                             Mageia 8 Release Notes

Contents

     * 1 Introduction
          + 1.1 Available installation media
          + 1.2 The Mageia online repositories
               o 1.2.1 32 bit repos on 64 bit systems
     * 2 Release highlights
          + 2.1 Faster package metadata parsing
          + 2.2 Python2 is mostly dead
          + 2.3 ARM support
     * 3 Major developments
          + 3.1 Installation
               o 3.1.1 Stage 1
               o 3.1.2 Stage 2
               o 3.1.3 Rescue
               o 3.1.4 Live ISO
               o 3.1.5 Hardware support
          + 3.2 Localisation (l10n) / Internationalisation (i18n)
               o 3.2.1 Manuals
               o 3.2.2 Software translations
          + 3.3 Package management
               o 3.3.1 New RPM
               o 3.3.2 DNF: the alternative package manager
               o 3.3.3 AppStream
               o 3.3.4 perl-URPM and urpmi
          + 3.4 Tools
               o 3.4.1 Mageia Control Center
               o 3.4.2 Other
                    # 3.4.2.1 MageiaWelcome
                    # 3.4.2.2 Isodumper
                    # 3.4.2.3 Docker
                    # 3.4.2.4 LiveCD Tools
                    # 3.4.2.5 draklive2
                    # 3.4.2.6 PCMemTest
          + 3.5 Base system
               o 3.5.1 Kernel and hardware support
               o 3.5.2 Graphic drivers
                    # 3.5.2.1 X Window System (X11)
                    # 3.5.2.2 AMD video drivers
                    # 3.5.2.3 NVIDIA drivers
                         @ 3.5.2.3.1 Proprietary NVIDIA driver
                         @ 3.5.2.3.2 Optimus laptops
               o 3.5.3 Bootloaders
          + 3.6 Desktop environments
               o 3.6.1 Plasma
               o 3.6.2 GNOME
               o 3.6.3 LXDE
               o 3.6.4 Xfce
               o 3.6.5 LXQt
               o 3.6.6 MATE
               o 3.6.7 Cinnamon
               o 3.6.8 Enlightenment
               o 3.6.9 Light window managers
                    # 3.6.9.1 IceWM
          + 3.7 Office apps
          + 3.8 Internet apps
          + 3.9 Multimedia apps
          + 3.10 Editors
          + 3.11 Games
          + 3.12 Education
          + 3.13 Software Development
               o 3.13.1 Compilers and tools
               o 3.13.2 Virtualization stack
                    # 3.13.2.1 VirtualBox
               o 3.13.3 Language stacks
          + 3.14 Server applications
               o 3.14.1 Nginx
               o 3.14.2 Nextcloud
     * 4 Upgrading from Mageia 7
          + 4.1 Upgrading via the Internet
               o 4.1.1 Upgrading online, using mgaonline (GUI)
               o 4.1.2 Upgrading online, using urpmi (CLI)
               o 4.1.3 Upgrading online, using DNF (CLI)
          + 4.2 Using the traditional Mageia 8 DVD to Upgrade
               o 4.2.1 Upgrading an encrypted install
     * 5 Known issues
          + 5.1 User action needed
               o 5.1.1 VeraCrypt
          + 5.2 Bugs
               o 5.2.1 Bug reporting
     * 6 Packages removed from the distribution
          + 6.1 Without removal on upgrade
          + 6.2 With removal on upgrade

Introduction

   Mageia is a Free Software operating system of the GNU/Linux family,
   which can be installed on computers either as the main operating
   system, or as an alternative system to one or several pre-installed
   systems (dual boot). It is a community project supported by the
   non-profit Mageia.Org organization of elected contributors. Mageia is
   developed by and for its community of users, and is suitable for all
   kinds of users, from first-time GNU/Linux users to advanced developers
   or system administrators.

   The latest stable release of the Mageia project, Mageia 8, previously
   spent more than a year in development. It will be supported with
   security and bug fix updates for 18 months, up to October 2022.

Available installation media

   Mageia has three distinct installation media types:
     * Classical ISOs (DVD 32-bit, DVD 64-bit), which use the DrakX
       traditional installer. The 32-bit and 64-bit DVD ISOs contain all
       supported locales, a great variety of packages to choose from
       (including most supported desktop environments) and all non-free
       drivers. The use of non-free packages can be disabled during the
       installation. Note that by decision, Classic Installer will not use
       non-free drivers during install, so you may need wired Ethernet if
       you wish to use online repositories for updates during install.

