The Manjaro-based Mabox Linux 26.08, built around the Openbox window manager, has been released with updated packages and two new tools that help users create customized Mabox installation images and persistence-enabled USB drives.
The new utilities are called mabox-snapshot and mabox-persistence-usb. Both are now in the distribution’s official repositories.
The first, mabox-snapshot, generates a custom ISO image based on the user’s current Mabox system. This lets users turn an existing setup, including customizations, into a bootable installation image instead of starting from a stock ISO.
The second tool, mabox-persistence-usb, works with such an ISO to create a persistence-enabled USB drive. Unlike a conventional live USB, where changes are lost after rebooting, a persistent installation retains files and system changes between sessions.
Mabox Linux 26.08 also improves the Quake-style drop-down terminal opened with F12. It now runs on Kitty, which supports drag-and-drop file copying.
Additionally, the fast, terminal-based Yazi file manager is now preinstalled, giving users another convenient way to browse and manage files directly from the F12 terminal.
For new installations, Mabox Linux 26.08 offers a choice of two LTS kernels. Users can download an image with the newer Linux 6.18 LTS kernel or the older Linux 6.6 LTS branch.
During ISO startup, users can choose whether the live environment loads open-source or proprietary drivers based on their hardware.
For additional details, see the announcement.
Mabox Linux 26.08 ISO images are available from the project’s repository and SourceForge mirrors. Existing Mabox users can access the newly introduced remastering utilities directly through the distribution’s official software repositories.
Image credits: Mabox Linux
