14 DAY TRIAL // It's been a little over eight months since the upcoming Mageia 6 Linux operating system got its first development build, and a new one is now available for early adopters and public testers with some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and applications.
Before we delve into the new updates of the Mageia 6 Sta2 release, we'd like to tell you the big news. Starting with this development build, you can now download a 32-bit variant of the OS with the lightweight Xfce desktop environment if you want to install Mageia 6 on computers from 10 years ago.
"We feel that the current lineup of ISOs covers everything that the previous one did, but also provides a lightweight alternative for older and less powerful systems, or for those that prefer a slimmer desktop environment," reads today's announcement. "With the new lineup, you can see that we still have great coverage for 32/64 bit systems."
What's new in Mageia 6 Sta2
Among the goodies that have been implemented in the Mageia 6 Sta2 development release, we can mention the latest long-term supported Linux 4.9.13 kernel and X.Org Server 1.19.1 display server, along with the KDE Plasma 5.8.5 LTS, GNOME 3.22.2, Xfce 4.12.1, Cinnamon 3.2.4, and MATE 1.16 desktop environments.
Pre-installed applications include the LibreOffice 5.3.1.1 office suite, Mozilla Firefox 45 ESR (Extended Support Release) web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 45 ESR email and news client, as well as the Chromium 56.0 web browser. The full package list can be studied here if you're curious to know what else is new in Mageia 6 Sta2.
Mageia 6 Sta2 represents a snapshot of Mageia Cauldron, the development version of the RPM-based operating system, so if you're using the Cauldron branch, you'll get all these updates via the software repositories, along with other goodies like the newest Mesa 17.0.1 3D Graphics Library and PulseAudio 10 sound system.
If you want to get an early taste of Mageia 6, you can download the Sta2 Live ISO images with the KDE, GNOME or Xfce desktop environments right now from our website. However, please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version, which means that it might contain bugs, so don't use it as your daily driver.