Introduction
Available installation media
Mageia has two distinct installation media types:
- DVD ISO and Dual-arch CD ISO, which use the drakx traditional installer and
- Live DVD/CD ISO, a live ISO which can be used to preview the distribution and also later be used to install Mageia on your hard drive.
For more information have a look at the installation media page.
You will always find the download info on the Mageia download page; direct (ftp and http) and BitTorrent downloads are available.
The Mageia online repositories
The Mageia software sits in three different repositories/media, depending on the type of license applied to each package. Here's an overview of those repositories:
- Core: The Core repository includes packages with free-open-source software, i.e. packages licensed under a free-open-source license, the set of the "Core" media along with "Core Release" and "Core Updates" are available by default.
- Nonfree: The Nonfree repository includes packages that are free-of-charge, i.e. Mageia may redistribute them, but they contain closed-source software (hence the name - Nonfree). For example this repository includes nVidia and ATI graphics card proprietary drivers, firmware for various WiFi cards, etc.
The Nonfree media set is added by default but not enabled by default.
- Tainted: The Tainted repository includes packages released under a free license. The main criteria for placing packages in this repository is that they may infringe on patents and copyright laws in some countries, e.g. multimedia codecs needed to play various audio/video files; packages needed to play commercial video DVD, etc.
The Tainted media set is added by default but not enabled by default, i.e. it's completely opt-in; so check your local laws before using packages from this repository.
This repository is only added for the convenience of the users. This repository is to Mageia what PLF is to Mandriva users or RPM Fusion is to Fedora users.
Major new features
Installation
Stage 1
- The first stage of the installer automatically passes the correct URL to stage2 if it was provided.
- eg http://foobar.com/mirrors/mageia/3/ instead of http://foobar.com/mirrors/mageia/3/x86_64
- The installer can now create and install to a btrfs file system, however to boot correctly a separate ~200MB ext2 partition with the mount point /boot must be created during the partitioning step.
- It now uses kmod for loading modules
- A bug was fixed in kmod which would cause the installer to load an incorrect driver for some hardware due to kmod not enforcing module ordering (mga#5833).
List of all change since Mga2
Stage 2
- Hardware support
- Tokenring is no longer supported.
- support was added for ton of recent hardware
- media
- it's now possible to enable nonfree & tainted media during install. Proprietary drivers and/or non-free firmware can now be installed during installation. The user is be asked whether to keep non-free packages during installation via a simple checkbox. Moving the mouse above the media shows a description of what each contains.
- nonfree media is pre-selected if we detect hardware will not work without non free firmwares
- when adding update media at end of install, all media are now installed as updates might requires packages from the full sources (DVD is only a subset)
- The installer can now write a debug file to a USB key formatted as NTFS instead of FAT (mga#5685).
- The installer has been updated to include the latest kernel/rpm/perl/pango/x11-server.
- Storage
- whereas drakx integrates well in most virtualized OSes, it finally supports installing on XEN paravirtualized disks.
- Resizing NTFS works again (it was broken by the switch from ntfsprogs to ntfs-3g)
- The 'acl' option is only allowed for extX & reiserfs
- The minimum size for auto spliting /home fs is now 12Gb instead of 8 if simple partioning, or 10Gb instead of 7 to 10Gb if /usr is split (eg: servers)
- It is now possible to choose btrfs in normal mode
- GUI:
- the GUI has been refreshed and now uses the Oxygen theme
- the help has been vastly improved
- text size of help and of updates installation is the same as the installer one
- support for xguest was disabled
- package groups
- An "unselect all" button has been added when one chooses to pick package groups, allowing a faster minimal installation.
- Grub2 can now be installed at the summary step, it can also be installed in a partition. However, please see the errata for information on how to multi-boot into the system. Integration in drakboot is only partial, if you feel that you need to customize the menu then please read /usr/share/doc/grub2/README.Mageia for the native grub2 techniques, or you could maybe try grub-customizer.
- various improvements:
- auto install: xdm install is now non interactive
- fix installing minimum system prior to set up network media
- installation errors are displayed only once at the end instead of stopping the install for each error with a popup.
- ...
List of all change since Mageia 2.
Debugging
It's now possible to rebuild stage 1 & stage 2 packages with a debug option in order to have better environments for debugging the installer.
Rescue
- Rescue will select the most recent version of Mageia when several Mageia instances have been installed. It now also offers to pick the one to rescue.
- It will refuse to repair an incompatible installation (eg: 64 bit OS with a 32 bit rescue).
- It detects software RAID setups better.
- It is able to rescue systems with SMB mount points.
- It includes a script to simplify the grabbing of journal logs for bug reports.
- It drops unmaintained support for KA (clustering)
Package management
RPM has been upgraded to 4.11.
Urpmi has been refactored and cleaned.
