to switch to the legacy 580xx driver packages to retain proprietary graphics support.
The update follows Manjaro’s recent transition to Python 3.14. As a result, users with AUR packages that install files into Python’s site-packages directory or link against libpython3.13.so may need to rebuild those packages. Manjaro recommends checking for affected locally installed packages and rebuilding them after the system upgrade.
For additional details, see the announcement.
As usual with Manjaro’s rolling-release model, existing users can obtain all updates through their regular system upgrade procedure. The distribution currently supports Linux kernels 6.1, 6.6, 6.12, 6.18, 7.1, and the newly added 7.2 series.
