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Manjaro 26.1 Bian-May - released

forum.manjaro.org

Key points

Manjaro 26.1 "Bian-May" was released on 12 August 2026, following "Anh-Linh" from January. It ships Linux 7.1 with GNOME 50, Plasma 6.7 and Xfce 4.20 editions. Two refreshed ISO sets have followed: 26.1.1 on 25 August and 26.1.2 on 10 September.

Kernel

  • Linux 7.1 is the default kernel.
  • 6.18 LTS and 6.12 LTS are offered for older hardware, each with its own minimal ISO.

GNOME edition (GNOME 50)

  • Parental controls: parents and guardians can monitor screen time and set limits and bedtime schedules for child accounts. The screen locks automatically when a limit or bedtime is reached, and time can be extended when needed.
  • Manjaro also ships Big Parental Controls 1.0 from its sister project Big Linux, to comply with recent laws in Brazil.
  • Remote desktop: hardware acceleration through Vulkan and VA-API makes sessions smoother, with less lag and lower power use. Explicit sync improves stability with NVIDIA drivers.
  • Variable refresh rate and fractional scaling received bug fixes and stability work; scales such as 125% or 150% can be selected in display settings.
  • With VRR active, the mouse cursor updates independently of the application's frame rate, so it stays at the monitor's maximum refresh rate.
  • Workarounds for NVIDIA driver quirks reduce stuttering and frame-timing problems.
  • Version 2 of the Wayland colour management protocol is supported.
  • Monitors showing HDR content can now be screen shared and recorded with the same colours.

Plasma edition (Plasma 6.7, Frameworks 6.28, KDE Gear 26.04)

  • A quick toggle switches immediately between light and dark Global Themes.
  • The System Tray also shows applications that use the newer "Background Apps" system, common with Flatpak.
  • Faster virtual desktop switching in the Overview, drag and drop to add and remove favourites, more intuitive software management, easier comparison of time zones, and type-ahead on the desktop.
  • Notifications now slide in from the nearest screen edge.

Xfce edition (Xfce 4.20)

  • Thunar: file highlighting with a custom background and text colour, set from the file properties dialog, and recursive search.
  • Panel: length is set in pixels instead of percentages, and a new "keep panel above windows" option lets maximised windows fill the area behind the panel.
  • Control Centre gathers the system modules in one window. New options include disabling header bars in dialogs, showing or hiding "delete" in file context menus, and choosing a default multi-monitor behaviour before a screen is attached.

Downloads

  • Each edition (Xfce, GNOME, KDE) has a full ISO and a minimal ISO with Linux 7.1, plus minimal ISOs with Linux 6.18 and 6.12.
  • Every image comes with .sig, .sha1, .sha256, .torrent and .pkgs files on download.manjaro.org.
  • The current set is 26.1.2, dated 2026-09-10.

Summary by DistroNews, based on the original post.

Manjaro 26.1 Since we released Anh-Linh in January 2026 we worked hard to get the next release of Manjaro out there. We call it Bian-May. Manjaro 26.1 Bian-May: Big Upgrades! The GNOME edition has received several updates to Gnome 50 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when Gnome 50 originally was released in March 2026. You can find find release dates of each upcoming point-release here: Release Calendar. Weekly updates around GNOME can be found here. Highlights of 50 release series are: GNOME’s parental controls have made a massive leap forward in GNOME 50. For the first time it is now possible for parents and guardians to monitor screen time and set limits for child accounts, including bedtime schedules. The new features allow automatically locking the screen when a screen limit or bedtime is reached. Parents and guardians also have the ability to extend screen time past the limit when needed. We also ship Big Parental Controls 1.0 from our sister-project Big Linux from Brazil, to comply with recent laws there. GNOME’s built-in remote desktop capabilities have seen significant improvements in version 50. A major performance boost comes from new hardware acceleration support (using Vulkan and VA-API). By using your computer’s graphics processor to stream video, remote sessions are now significantly smoother with much less lag and lower power consumption. Compatibility has also been improved for a wider range of hardware with the integration of explicit sync, which provides a more stable experience for those using NVIDIA drivers. GNOME’s display technologies have received a massive set of stability and performance updates in GNOME 50. Improved Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and Fractional Scaling Support: VRR and fractional scaling have both been improved for GNOME 50, with bug fixes, stability, and user experience improvements.

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