Mageia 8 is on its way

The road to get Mageia 8 is winding, slow but steady.

The current situation is that major packages have been updated to latest versions, such as:

– latest Linux kernel 5.9.6 built for x86_64, i586, arm7l and aarch64  architectures,which can recognize all new released hardware since Mageia 7.1. We intend to release Mageia 8 with a Long Term Support Kernel. 5.10 will be the new LTS one, just around the corner for a December release. We will ship with this version.

– basesystem with systemd 246, glibc 2.31, GCC 10.2, LLVM 10.0.1, urpmi 8.123, DNF 4.2.23 and rpm 4.16.0 ;

– Java stack updated to java-11-openjdk (11.0.9.6) and built against this version;- python 3.8.5, rust 1.47, ruby 2.7.2, Golang 1.15.3,…

We decided to stop  supporting Java 8, and only have Java 11. This requires fixing the Java stack, as some applications  have never been ported, and therefore have to be removed, while others have to be updated to the ported version.

On the desktop side, we have an updated x11-server to 1.20.9 stack. A Wayland session for GNOME is available on Intel, AMD and even NVIDIA (with nvidia-current nonfree drivers). KDE Plasma is based on QT 5.15.1 with Plasma-Workspace 5.20.2, which can permit a wayland session preview. All infrastructure is here for it to have a desktop running on modern technologies. By default, we still ship Plasma with an X11 session on all hardware.

GNOME is at 3.38.1. LXqt is 0.16. XFCE is at 4.15 preview and is a good candidate to move to the 4.16 release before we ship Mageia 8.

All other desktop environments are updated and run well (Cinnamon 4.6, MATE 1.24.1).

Firefox and Thunderbird are at same version as in Mageia 7 (78 ESR branch).

Developers are working on hopefully getting the Chromium browser to build.

Preventing us from releasing Mageia 8, the remaining issues are:

1) Some packages can’t build. There are 300 of them (among more than 14,500 in Core). Packagers and developers are working diligently to get these packages fixed.
2) We must provide a secure Mageia 8 operating system. Currently, there are over 70 security related bugs, and ones that can be fixed must be fixed before release.
3) NVIDIA drivers with 5.9 series Linux kernel make it difficult to have a good working set-up for all use cases. Currently, X11 drivers (OpenGL) are OK for the 455 and 390 series, but OpenCL and CUDA are broken due to change in the 5.9 Linux Kernel. We don’t have an ETA on fixing this yet so, nvidia-340 can’t run well with this 5.9.x kernel.
4) Dependency issues in packages which would prevent them from being installed.  Packagers are working to get these issues fixed as well.
5) Other various release blocker bugs also need to be ironed out.
A new Beta 2 ISO will be pushed as soon as these issues are resolved.

These difficulties are challenging, so we will release as soon it is ready.
See you soon!

Mageia Team

Writen by Aurélien

This entry was posted in Beta, Uncategorized, Weekly roundup. Bookmark the permalink.

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25 Responses to Mageia 8 is on its way

  1. Alex Lara says:

    can you include a repository to vscode like debian?

  2. Pingback: Mageia 8 sigue su rumbo | Mageia Blog (Español)

  3. Rolf Pedersen says:

    Keep up the good work.
    Thanks!

  4. Thank you for all your efforts

  5. Louis Pénavaire says:

    Thank you very much for your work !

  6. Ulrich Lintl says:

    Great news and important update as doubts about Mageia’s future have arisen with me as the Mageia-8-roadmap in the Wiki is clearly outdated and no status-news have been published in the last months until now.
    So I have contacted you directly via E-Mail to clarify things and still know this since around a week 🙂
    I really like Mageia and am very happy with it on my desktop.
    All ongoing developments sound really good, especially the decision to us kernel 5.10LTS for M8.
    Really looking forward to get it and use it!

  7. shura says:

    Great news! I want to thank all thé packagers and all the people that are working on M7 and M8. M7 works fine so keep up thé good work.

  8. Pingback: Mageia 8 ist auf dem Weg | Mageia Blog (Deutsch)

  9. EF VEE says:

    Thanks for all the hard work!
    “discovered” Mageia only this year, but I love it.

  10. Pingback: Intel ohlásil serverová GPU na bázi Xe, Mageia 8 se blíží - Můj Linux - #Debian, #xUbuntu, #Servery

  11. Kamil GÜNDÜZ says:

    Mageia ekibine çok teşekkür ederim.
    gercekten harika işletim sistemi çıkartıyorsunuz.
    Ubuntu lts gibi uzun destekli sürümler çıkarmanızı rica ediyorum.

    Thank you very much to the Mageia team.
    You are really making a great operating system.
    I ask you to release long-backed versions such as Ubuntu lts.

  12. Pingback: Intel ohlásil serverová GPU na bázi Xe, Mageia 8 se blíží – ITmix.cz

  13. Dušan says:

    Really big thanks for your hard work.

  14. Diego says:

    Looking forward to the new version, it’s already my eighth… Incredible how long this fine project is already running!

    Thanks to you all!

  15. Doug Laidlaw says:

    Mageia 8 has been “on its way” for 18 months!

  16. Richard Sheeler says:

    Thank you for all your hard work, Mageia is a Great Distro, one of the best!! And your hard work is much appreciated!!!!!

  17. MagicD3VIL says:

    Thank you for your hard work! Let’s make this release even stronger than the last one!

    <3 Mageia

  18. Ilnur says:

    Thanks

  19. Pingback: Mageia 8 está a caminho | Mageia Blog (Português)

  20. Dennis Drown says:

    Take your time, get it right. don’t be like Microcrap and release then patch,patch,patch. my 7.1 is running with no problem and will continue to run,so no hurry

  21. gafoortharayil says:

    Mageia 8 Development wiki page is not updated scince August, Please update it as I am watching it eagerly to know the stage of Mageia 8 development

  22. Fabio Manunza says:

    Hi!
    I’m walking with you by your start point.
    i’m ask you for porting some app I have to compile from scratch or install from external sourc.
    They are:
    – Dbgl (front end for DosBox)
    – Inform 7 (well, no explanation for this, I think)
    Could you think about their inclusion in the official repository?

  23. Eduardas says:

    Mageia is super lux os. Prosperity and good luck to the developers!

  24. Pingback: Mageia 8 Beta 2 duyuruldu | get GNU