     * Network install ISOs (32-bit and 64-bit, both in free and nonfree
       versions), are minimal size and contain only installer Stage 1,
       which contain needed hardware support to start, connect to network
       and download stage 2. You may need nonfree version to have the
       necessary drivers for i.e wifi. From there on it acts like
       Classical ISO installer except it fetches everything using network,
       from Mageia or other repository, possibly local. Note: It is a good
       idea to first make a minimal install, and install the rest from the
       booted target system - especially during Mageia development stage
       (alpha, beta, RC) where packages and especially the files listing
       them change frequently. Note: Netinstall ISOs are not adapted to
       boot on 32-bit EFI.

     * Live ISOs can be booted directly to use Mageia, and can also
       install itself to your fixed drive. Live media come with either the
       Plasma (64-bit), GNOME (64-bit) or Xfce (32 or 64-bit) desktop
       environments. The Live DVDs contain all supported locales, wide
       hardware support, and a pre-selection of software, making them a
       quicker way to get started working. Note that we added an optional
       persistence feature which preserves user files and customization of
       the system to next boot, optionally encrypted. So now you can
       easily take Mageia and your files with you! Persistence mode need
       less RAM. Tip: For optimising updating you can uninstall packages,
       see Removing packages#Persistent Live USB and more on that wiki
       page. You can also spin your own Live!

   All ISO images can be burned to a DVD or dumped on a USB flash drive.
   Please note the file and device size limits as, for example, a 4 GB ISO
   image can be too big for some "nominally" 4 GB USB drives, due to their
   actual capacity being slightly lower than the marketed size.

   For more information, please have a look at our installation media
   manual page.

   You will find the different download options on the Mageia 8 download
   page: direct (FTP and HTTP) and BitTorrent downloads are available.

The Mageia online repositories

   The software packages that are included in Mageia sit in three
   different repositories/media, depending on the type of license applied
   to each package. Here's an overview of those repositories:
     * Core: The Core repository includes packages with
       free-and-open-source software, i.e., packages licensed under a
       free-and-open-source license. The set of the "Core" media along
       with "Core Release" and "Core Updates" are enabled by default.
     * Nonfree: The Nonfree repository includes packages that are
       free-of-charge and free to redistribute, but that contain
       closed-source software (hence the name - Nonfree). For example,
       this repository includes NVIDIA and AMD/ATI proprietary graphics
       card drivers, firmware for various WiFi cards, etc.

   The Nonfree media set is enabled by default but can be disabled, if
   necessary, during the installation.
     * Tainted: The Tainted repository includes packages released under a
       free license. The main criterion for placing packages in this
       repository is that they may infringe on patents and copyright laws
       in some countries, e.g., multimedia codecs needed to play various
       audio/video files; packages needed to play a commercial video DVD,
       etc.

   The Tainted media set is added by default but not enabled by default,
   i.e., it's completely opt-in; so, check your local laws before using
   packages from this repository.

32 bit repos on 64 bit systems

   Please note that on 64-bit systems, the 32-bit repositories are
   configured, but they are not enabled by default. They are needed by
   some packages, such as Steam. If you want to install such packages that
   have dependencies on packages from 32-bit repositories, please make
   sure that you have "Core 32bit Release" and "Core 32bit Updates"
   enabled. Likewise for some cases the 32 bit Nonfree or Tainted (both in
   Release and Updates flavors) may be needed. Basic rules: Don't enable
   32-bit repos without corresponding 64 bit enabled because 64-bits libs
   are preferred (generally) on 64-bit system, and if once a 32-bit repo
   is used, keep both its Release and Updates flavour enabled to not
   potentially hinder updates.

Release highlights

Faster package metadata parsing

   Urpmi metadata are compressed with Zstd instead of Xz, resulting in
   faster parsing.

Python2 is mostly dead

   Most python2 modules & software were removed.

ARM support

   The ARM (Advanced RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) Machine)
   port rebooted during Mageia 7 days has been enhanced. The core is
   available for ARMv7 and AArch64.

