Garuda Linux released “Temeraire” on August 19, the Arch-based distribution’s first major update in over a year. It ships Linux kernel 7.2 and changes several long-standing defaults at once.

The project is also switching to dragon names for releases going forward. Temeraire comes from Naomi Novik’s novels, which is a more literate naming scheme than most distributions manage.

Goodbye linux-zen

Garuda built its reputation partly on shipping linux-zen, the performance-oriented kernel patchset, by default. Temeraire replaces it with linux-garuda, built on the CachyOS kernel.

The new kernel runs the EEVDF scheduler and uses DKMS to ensure it is always rebuilt against the latest NVIDIA drivers. That last detail addresses one of the more common ways an Arch-based rolling system breaks: a kernel update lands, the proprietary NVIDIA module does not rebuild in time, and the user reboots into a black screen.

CachyOS has spent the last few years building a reputation for kernel tuning specifically, so adopting its work rather than maintaining a parallel patchset is a reasonable consolidation. It also means two of the more prominent performance-focused Arch derivatives are now sharing kernel engineering instead of duplicating it.

SDDM out, Plasma Login Manager in

Both Plasma editions now use Plasma Login Manager instead of SDDM, including in the live environment.

Plasma Login Manager is KDE’s newer greeter, built to integrate more directly with the rest of the Plasma stack than SDDM’s more general-purpose design allows. Shipping it in the live environment as well means the installer experience matches the installed one.

The Hyprland edition got the biggest changes

Garuda’s Hyprland edition has been substantially rebuilt:

• The configuration is now written entirely in Lua
• hyprlock handles screen locking
• Kitty is the default terminal
• awww replaces swww for wallpaper management

Moving the configuration to Lua is the significant one. Hyprland’s native config format is fine for small setups and becomes unwieldy for the kind of heavily customized environment Garuda ships. Lua gives you variables, functions, and conditionals, which matters when a distribution is maintaining a config that has to work across widely varying hardware.

Anyone with existing customizations on the Hyprland edition should expect to redo them.

Editions

Temeraire ships in KDE, Hyprland, and Sway variants, along with FireDragon 13 and 11, Garuda’s Firefox-derived browser.

Should you upgrade

Garuda is a rolling release, so existing users get there through normal updates rather than reinstalling. The kernel change is the one that warrants attention: if you are on linux-zen and depending on specific zen behavior, verify the switch before assuming it is transparent.

New users should note that Garuda remains an Arch derivative with all that implies. Our Arch Linux explainer covers what you are signing up for, and the pacman guide covers the package manager you will be living with.