14 DAY TRIAL // Mageia 4, a GNU/Linux-based free operating system that started its life as a fork of Mandriva Linux and that is supported by a nonprofit organization of elected contributors, has finally arrived.
After a few development builds of Mageia, the final version of this Linux distro has finally arrived, featuring an impressive array of changes and improvements.
Mageia is a fork of the famous Mandriva Linux distro, and its developers are trying to keep it alive through the new version.
“Right on time, and just in time for the first day of FOSDEM 2014, we have the great pleasure of announcing Mageia 4. We’re still having a grand time doing this together, and we hope you enjoy this release as much as we’ve enjoyed making it. And if you’re at FOSDEM, come and help us celebrate!” reads the official announcement.
Mageia 4 features a lot of desktop environments and most users will find something they like in the download section: KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce, RazorQt, MATE, and Cinnamon.
The developers have also noted that it's possible to upgrade from Mageia 3. “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.”
Mageia 4 comes with Linux kernel 3.12.8, systemd 208, GRUB as default, KDE 4.11.4, GNOME 3.10.2.1, MATE 1.6, and LibreOffice 4.1.3.2.
Also, a new welcome screen has been added. The main goal is to help new comers on Mageia but also give some information about the community and the project
Check out the official announcement for more details about this release. Download Mageia 4 right now from Softpedia.