   There is no traditional installer for now, and it is still considered
   experimental, but most of the distribution was built successfully on
   both architectures (see our ARM status overview for details). The plan
   is to provide installation images for popular ARM devices in the coming
   months. There is no ETA for those as of Mageia 8's release.

   Drakboot is now somewhat able to set up UEFI on AArch64.

Major developments

Installation

Stage 1

     * Hardware support was extended to be able to start the installer on
       very recent computers and support more wifi hardware
     * NFS support is done using system tools rather than our 15 years old
       forked NFS code, thus gaining support for NFSv4 & co...
     * Stage1 supports loading stage2 through WPA2 encrypted Wi-Fi
       (mga#9541) (WEP still supported since earlier)

Stage 2

     * Lots of bug fixes and improvements in the partitioner
     * Stage2 squashfs image is now compressed with Zstd instead of Xz for
       faster startup
     * File system support:
          + Support installing over F2FS (in expert mode)
          + Improved Nilfs2 support: can now be reformatted or resized
            (but is still not suitable as system FS due to missing
            features)
          + XFS can now be resized even if not on LVM (providing the
            partition has room to be enlarged)
          + exFAT file systems are shown like FAT & NTFS ones (but exFAT
            cannot be resized)
          + Windows 10 NTFS ("Compact OS") is now supported through the
            ntfs-3g-system-compression plugin (mga#21737)
     * Bootloader configuration is safer: we keep old grub.cfg around
       while update-grub2 hasn't overwritten it yet (mga#25542)
     * Minimal install on LUKS is bootable

Rescue

   The rescue system has been enhanced:
     * Rescue stage2 squashfs image is now compressed with Zstd instead of
       Xz for faster startup
     * it's slightly faster to load (fewer modules are loaded and we don't
       brute force the file system types)
     * it's able to repair encrypted LVMs/LUKS (mga#22795)

Live ISO

     * Live ISO boot and install is now much faster, due to optimised
       hardware detection and use of Zstd for compressing the base
       filesystem
     * Live ISO now boots without configuring X.Org, relying on the
       automatic mode of X.Org
     * Diskdrake now supports adding partitions to Live ISOs on USB sticks
       (mga#25224)
     * The persistence partition for a Live ISO on a USB stick can now be
       encrypted (mga#25191)
     * The Live ISO installer now supports setting up of online media and
       installing updates

Hardware support

     * ARM v7 & AArch64 are now somewhat primary architectures in that all
       packages are now built there

Localisation (l10n) / Internationalisation (i18n)

Manuals

     * The manuals for the traditional installer and for the Mageia
       Control Center have been (partially) translated into many more
       languages. See our official documentation
     * An English screenshot is used when a localized screenshot is
       unavailable for an HTML manual.
     * PDF and EPUB manuals are created only when more than half of the
       needed localized screenshots for those manuals are available.

Software translations

   New translations have been added, while others were improved. Thank you
   to our dedicated community of translators for your reliable work.

Package management

New RPM

   RPM has been upgraded to version 4.16.1.2.

   RPM 4.16 offers key improvements to RPM as a whole, including:
     * Add automatic SSD detection and optimization (on Linux, disabled by
       default)
     * Add filesystem sync at the end of transactions (rhbz#1461765)
     * Add SHA256 digest to gpg-pubkey headers too
     * Add support for meta dependencies (eg Requires(meta): somepkg) that
       do not affect install/erase ordering (rhbz#1648721)
     * Add support for parametric macro generators
     * Deprecate RPM v3 support, visibly (#1007)
     * Faster Operations:
          + Optimize several operations via parallelization up
            to %_smp_build_ncpus
          + Optimize several operations via thread parallelization up
            to %_smp_build_nthreads (but limited to a maximum of 4 on
            32bit platforms)
          + Add support for parallel processing in brp-strip
          + Prioritize large packages when writing packages
     * Backends:
          + Deprecate the Berkeley DB backend
          + Add independent implementation of read-only BDB support
            (experimental)
          + Add new SQLite based database backend (experimental)
          + Promote NDB out of experimental status

   More information on changes from RPM 4.14 (which shipped with Mageia 7)
   to RPM 4.16 is available from the RPM website:
     * RPM 4.16.1.2: http://rpm.org/wiki/Releases/4.16.1.2
     * RPM 4.16.1: http://rpm.org/wiki/Releases/4.16.1
     * RPM 4.16: http://rpm.org/wiki/Releases/4.16.0
     * RPM 4.15: http://rpm.org/wiki/Releases/4.15.0

DNF: the alternative package manager

   DNF (Dandified Yum) was introduced as an alternative to urpmi since
   Mageia 6.

