A proper alpha..

Mageia 4 Alpha 1 is finally here!

Some of it is at least, we’ve released the live isos today which you should find on your nearest mirror.

It has been a proper alpha release this time with 5 rebuilds along the way. The classic installer DVDs may follow, or we may leave them for now and release them with alpha2. Hopefully having all these issues at this stage will make the later stages much simpler.

It is actually a good sign that it has been such a rough ride as it shows a lot has happened since Mageia 3 release. Work has begun towards implementing the agreed features and many updated packages are landing in Cauldron. Gnome is in development stage and KDE is at RC stage so issues are to be expected, we’re already aware of some but please report any that you notice on our bugzilla.

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

It’s not just Friday..

Today is a day to send thanks to those who toil away in the background.binary

They’re overworked and under appreciated. Often never thought of until something goes wrong but always there, protecting, providing and helping us do what we do best!

Today is Sysadmin Day!

Let’s take the opportunity to say a big thankyou to our very own sysadmins but also to appreciate them wherever we find them. Better still, if you’ve got what it takes to join our sysadmin team then why not get in touch with them and see how you can help out.

Posted in Mageia, sysadmin, team | 9 Comments

Mageia 4 already!

Planning and specifications

The time has come again. After some time working on the post-mortem for Mageia 3 release, the time has arrived for a new schedule for the next release, Mageia 4.

Here it is! We included some extra important dates from the development process:

  • Alpha 1: 2013/08/08
  • Alpha 2: 2013/09/06
  • Unmaintained packages adoption campaign: 2013/09/13
  • Alpha 3: 2013/10/02
  • Version freeze: 2013/10/15
  • New strings freeze: 2013/10/15
  • Distro rebuild: 2013/10/16
  • Beta 1: 2013/10/31
  • Artwork freeze: 2013/11/15
  • Beta 2: 2013/11/28
  • Translations freeze: 2013/12/14
  • Release freeze: 2013/12/14
  • RC: 2013/12/17
  • Internal release: 2014/01/24
  • Final release: 2014/02/01

After some weeks of (interesting) discussions, we went though the features process to define the official list for Mageia 4. The choice was based on the existing policy.  As usual, we received a lot of proposals. Here are the successful ones:

  • include some more desktop choices,
  • refresh some of our drakx tools,
  • improve our distribution for newcomers,
  • a lot of system cleaning,
  • some more tools to help packagers

and many others…

Now the game has started. Let’s see all of you for the first alpha release!

Now is a great time to become more involved, come along and help to make Mageia. Mageia is made by people just like you. There are many ways to get involved, not all of which are technical. For a list of teams you can join, see this wiki page. Joining is easy, just subscribe to the relevant mailing list and send an email to introduce yourself, saying you’d like to get involved. You will be made very welcome and help and mentoring is always given where required.

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

New isos available for Mageia 3 (classical installer)

Despite the care we take to test isos for new versions of Mageia, we missed a potentially huge bug… It concerned the isos using the classical installer. If the user chose to add online media at the beginning of the installation, it would result in the system being updated to Cauldron, the development version of Mageia. This was due to the initial isos including a partial misidentification, referring to the development version (and not the Official one). The update media added pointed to Mageia Cauldron and not to the Mageia 3 repositories. Please note that users who chose to add online media only at the end of the installation would not be affected by this problem.

While the new isos were being prepared and tested, a temporary fix was applied on our infrastructure to automatically redirect to the Mageia 3 media. Thus only users of Cauldron were affected and should therefore explicitly install the media for Cauldron.

The patch has now been applied and new isos have been made available to replace the first ones.

If you download isos directly from one of our mirror, you can check easily that you have the latest version. Check the DATE.txt file on the mirror. You should have:

  • DVD 32: Thu Jun 6 2013 3:40:24 p.m. EST
  • DVD 64: Thu Jun 6 2013 3:49:47 p.m. EST
  • Dual CD: Thu Jun 6 2013 3:56:17 p.m. EST

Using our web site (you can also do it in other cases), you can check md5sum:

  • Mageia-3-dual-CD.iso: a2a9917c068d2a50ff2312821b055a1e
  • Mageia-3-i586-DVD.iso: d80fd26018e98a03ae020f15327fccf4
  • Mageia-3-x86_64-DVD.iso: 16547c7c1f933322122820468aa91e14

 

You can also check the contents of the following files (for example installation x86_64):

  • /etc/product.id

vendor=Mageia.Org,distribution=Mageia,type=Basic,version=3,
branch=Official,release=1,arch=x86_64,product=Default

  • /etc/mageia-release

Mageia release 3 (Official) for x86_64

Please note that we did not update the software contained on the isos to prevent unwanted regressions and new issues. Therefore the errata still apply, and were accordingly updated.

Posted in release | 19 Comments

Mageia at LSM

rmllenAs part of our European Tour, Mageia will be attending LSM (or RMLL in French), the 14th Libre Software Meeting to be held in Brussels from July 6th-11th at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

We plan to have our first Mageia Days at LSM – days when Mageia people can get together, to talk and plan and discover Mageia together. To help that happen, Mageia will have a Dev Room at LSM. We will be the only distro organisation to have a dev room!

The LSM is an event organized by volunteers, but they still need to cover some costs to be able to organize this kind of event, and as the entrance is free they rely on donations for this. Mageia Council has agreed to donate €500 to LSM in exchange for the use of the room and its facilities.

Make sure you take the opportunity to meet other Mageia people face to face! To help us know how many people will be there, you can add your name to the wiki page.

Posted in events | 4 Comments