Various bugs have been fixed :
- urpmi used to download noarch packages twice when using --download-all option on 64-bit machines because they are in both 32 and 64-bit repositories (mga#4867)
- urpmi no longer silently fails with exit status 0 when:
- package installation fails due to either conflicts
- unselecting package
- failing to install some (but not all) packages
- urpmi now looks again for missing requires of updates in the regular media instead of only looking in update media (mga#2317)
- urpmf and urpmq now work as user with the --use-distrib option (mga#1225)
- urpme will no longer offer to remove DKMS modules for current kernel (mga#5092)
- gurpmi:
- gurpmi will upgrade glib, gtk & perl-{Glib,Gtk2} bindings as priority upgrades prior to restart (mga#5066)
- gurpmi now wraps some huge debug messages and uses a scrollbar in such cases (mga#5118)
Various enhancements have been done:
- urpmi has now basic support for --downgrade.
- urpmi has now basic support for delta packages.
- urpmi.addmedia now enable nonfree/tainted media if such packages were previously installed
- (g)urpmi reports removed packages (eg: older versions when upgrading) (previously it looked stalled)
- urpmi now detects I/O, unpacking & scriptlets errors
- urpmq without parameter doesn't search any more fuzzy matching, you have to add explicitly the argument -y.
- gurpmi:
- improved layout
- better information about disk usage
- errors summary is displayed at the end instead of showing a popup for each one
- errors don't popup in automatic mode
List of all the change since Mageia 2.
API change
The --repackage option has been removed (it had not worked since rpm-4.6 was introduced in 2009).
Repository metadata can now be compressed with XZ instead of gzip.
Security
Urpmi will now warn
- when a medium has no signing key;
- about unsigned packages from media without signing keys;
- when signature checking is disabled per medium.
The "download-all" option is supported in urpmi.cfg as opposed to being available only from the command line.
Graphical package manager
Rpmdrake wasn't properly highlighting latest changes in package changelogs when they used Epoch.
Updates were sometimes wrongly deselected when clicking on "New dependencies".
The --merge-all-rpmnew option is slightly faster. It also now consider all config files, including those outside /etc.
Rpmdrake now display a global progress bar when updating/installing or removing packages instead of one progress bar per RPM transaction.
List of all the change since Mageia 2.
Tools
Quite a lot of bugs were squashed.
Some notable features:
- Installing kernels had been made safer.
- Harddrake will install ethernet/wireless packages when a new device is detected, which helps quite a lot for Broadcom devices.
- Mcc now finds NFS servers whereas it failed to do in some environments before.
- Bubble notifications were disabled in net_applet due to a segfault in GNOME's libnotify (mga#9102).
- Autologin is now supported with lxdm & slim too (#3715)
Base system
kernel
- Mageia 3 ships with kernel 3.8.13
systemd
GRUB
- Mageia 3 still comes with GRUB as a default, however you can install GRUB2. integration is now available in installer and some drakxtools.
File systems
- OverlayFS is now available and used to build live CDs
Perl
- Perl has been upgraded to 5.16.3 and all perl packages have been rebuilt and/or updated
Ruby
- Ruby has been upgraded to 1.9.3, and most of the packages have been rebuilt.
journalctl
- Journalctl is now used as default. You can still install rsyslog if you want logs in tty12 or syslog/user/access/messages log. draklog has not been modified to deal with journalctl so you will need to have rsyslog installed to use it.
- To complete
Others
/usr move
- /usr move main goal is to provide an easy way to mount most of the installed operating system files read-only during normal usage.
Also make it easy to take snapshots (when combined with btrfs or lvm) or share it over the network.
Grub2
- Grub2 is now available for the first time in Mageia and may be selected during installation or later using
- Mageia Control Center -> Boot. To test grub2 while still using grub legacy please see /usr/share/doc/grub2/README.Mageia
Note:
If grub2 is installed "to a partition" during installation please read the Mageia-3 errata for more help.
Packaging
Package compression
Packages are now compressed as XZ instead of LZMA
Easier debugging
By default, minimal debuginfo is installed in order to increase the quality of bug reports and allow easier support for profiling and userspace tracing. Developers will receive better bug reports by default, without users having to enable debug media and install big debug packages.
It will also make system-wide profiling, userspace dynamic probes and casual debugging easier.
RPM groups
The Mageia package groups have been reorganized to improve clarity and for easier browsing in rpmdrake and during installation.
Mass rebuild
Mass rebuild has been completed. The 10,500 source packages were rebuilt in three days on four nodes. Thanks to our packager, we are close to having 100% rebuild success.
This will improve the quality of Mageia 3 and also post-product support (bug or security updates), won't need to spend time fixing stuff that should already work.
Graphical environments
KDE
KDE 4.10.2.
- Starting with KDE SC 4.7 we're providing an additional package name, vanilla, in order for an end user to simply use upstream configuration for desktop and applications. You simply need to install the vanilla-kde4-config package via rpmdrake or via urpmi like this:
- urpmi vanilla-kde4-config
GNOME
GNOME environment is also provided. Currently 3.6.
LXDE
LXDE version 0.5.5 is available. LXDE is a desktop environment intended to be lightweight, fast, and energy-efficient.
XFCE
Xfce 4.10 with various (bug) fixes mainly from upstream.
Available at install in the 'other desktop' checkbox with the classical iso.
Enlightenment
The e17 release of the Enlightenment desktop environment is available in the Core repositories.