   DNF is a next-generation dependency resolver and high-level package
   management tool that traces its ancestry to two projects: Fedora's YUM
   (Yellowdog Updater, Modified) and openSUSE's SAT Solver (libsolv). DNF
   was forked from YUM several years ago in order to rewrite it to use the
   SAT Solver library from openSUSE and to massively restructure the
   codebase so that a sane API would be available for both extending DNF
   (via plugins and hooks) and building applications on top of it (such as
   graphical frontends and system lifecycle automation frameworks).

   DNF comes with enhanced problem reporting, advanced tracking of weak
   dependencies, support for rich dependencies (see the RPM release notes
   for more on this), and more detailed transaction information while
   performing actions.

   Mageia 8 ships with DNF v4.6.0.

   System upgrades using DNF are supported. See the section on upgrading
   with DNF in the release notes for more information.

   More information on modularity: https://docs.pagure.org/modularity/

   DNF release notes:
   https://dnf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/release_notes.html

   With fresh installations via the classical and live media, DNF will be
   installed in parallel with urpmi. Depending on the method used to
   upgrade to Mageia 8, it may be necessary to install the dnf package to
   have it available.

   For information on how to use DNF, please refer to the wiki page: Using
   DNF.

AppStream

   Our RPM-MD (RPM MetaData) repositories (used by DNF and PackageKit)
   provide AppStream metadata. Tools like GNOME Software (GNOME Desktop,
   packaged as gnome-software) and Plasma Discover (KDE Plasma Desktop,
   packaged as discover) leverage AppStream metadata to provide a rich
   experience when searching, identifying, and managing applications.

   AppStream is a cross-distribution effort for enhancing software
   repositories by standardizing software component metadata. It enables
   an application-centric view on package repositories and provides
   specifications for things needed to create user-friendly application
   centers.

   See the AppStream website for more information:
   https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/

perl-URPM and urpmi

     * Doc has been enhanced (eg: URPM & urpm & CPAN)
     * urpmi/perl-URPM support a wider range of rpm versions, from rpm-4.9
       to latest 4.16, from perl-5.8 to perl-5.32
     * Various bug fixes have been made
     * Urpmi supports the --reinstall option
     * Urpmi metadata are compressed with Zstd instead of Xz (faster
       parsing)
     * don't enable 32-bit media by default on 64-bit systems (mga#24376)
          + except on systems with 32-bit EFI, where we need the Core
            32bit media for the bootloader
     * When adding distrib media, enable 32-bit media if needed
       (mga#24438)

Tools

Mageia Control Center

Other

MageiaWelcome

   The 'Welcome' screen is an application that is presented to users when
   booting into a fresh installation of Mageia. It has now been entirely
   reworked to have a linear approach, with successive steps following in
   a logical order of important things to know and do post-installation.
   By default, it will run at each subsequent boot, but this behaviour is
   optional. Even if the auto-run option is disabled - it can be invoked
   at any time as an application (mageiawelcome).

   Under the hood, it uses Python and QML. It is now resizeable and will
   use the fonts of the desktop environment.

Isodumper

   Isodumper is a tool to write ISO images on memory devices. The checking
   routine after writing operations is looking now for a sha3 sum file and
   corresponding signature.
   The added persistence partition can now also be encrypted. This will be
   recognized only for Mageia 8 and later ISO images. See here for more
   information.

Docker

   The Docker ecosystem has been augmented (based on the 19.03 version of
   the engine) with many additional tools such as docker-compose
   (orchestration with v3 support), containered (daemon controlling runC),
   docker-registry (share of images), docker-machine (install docker on a
   remote system), and python-docker (python 2 and 3 libraries for engine
   API management).

LiveCD Tools

   With Mageia 8, the LiveCD Tools have been rebased to the latest version
   (v27.0).

   For information on how to use the LiveCD Tools, please refer to the
   wiki page: Using the LiveCD Tools

draklive2

   The GUI mode has been enhanced to include the summary stage from the
   classical installer, allowing easy configuration of locales, timezones,
   system services, and firewalls. The individual package selection stage
   now includes a flat list mode, removing the restrictions on what
   packages can be selected.

