14 DAY TRIAL // More than one year after the release of the Mageia 6 Linux-based operating system series, the first point release is now available to download as Mageia 6.1 hit the download channels over the weekend.
Mageia 6.1 is here as an up-to-date installation media for those who want to deploy the Mageia 6 operating system series on their computers without downloading hundreds of updates from the main archives of the GNU/Linux distribution. It brings updated drivers and core components to offer users better hardware support, and it's not intended for existing Mageia 6 users.
"The new installations will benefit from the countless updates that current fully updated Mageia systems will have, allowing new installations to avoid the need for a large update post install. So if you are currently running an up to date Mageia 6 system, there is no need to reinstall Mageia 6.1 as you will already be running the same packages," Donald Stewart wrote in the release announcement.
What's new in Mageia 6.1
Powered by the latest long-term supported Linux 4.14 kernel series, the Mageia 6.1 point release runs on top of Linux kernel 4.14.70, providing users with a well-tested and rock solid base, as well as additional hardware support for hardware released after the Mageia 6 series last summer. Mageia 6.1 also comes with updated Nvidia drivers to support newer Pascal-based GPUs.
On the software side of things, Mageia 6.1 includes various updated apps, among which we can mention the Mozilla Firefox 60.2 and Chromium 68 web browsers, LibreOffice 5.3.7.2 office suite, KDE Plasma 5.12.2 LTS desktop environment, GNOME 3.24.3 desktop environment, Xfce 4.12.0 desktop environment, and VLC 3.0.2 media player. It also comes with the latest security fixes.
Mageia 6.1 is now available to download as live installation media with the KDE Plasma, GNOME, and Xfce desktop environment for 64-bit and 32-bit hardware. When installing Mageia 6.1, please note that the Classical Installer is not present, but it's available when doing a net-install. The Classical Installer will make a comeback in Mageia 7, which is currently in development.