14 DAY TRIAL // The OpenMandriva Association has announced that OpenMandriva Lx 2014.1, the first update for this beautiful KDE-based Linux distribution, has been released and is now available for download.
The new and improved OpenMandriva Lx 2014 was launched back in May and the developers have already pushed the first big update for the distro. It's a consistent one and it covers some of the most important aspects of the operating system.
The Mandriva name is not a coincidence, although the old OS is no longer being actively developed. The OpenMandriva Linux distribution didn't exactly take its place, but it still incorporates some of the legacy of the original system.
What's new in OpenMandriva 2014.1
As the version number suggests, this is the first point update in the series, but it feels like it's much more than that. Numerous packages have been updated and users will definitely see an improvement.
"OpenMandriva is proud to announce the release of OpenMandriva Lx 2014.1, that aims fixing lots of bugs and improving the overall performance of the distro. We would like to thank everybody that help us made this possible, testers, bug submitters, developers and all the community."
"This release is available as a live media DVD, downloadable in ISO format. Live media means you're able to run OpenMandriva Lx straight from a DVD or memory stick and try it before installing it. You may also install the system to hard disk either from the running live image or from the boot manager," note the developers.
The devs have updated the Linux kernel, which is now at version 3.15.10 and comes with the new nrjQL patchset. Also, the KDE packages have been updated as well and they are now at version 4.13.3. This is the not the latest branch available right now, but that doesn't really matter all that much. The OpenMandriva makers modify the system quite a lot in order to give users a unique experience, so the fact that they chose to incorporate a slightly older version is not a surprise.
Also, the latest Mozilla Firefox 32.0.3 browser has been provided, the X server has been upgraded to version 1.15.2, Mesa sits now at version 10.2.6, and the Bash packages have been upgraded to cover all the problems that were recently discovered.
OpenMandriva is now faster
One of the points of interest for the developers was the boot time, and they say that they've managed to reduce it to 17 seconds by minimizing the memory footprint of the entire operating system.
A complete list of changes and new features can be found in the official announcement. You can download OpenMandriva Lx 2014.1 right now from Softpedia.