   For more information, please refer to the wiki page: draklive2

PCMemTest

   This is a fork and major rewrite of the Memtest86+ memory test utility.
   Unlike Memtest86+, PCMemTest can be used with UEFI as well as with
   legacy BIOS boot (with the limitation that with UEFI boot, keyboard
   input only works if the CSM is enabled in the BIOS). PCMemTest replaces
   Memtest86+ as the memory test utility on all the Mageia ISOs. It may
   also be installed in a user's system, where it will be automatically
   added to the system boot menu.

Base system

Kernel and hardware support

     * Mageia 8 ships with kernel 5.10.16.

   All hardware managed by this kernel version is enabled. The kernel
   provides better graphics with Mesa 20.3.4.
     * Other kernel flavors are included, particularly, kernel-linus (a
       vanilla stock kernel without any extra patchset). See the wiki page
       Kernel_flavours for more information.
     * The Single-queue I/O schedulers were removed upstream since kernels
       5.0 . If you need ionice utility, consider installing a new
       ionice-scheduler package which enables BFQ scheduler for rotational
       disks.
     * cpupower and powersave

   There were quite a few changes regarding this since 5.8 Kernel version.
   If using intel_pstate (for Sandy Bridge and newer Intel cpus), the
   default behaviour changed on CPUs without hardware-managed P-states
   (HWP) support, and you need to add the kernel parameter
   intel_pstate=active to restore previous behaviour if this results in
   worse performance for you. (See mga#27191).

Graphic drivers

   Mesa has been updated to Mesa 20.3.4.

   Graphical drivers now use the new vendor-neutral libGL implementation
   (colloquially "glvnd": GL Vendor Neutral Dispatch) which has been
   developed to address several issues with OpenGL support on modern Linux
   systems.
     * Users will have the ability to install Mesa and third-party GL
       drivers in parallel and have them actually work.
     * This enables additional performance and functionality for hybrid
       GPU configurations (high-end laptops, for instance).

X Window System (X11)

   Mageia 8 ships with X.Org 1.20.10.

AMD video drivers

     * Mageia 8 uses the free video drivers for AMD/ATI graphics cards,
       AMDGPU for newer cards and Radeon for older graphics cards.
       Compared with Mageia 7, hardware support has been increased and
       performance has been improved.
     * The proprietary AMDGPU-PRO driver currently only works with X.org
       1.1xx, so it cannot be used in Mageia 8.
     * In case of a hybrid card, the solution exposed with the nouveau
       driver and the precommand DRI_PRIME=n is also working, at least
       with the radeon driver.

NVIDIA drivers

     * The current libre Nouveau driver has enhanced hardware support and
       performance compared to Mageia 7.

Proprietary NVIDIA driver

   NVIDIA's proprietary drivers are provided in the nonfree repositories:
     * Recent GPUs are supported by the R460 series driver
       "nvidia-current". (64 bit only)

     * For older GPUs, we supply the proprietary R390 series driver
       "nvidia390".

     * Unfortunately we are dropping the R340 "nvidia340" driver due to
       security issues in the NVIDIA binary blob. Several affected GPUs
       supported by the updated R390 driver will be switched over from
       R340. Where that does not happen, nouveau will be used. If you see
       problems try X11 vesa driver; try editing the first boot menu entry
       and change "xdriver=free" to "xdriver=vesa".

Optimus laptops

   Owners of NVIDIA Optimus laptops (integrated Intel graphics processor
   and discrete NVIDIA GPU) now have three ways to benefit from the power
   of their discrete GPU:
     * The free Nouveau drivers support Prime GPU offloading out of the
       box, which can be used via the DRI_PRIME=1 environment variable
       (unless the proprietary NVIDIA driver is in use by, e.g.,
       mageia-prime). Refer to the Nouveau documentation to see how to
       configure Xorg to use NVIDIA Prime with DRI3.
     * As in Mageia 7, the Bumblebee package can be used to bridge the
       monitor to the NVIDIA GPU, allowing to access its processing power
       albeit with some overhead.
     * A new experimental tool named mageia-prime can be used to configure
       the NVIDIA Prime supported by recent Linux kernels and Xorg
       servers. It allows to fully switch to using the NVIDIA GPU without
       the overhead of Bumblebee, and is particularly suited for use with
       CUDA.

