After the early December preview-release of Manjaro Linux 25.1, the team has today officially pushed a new stable update, marking the release of Manjaro 26, code-named Anh-Linh, following the previous Zetar release from April 2025.
As we already informed you, the headline change is the move to Plasma 6.5 and GNOME 49, both now configured to use Wayland by default.
In light of this, users who still rely on X11 sessions, particularly for legacy workflows or hardware, are advised to review the project’s known issues before rebooting. For systems that require continued X11 support, the XFCE edition remains the recommended option.
Graphics support is another major area affected by this release. Manjaro now ships NVIDIA driver version 590.48, which drops support for older Pascal and Maxwell GPUs. Only Turing-class hardware and newer are supported by the 590xx series.
Users should be aware that systems with older NVIDIA cards may fail to load the driver unless alternative packages are selected. Those running affected hardware are strongly encouraged to consult the documented workarounds before updating.
Beyond desktop and driver changes, Manjaro 26 delivers a broad set of core software updates. Mesa has been updated to version 25.3.2, Firefox reaches 146, and LibreOffice moves to 25.8.4. Multimedia and audio components also see refreshes, including GStreamer 1.26.10, ALSA 1.2.15, and WirePlumber 0.5.13.
The recently released first stable version of the COSMIC desktop comes with its first patch update, 1.0.1, while Budgie (v10.9.4) and Cinnamon (v6.6) receive package updates as part of the stable rollout.
Regarding supported kernels, Manjaro 26 uses Linux kernel 6.18 by default, providing access to the latest drivers available at release time. For compatibility with older hardware, additional long-term support options remain available, including kernels 6.12 LTS and 6.6 LTS.
New ISOs for Manjaro 26 “Anh-Linh” (intended only for new installations) with KDE, GNOME, and XFCE desktops are now available. Current users, however, just need to update their system in the usual way to upgrade to the latest release.
For more information, see the announcement or look here.
