Contents
* 1 Introduction
* 2 Available installation media
* 3 The Mageia online repositories
* 4 Major new features
+ 4.1 Switch from Gtk+-2 to Gtk+-3
+ 4.2 Installation
+ 4.3 Package management
+ 4.4 Tools
o 4.4.1 Authentication
o 4.4.2 Hardware support
o 4.4.3 Other
+ 4.5 Base system
+ 4.6 Graphical environments
o 4.6.1 MageiaWelcome
o 4.6.2 X Window System (X11)
o 4.6.3 KDE
o 4.6.4 GNOME
o 4.6.5 LXDE
o 4.6.6 XFCE
o 4.6.7 RazorQt
o 4.6.8 Mate
o 4.6.9 Cinammon
+ 4.7 Office apps
+ 4.8 Games
+ 4.9 Education
+ 4.10 Software Development
* 5 Upgrading from Mageia 3
+ 5.1 Upgrading via the Internet
o 5.1.1 Upgrading online, using mgaonline (GUI)
o 5.1.2 Upgrading online, using urpmi (CLI)
+ 5.2 Using the Mageia 4 DVD to Upgrade
* 6 Known issues
+ 6.1 Bug reporting
+ 6.2 Obsoleted packages
Introduction
Available installation media
Mageia has two distinct installation media types:
* DVD ISO and Dual-arch DVD ISO, which use the drakx traditional
installer.
* 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
Switch from Gtk+-2 to Gtk+-3
Most tools have been ported to Gtk+-3:
* drak3d
* drakpxelinux
* drakx-finish-install
* draklive-installer (the live installer)
* drakwizard
* drakxtools
* drakx (the classic installer)
* gurpmi
* mgaonline
* net_monitor
* rpmdrake
* transfugdrake
* userdrake
They now use more modern components and have access to all widgets
through introspection or be used with Broadway.
Some related changes:
* diskdrake: now display ellipsized partition labels (the full labels
are displayed through tooltips)
* net_applet: notifications work again for
* drakxservices: uses tooltips for service descriptions instead of an
"info" button
Installation
* Stage 1
+ Stage1 has been converted from a custom initrd image to a
dracut generated one
+ Stage1 is now dynamically linked
+ when building, a BOOT_AUTOMATIC_METHOD env variable enables to
alter default boot options for easier debugging
* Stage 2
+ Work was done on RAID management during installation. This was
quite buggy in previous releases and should now be usable at
last.
+ GDM is no more automatically used for XFCE
+ logs now explain why updates are not offered when that happens
+ open-vm-tools are automatically installed on VMware hypervisor
+ network interfaces are renamed by udev during installation too
+ default entry is read & written back for Grub2
+ basic support for eMMc block devices (Luc Menut, mga#11812)
+ stage2 can be build with debug option in order to run
installer from gdb, ...
+ drakx-in-chroot adds a new --depth option in order to force
eg: 16bit colors mode
+ The package choose step was redesigned
Package management
RPM has been upgraded to 4.11.1. Urpmi has a new option --deploops that
enables to debug circular dependencies.
Tools
Authentication
All tools have been ported from deprecated usermode to polkit when
needing root privileges. Draksec now supports polkit rules editing for
permissions and overrides restarts polkitd when needed.
Hardware support
On first boot, finish-install will no longer remove radeon-firmware or
any network related firmwares as we don't know when some hw gets
plugged that needs it.
Hardware detection has seen fixes: - a couple WiFi cards were
misdetected - RAID devices are better handled
draksound no longer offers to switch from ALSA to OSS drivers.
drakclock will now configure chrony by default instead of ntpd for
Network Time Synchronisation.
Other
Drakboot now write and read back the default entry when using Grub2.
Various bug fixes were done:
* LDAP configuration (bug #10005),
* firewall configuration not being applied (bug #9941)
Base system
syslinux
* syslinux has been updated to 6.02. This allows to get rid of very
old patches and then use upstream version. Some fixes are in
progress to fix localboot.
kernel
* Mageia 4 ships with kernel 3.12.8
systemd
* Mageia 4 comes with systemd 208
GRUB
* Mageia 4 still comes with GRUB as a default. But we also provide
GRUB2.