   In all three cases, when configuring the graphics drivers, one must
   only configure the Intel card (at least in most Optimus
   configurations), as it is typically the only one physically connected
   to a monitor.

Bootloaders

     * GRUB2 has been updated to 2.04, with several features & fixes
       backported from the future 2.06 branch
     * For UEFI boot, the rEFInd boot manager is now supported as an
       alternative to GRUB2.

Desktop environments

   All the desktop environments mentioned below are included in Mageia's
   online repositories, and can be installed in parallel on any Mageia 8
   system. Some of them are also included on the physical media, LiveDVDs
   and Classical DVDs, as specified in each section.

Plasma

   Plasma, the desktop environment from the KDE community, is provided as
   version 5.20.4, built on top of Qt 5.15.2 and KDE Frameworks 5.76 and
   with KDE Applications 20.12.0.

   If you want to try Plasma under Wayland, install
   plasma-workspace-wayland, and it should appear in your favourite
   display manager's list of desktop environments at log in.

   Note also that Wayland session with Nvidia's 455 (current)
   nonfree-drivers is available by making sure that "nokmsboot" is removed
   and "nouveau.modeset=0" is passed to Kernel command line. - This is
   provided as Technology Preview for testers.

   The default display manager (DM) for the Plasma environment is the
   Simple Desktop Display Manager (SDDM).

   If you have Compiz enabled in Mageia 7, disable it before upgrade, see
   Errata.

   Plasma has a specific 64-bit LiveDVD and it can also be installed from
   the Classical DVD ISO (traditional installer).

GNOME

   GNOME 3.38.3 is provided. It now defaults to running on Wayland, but
   also provides an alternative "GNOME on Xorg" session. Note that with
   Nvidia's nonfree drivers, GNOME defaults to start an X11 session.

   For those preferring the GNOME 2 look and feel, GNOME 3 also provides a
   "Gnome Classic" session.

   GNOME has a specific 64-bit LiveDVD and it can also be installed from
   the Classical DVD ISO (traditional installer).

LXDE

   The very lightweight GTK+2-based desktop environment is still available
   and continues to receive improvements from upstream and our Mageia
   maintainer, even though its community has partly refocused on LXQt.

   LXDE can be installed from the Classical DVD ISO (traditional
   installer).

Xfce

   Xfce 4.16 is provided.

   Xfce has dedicated 32-bit and 64-bit LiveDVDs and it can also be
   installed from the Classical DVD ISO (traditional installer).

LXQt

   LXQt 0.16.0 is provided.

   LXQt cannot be installed out of the box from the Classical DVD ISO
   (traditional installer) due to space constraints on the ISOs. Online
   media need to be added to enable more options during the initial
   installation - this is explained in the installer documentation. As
   transparency compositor in combination with openbox, picom replaces
   compton - may need manual adjustment.

MATE

   MATE 1.24.2 is provided.

   MATE can be installed from the Classical DVD ISO (traditional
   installer). Due to DVD space considerations, some applications such as
   mate-screenshot (screenshot application) are not included in Classical
   DVD ISO. For a full MATE Desktop experience, users are advised to
   install task-mate package after initial installation.

Cinnamon

   Cinnamon 4.8.3 is provided.

   Cinnamon can be installed from the Classical DVD ISO (traditional
   installer).

Enlightenment

   The Enlightenment task package comes with E24.2 and Enlightenment
   Foundation Libraries (EFL) 1.25.1 -- including the Elementary,
   Evas-generic-loaders and Evas-generic-players packages. Among the
   highlights of this version is Bluez5 support, an improved screenshot
   tool, a more flexible music control module, the Evisum system monitor,
   the now integrated Polkit-EFL authentication agent, and a separate
   configuration for applications to be loaded when restarting E. For more
   details on this version, see https://www.enlightenment.org/news/e24.2.

   Of course, Mageia includes E's Econnman UI for the connman connection
   manager, along with three EFL-based applications: the Terminology
   advanced terminal emulator, the nimble Ephoto image viewer, and the
   light-weight Rage video player. As with the prior release, Mageia 8
   also offers a Mageia-branded theme as the default.

