[HowTo] Upgrade Manjaro to the latest version

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Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆

How can i upgrade Manjaro to the latest version?

Simply update as usual.
Being a rolling release distribution, keeping Manjaro up-to-date is enough to always be at the latest version.

How can i upgrade the kernel?

Actually, kernels are an “exception” to the above rule, in the sense that they will only update to the latest patch version.
This is because Manjaro allows users to have multiple kernels installed. As such, updating your system will also update your installed kernels to their respective latest patch, but will not install newer versions nor uninstall older ones.
Please refer to the following guide for managing your kernels: Manjaro Kernels - Manjaro

Then what are the release announcements for?

As time passes, the Manjaro team continues to polish and improve the distribution, by adding new tools, changing default applications, and of course keeping all packages up-to-date. Those changes may then be featured in the latest ISO, so that new users start with a fresher installation.

How can i get those new features on an existing system?

All of these are among the packages available in the repositories; they are just a package installation or configuration reset away.
Because the user must stay in control of their system, these new defaults and packages are not installed during a system update, as not to overwrite the user’s customized configuration.

New defaults and packages are usually listed in the release announcement, so users seeking the fresher experience can individually apply them:

  • new packages can simply be installed as usual
  • new defaults can be applied by replacing the user configuration file (in ~ or /home/<user>) with the associated one from /etc/skel

:star: Tip: You may find the folder /etc/skel empty, but the default configuration files you seek are actually there, only hidden. You may need to set your file manager to show hidden files to see them:

  • Ctrl+H in GTK : Nautilus (GNOME), Thunar (Xfce) …
  • Alt+. in Qt : Dolphin (KDE) …
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Hi, I have a question regarding this post of yours.

Like, If I want to upgrade to the latest version, with all the new packages, is it enough to reset the .config, or does that not refer to the new packages, but only the .config defaults? Or can you then just get these new packages one by one?

And if I copy over from /etc/skel, do I do that before the update, or after the update? From my not so knowledgeable point of view, both make sense. If /etc/skel changes with each release, then if I copy it at the wrong time, then I should get the new features no later than the “next but one” release?

Kind regards

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Hello. :wave:

There are two parts to consider:

  • existing default packages with new defaults
  • new default packages.

As explained in the tutorial, existing user configuration is not overwritten when updating packages. So when updating existing and installed default packages, the new defaults are not applied to the users. You then need to overwrite them with those from /etc/skel for those packages or, if you have some custom settings to keep, merge the two with a merging tool.
Resetting the whole ~/.config folder is overkill though, as there are likely custom settings in there for some applications, that you wouldn’t want to lose while resetting specific configurations.

New default packages, if also not yet installed, behave the same way as any package you install for the first time, creating the default configuration at that time.

Yes of course.

The new default configuration can only be available after the package is updated.

Do you mind i ask a moderator to add those replies to the thread? You might not be the only one with such questions. :wink:

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Thank you for your quick reply. That answered my remaining questions.

Feel free to have a moderator add the conversation to the original thread. There were no questions in your HowTo, so I thought maybe my question is obsolete :stuck_out_tongue: Would be nice if question and answer could help some other people.

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