RazorQt
Beta 3 comes with RazorQt v. 0.5.2: "Razor-qt is an advanced, easy-to-use, and fast desktop environment based on Qt technologies. It has been tailored for users who value simplicity, speed, and an intuitive interface. Unlike most desktop environments, Razor-qt also works fine with weak machines".
Qt
Office apps
Games
Steam for linux is now available in the repositories.
Education
Computer Assisted Music
Audio and MIDI Connection Kit
- JACK JACK 1.9.8 (jackit) and qjackctl its GUI (version 1.9.9 may be provided as update)
- lv2 lv2 (version 1.2.0) a plugin standard for audio system (the 1.4.0 version may be provided as update)
Multitrack audio recorder
- Ardour Ardour3 final release is now available (besides Ardour2) with lv2 interface
Instruments
- aeolus aeolus a church organ emulator
- Bristol Bristol (a vintage synthesizers emulator) is available with Menu items for each synthesizer
- Linuxsampler Linuxsampler 1.0 and Qsampler and gigedit (a sample editor) are available
- Yoshimi a software synthesizer version 0.0.60 (version 1.0 may be provided as update)
Sequencers
- Rosegarden Rosegarden 12.04 (just released 13.04 version may be proposed as update)
- Qtractor Qtractor 0.5.6 (just released version 0.5.8 may be proposed as update)
Score editors
- Lilypond Lilypond 2.16 (last stable edition)
- Musescore Musescore version 1.2 A GUI for Lilypond (just published version 1.3 may be provided as update)
- Rosegarden Rosegarden is a score editor too !
- denemo denemo 0.9.6 (just released 1.0.0 version may be provided as update)
Software Development
Upgrading from Mageia 2
Upgrading from Mageia 2 is supported, and has been fine-tuned over the past few months, so it should work. But as always, it's very advisable to back up any important data before upgrading and make sure you have made all updates of Mageia 2 (such as rpm and urpmi). Upgrading from Mageia 1 or another distribution is not supported.
There are several ways to upgrade from one of the previous Mageia releases:
Warning: Upgrading an existing install using a LiveCD is NOT supported due to the livecd image being copied "as is" to the target system.
Upgrading via the Internet
The Mageia update notification applet, Mageia Online, will notify you that a new Mageia release is available, and ask if you wish to upgrade. If you agree, the upgrade will be carried out from within your Mageia installation without any further steps being necessary.
If you have disabled the applet or it is not automatically running for some reason, you can upgrade manually either using the GUI (mgaonline) or the CLI (urpmi). Both methods are outlined below.
First make sure you have the latest updates for your currently running release prior to upgrading. Because of the complications of the usrmove, a newer version of mgaonline is required to see the new version and step you through the upgrade process. You must therefore update mgaonline. The new mgaonline package will itself install the mageia-prepare-upgrade package.
Upgrading online, using mgaonline (GUI)
As noted above you must have the updated mgaonline installed.
The new mgaonline should inform you that a new release is available and will automatically tell you that preparation is required before continuing. It will then:
- Install the package mageia-prepare-upgrade
- Instruct you to reboot and select the "Mageia 3 Upgrade Preparation" entry in your bootloader (todo: should we use rebootin here?)
If you don't see mgaonline notify you that there is an new release, check your option with mgaapplet-config
Or
- su
- mgaapplet-upgrade-helper --new_distro_version=3
It will notify you of the availability of the new Mageia 3 distribution, configure Mageia media sources and start migration. Again, please ensure you have the updated mgaonline installed before undertaking this stage.
Upgrading online, using urpmi (CLI)
- Before making any changes to your configuration, ensure you have all packages up-to-date and then install the mageia-prepare-upgrade package.
- Once installed, reboot your computer and select the "Mageia 3 Upgrade Preparation" boot option.
- After rebooting and confirming that the usrmove has completed successfully (check via ls -l / that /bin and /lib etc. are symlinks) you can continue.
- Remove all of the existing media sources on your system by executing this command as root in terminal:
- su
- urpmi.removemedia -a
- Add the Mageia online sources, either:
- Using the MIRRORLIST method (which will select a mirror automatically based on your geographical location):
- su
- urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist http://mirrors.mageia.org/api/mageia.3.$ARCH.list
- (Where $ARCH is either i586 or x86_64)
- Using a specific media mirror:
- su
- urpmi.addmedia --distrib <mirror_url>
- You can get the mirror_url using the Mageia mirrors web application
- su
- urpmi --replacefiles --auto-update --auto
- It's best to run the above command twice as in the first run some packages maybe downloaded but not installed.
Using the Mageia 3 DVD to Upgrade
You can use the Mageia 3 DVD to do clean installs but also to upgrade from previous releases.
To upgrade:
It is recommended that the online repositories be set up, if possible, during the upgrade as the DVD only includes a subset of the complete set of Mageia online repositories.
On the first reboot use the command line 'urpmi --auto-update' to make sure all packages were updated.
Known issues
See Errata page
Bug reporting
You can find our bugzilla here, but please read the Errata before reporting any bugs. If you don't already have a Mageia account, you can create one at https://identity.mageia.org/. If you don't know how the procedure works, please read how to report a bug first.