   For those new or returning to E, startup applications and processes
   (such as the Mageia Online Applet for update notifications) are not
   automatically picked up from /etc/xdg/autostart, but are enabled at
   startup by going to Main menu > Settings > Apps > Startup Applications
   and adding the desired applications and system processes. Applications
   (only) to be loaded on restarting the DE are handled separately from a
   list available via Main menu > Settings > Apps > Restart Applications.

   Enlightenment's system tray, which uses SNI appindicator notifications,
   is a separate module that must be loaded (Main menu > Settings >
   Modules) and added to a shelf (panel), where the Mageia Online Applet
   and Netapplet will be displayed (when enabled) along with others. Gtk
   applications with appindicators (e.g., Ubuntu indicator plugin for
   Pidgin) now have their icons correctly displayed as well.

   Currently, there are two known issues. First, Mageia enables
   systemd-networkd to manage networking by default. Those who prefer to
   use connman with the Econnman interface may find it is not always
   functional (after disabling systemd-networkd and enabling
   connman.service), perhaps as a result of the default wpa_supplicant
   configuration. (There is a separate, recently-developed wireless gadget
   for managing multiple network backends that is not yet included in the
   Mageia repositories.) Second, restarting E sometimes results in a
   warning that the Efreet cache was not updated. In general, this can be
   ignored as it results from a time-out which still seems to be too short
   for some systems.

Light window managers

   You can also keep your Mageia 8 installation even more lightweight, and
   we provide for this a plethora of small and efficient window managers.
   You can find afterstep, awesome, dwm, fluxbox, fvwm2, fvwm-crystal, i3,
   icewm, jwm, matchbox, openbox, pekwm, sugar, swm, and windowmaker.
   After installation, they appear in the login menu of your display
   manager.

IceWM

   IceWM is installed by default as a backup desktop environment even if
   you select Plasma or GNOME in the installer. It is also present in all
   Live ISOs.

   To launch it you select "icewm-session" in the login menu of your
   display manager.

Office apps

   LibreOffice has been updated to 7.0.4.2. See official release notes for
   details.

Internet apps

   Iceape is dropped, because Seamonkey has not yet been ported to python
   3. Note: You need to export content before upgrading Mageia! For some
   guiding see mga#26593#c14 and also search internet.

Multimedia apps

   Since the last patent expired in April, 2017, mp3 encoding is now
   available in the core media. Tainted media are still needed for H.264,
   H.265/HEVC and AAC encoding.

Editors

     * Vim has been updated to 8.2.1522
     * NeoVim 0.4.4 is also included

Games

   In the Mageia community, our love for free software extends to open
   source games. A huge effort has been made during the Mageia 8 release
   cycle to package many new games, making Mageia 8 a very good platform
   for intensive and casual gamers alike. You can check the Mageia App DB
   to see a list of all the new and updated games in Mageia 8. The
   following section will only give some cherry-picked examples for each
   game category.

Education

   Mageia 8 comes with gcompris-qt 1.0 which brings some new activities.
   We were [1] among the donors in February, 2015, to improve the
   graphical interface of this very important project.

Software Development

Compilers and tools

   Glibc has been updated to 2.32. GCC has been updated to 10.2, GDB to
   10.1 and Valgrind to 3.16.1. LLVM has been updated to 11.0.1.

   Firebird has been updated to 3.0.7

   IPython has been updated to 7.19.

   Most libraries were updated to recent stable versions (long-term
   support when available), such as Qt 5.15.2 and GTK+ 3.24.24. GTK4is
   also provided at version 4.1.0 Tcl/Tk is at version 8.6.10.

   Ocaml has been updated to 4.10

   Java stack has been updated to 11, java 8 is still available but is not
   the default.

   Mono has been updated to 6.10.

   The MinGW stack has been updated.

Virtualization stack

   QEmu has been updated to 5.2.

   libvirt has been updated to 7.0, virt-manager to 3.2.0, libguestfs to
   1.44.

   Xen is at version 4.14.

VirtualBox

   VirtualBox is at version 6.1.18.

   Note: In 6.1 series, VirtualBox only supports x86_64 hosts. An existing
   32 bit host will be removed!

Language stacks

   Python 3 has been updated to 3.8.7. Python 2 is being retired (most
   python2 modules have already been removed).

