Manjaro 26.1 Bian-May - released

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.

The GNOME edition has received several updates to Gnome 50 series. This includes a lot of fixes and polish when . Weekly updates around GNOME can be found from our sister-project , . It brings exciting new improvements to your desktop.

Plasma 6.7 includes a number of highly-requested features:

It brings powerful new features to KDE’s classic desktop, and refines its user experience to new levels. Enjoy thoughtfully-designed improvements that solve real problems, a sneak peek of future theming bliss, better performance, and more.

In Plasma 6.6 the ability to create your own Global Themes got introduced, and switch between them as part of the day-night cycle. Plasma 6.7 puts you even more in control with a quick toggle to switch between light and dark Global Themes immediately.

The System Tray is already the place for monitoring apps running in the background using traditional methods. Plasma 6.7 extends this support by also showing apps using the newer “Background Apps” system, which is more common for apps using the Flatpak package format.

Plasma 6.7 puts a particular focus on refining the desktop experience to make common tasks faster than ever:

• Faster virtual desktop switching in the Overview


• Drag and drop to add and remove favorites


• More intuitive software management


• Easier to compare different time zones


• “Type-ahead” on the desktop

And finally: Plasma’s Notifications have been given a fancier animation: they now slide in from the nearest screen edge. This makes them more visually prominent and less likely to be missed, while at the same time avoiding being too attention-grabbing.

With our XFCE edition, we have now Xfce 4.20. Here some highlights: A new file highlighting feature (accessed from the file properties dialog) in Thunar file manager lets you set a custom colour background and a custom foreground text colour – an effective way to call attention to specific file(s) in a directory laden with similar-looking mime types. On the subject of finding files, Thunar includes recursive search.

The panel picks up a pair of new preferences. First, panel length is now configured in pixels rather than percentages, as before. Second, there’s a new “keep panel above windows” option. This allows maximised app windows to fill the area behind the panel rather than maximise its bottom or top edge to sit flush against it.

Control Centre groups all of the desktop’s various modules for managing the system into one easy-to-use window. New options are present in many of these. For example you can disable header bars in dialogs from the Appearance module; show or hide a ‘delete’ option in file context menus from Desktop; and pick a default multi-monitor behaviour before you attach an additional screen – dead handy, that.

Kernel 7.1 is used for this release, such as the latest drivers available to date. With 6.18 LTS and 6.12 LTS we offer additional support for older hardware as needed.

We hope you enjoy this release and let us know what you think of Bian-May.

ISOs including this update:

Bian-May 26.1.0 (2026-08-12)