Ganymede Neo is out with kernel updates and upstream NVIDIA changes

We kick off 2026 with the release of Ganymede Neo. As you are used to with our Neo releases, this release contains upstream updates and minor changes compared to the Ganymede ISO.

Before I get into the release notes, I just want to remind you of the following.

The changes described above only affect new installations, our Calamares installer and the live environment on the ISO. Running systems do not need to upgrade to Ganymede Neo; If you update regularly, your system is fine.

The Ganymede Neo release

This ISO and offline installer comes with:

Squids 26.01.1.5-1
Firefox 146.0.1-1
Linux 6.18.4.arch1-1
Table 1:25.3.3-2
Xorg Server 21.1.21-1 (xorg)
Nvidia-utils 590.48.01-2

And has the following bug fixes:

• The long startup time problem with Squid has been resolved.
• The package nemo preview has been removed from the default package bundle for Cinnamon and Budgie during installation due to its removal from the Arch repository.
• Starting with this release, the NVIDIA proprietary drivers has been switched to nvidia-open due to the upstream changes to NVIDIA drivers: https://archlinux.org/news. As a result, the proprietary option now only supports Turing GPUs (16xx) and later. Earlier NVIDIA GPUs are still supported using the default boot option, which will use the Nouveau open source drivers.

These are all the changes Ganymede Neo ships with to ensure a smooth ISO boot and installation. We are currently hard at work with further refinements and additions for Ganymede’s successor, Titan. So keep an eye on our announcements.

Ganymede Neo is available on our homepage.