Perl
* Perl has been upgraded to 5.18.1
Mesa
* Mesa has been upgraded to 10.0.2
Auto-completion Bash-completion is now installed as default (as a
suggest so may not depending of the config). That mean that it bring
autocompletion for cli command, like for example urpmi. urpmi vl<tab>
will show all packages in the repositories that match vl*. That's also
mean that if you want to install locale rpm you may use urpmi
./mypackage.rpm.
Network interfaces naming scheme
* Mageia has switched to the network interface naming scheme
available in systemd v197+ to ensure they are predictable. A lot of
bugs have been fixed to improve integration. We are looking for any
feedback that could help to improve more if needed.
Graphical environments
MageiaWelcome
MageiaWelcome is now proposed as a default when opening a session in
graphical environments. The main goal is to help new comers on Mageia
but also give some information about the community and the project.
Note that on Live System, MageiaWelcome is not auto launched.
X Window System (X11)
The X.org server has been updated from 1.13 to 1.14.5.
KDE
* KDE 4.11.4 (stable release) is now available.
* KDE screen management: we are now using kscreen as the tool to
manage screen
* Qt 4.8.5
It has a specific Live-DVD or can be installed from the DVD ISO
(Traditional installer).
GNOME
GNOME environment is also provided. Currently 3.10.2.1. It has a
specific Live-DVD or can be installed from the DVD ISO (Traditional
installer).
LXDE
It can be installed from the DVD ISO (Traditional installer).
XFCE
It can be installed from the DVD ISO (Traditional installer) or the
Dual-arch DVD ISO.
RazorQt
It can be installed from the DVD ISO (Traditional installer).
Mate
Mate is now inside the repositories. It can be installed from the DVD
ISO (Traditional installer).
Cinammon
Cinnamon is now inside the repositories. It can be installed from the
DVD ISO (Traditional installer).
Office apps
* Mageia 4 comes with Libreoffice 4.1.3.2
* TeXLive was updated to a newer release, and is now split in 3
packages. If installing just texlive does not allow you to compile
your TeX document, you may want to install the new package
texlive-dist.
Games
Education
Software Development
* Mono 3.2.1
* Monodevelop 4.0.9
* Gambas3 3.4.2
* OCaml 4.01.0
* gcc 4.8.2
Upgrading from Mageia 3
Please read also the known issues.
Upgrading from Mageia 3 is supported, and has been fine-tuned over the
past few months, so it should work. But as always, it is very advisable
to back up any important data before upgrading and make sure you have
made all updates of Mageia 3 (such as rpm and urpmi). Upgrading from
Mageia 2 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.
Upgrading online, using mgaonline (GUI)
If you do not see that mgaonline notifies you that there is a new
release, check your options with mgaapplet-config
Or
su
mgaapplet-upgrade-helper --new_distro_version=4
It will notify you of the availability of the new Mageia 4
distribution, configure Mageia media sources and start migration.
Upgrading online, using urpmi (CLI)
You can also upgrade using urpmi from your favorite terminal emulator.
Here are the general upgrade steps:
* 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.4.$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
* Finally start upgrading:
su
urpmi --replacefiles --auto-update --auto
* It's best to run the above command twice as in the first run some
packages may be downloaded but not installed.
Using the Mageia 4 DVD to Upgrade
You can use the Mageia 4 DVD to do clean installs but also to upgrade
from previous releases.
To upgrade:
* Download the ISO from the Mageia download page and burn it on a
DVD, or dump it on a USB stick, for more details have a look at
this Available installation media article
* Boot the DVD and select "Install Mageia 4" from the GRUB (the
bootloader) menu
* Select the upgrade option.
It is recommended that the online repositories be set up during the
upgrade as the DVD only includes a subset of the complete set of Mageia
online repositories.
Moreover, it is possible that Mageia 3 may have received an update to a
later version of software than that availale on the ISO. When this
happens, the upgrade may fail to complete. Since, at the time the ISO's
are tested it is impossible to anticipate which Mageia 3 packages may
be updated in the future, offline upgrades (i.e. upgrades attempted
without setting up the online repositories) are not supported.
On the first reboot use the command '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 on https://identity.mageia.org/. If you don't know, see how
to report a bug.
Obsoleted packages
KGraphViewer was removed as it was not building against new version of
Graphiz and is dead upstream.