   Perl has been updated to 5.32.1.

   Ruby has been updated to 2.7.2.

   Rust is at version 1.49.0. It will be updated during Mageia 8's support
   life to follow new developments.

   PHP has been updated to 8.0.2, which gives a further performance
   improvement.

Server applications

Nginx

   New installation of nginx http server uses "apache" user: Web servers
   in Mageia are supposed to use the "apache" user created by the
   webserver-base package (which they then need to require). This package
   no longer use a "nginx" user, fixing mga#26183.

Nextcloud

   At release Mageia 8 will have no Nextcloud server packaged, because
   version 21 - the first supporting PHP8 - is not released yet.

   On the positive side we provide two paths:
     * Nextcloud 21 will be introduced in Mageia 8 backports repository.
     * At bottom of Nextcloud wiki page you find link to instruction for
       manual installation.

   Warning
   Nextcloud prior to version 21 will not work on Mageia 8 because we drop
   PHP7.

   Mageia 7 came with Nextcloud 15 in core release repository. The
   Nextcloud installation must not skip a major version! Therefore
   *before* upgrading to Mageia 8, you have to update Nextcloud first to
   version 16, then to 17, then to 18, then to 19, then to 20. You find
   these versions in Mageia 7 backports repository. For each update also
   make sure you have apps updated (they are updated by using Nextcloud
   interface) and some are better disabled or uninstalled before each
   update, then enabled after each, and also verify Nextcloud including
   all apps works after each update, check logs. Before starting the
   process it is a very good idea to take backups. Also, see evolving
   instructions at Nextcloud.

Upgrading from Mageia 7

   Upgrading from Mageia 7 is supported, and has been fine-tuned over the
   past few months.
   Please note!
   Please also read the Mageia 8 errata chapter "Upgrade issues".

   Preparations
     * Back up any important data.
     * Perform a full system update (most importantly rpm and urpmi).
     * A 64 bit system must have any 32 bit development libraries
       uninstalled first. You can identify these by the word "devel" in
       the name. To know if your system houses such libraries you can use
       the command:

          rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME}-%{version}-%{RELEASE}-%{ARCH}\n"
          |grep i586 |grep devel

     * If 3rd party repositories, such as Google, have been added during
       the use of Mageia 7, be sure to make a backup/copy of the urpmi.cfg
       file located in the /etc/urpmi directory.
     * It is good to free some space, particularly uninstall old kernels.

   Not supported
     * Upgrading directly from Mageia 6. (or earlier releases)
     * Using any of the Live images - due to the Live image being copied
       "as is" to the target system.
     * Upgrading a Mageia installation which was NOT in UEFI, towards a
       UEFI-mode Mageia 8.

   - In these cases, you have to do a fresh installation. (possibly
   keeping the /home directory)

Upgrading via the Internet

   The Mageia Update notification applet, Mageia Online, will notify you
   that a new Mageia release is available, and ask if you wish to upgrade.
   If you agree, the upgrade will be carried out from within your Mageia
   installation without any further steps being necessary.

   If you have disabled the applet, or it is not automatically running for
   some reason, you can upgrade manually either using the GUI (mgaonline)
   or the CLI (urpmi/dnf system-upgrade). Each method is outlined below.

   Fully update your system and check you have enough free space before
   starting the upgrade. At least 2 GB, depending on your configuration -
   see Note and safe method at Upgrading online, using urpmi (CLI) below.
   Please note!
   Use a wired internet connection if possible, especially when you're
   using nonfree wlan drivers.

Upgrading online, using mgaonline (GUI)

    1. Ensure any screen lockers have been disabled.
    2. Use Mageia Online icon in the system tray to start the upgrade.

   - If it does not offer the upgrade:
     * Make sure that your system is fully up-to-date by applying all
       available updates.
     * In Mageia Control Center - Software Management - Configure Updates
       Frequency, make sure that the option "Check for newer default
       releases" is selected.
     * Look in your home folder for a hidden directory, .MgaOnline. If
       there is a file mgaonline in that directory, then delete that file.

   After a reboot, the blue upgrade icon should appear when Mageia Online
   next checks for updates. - If Mageia 7 has reached EOL, it will be
   orange and show a pop-up warning that Mageia 7 is no longer supported.

   Alternatively, you can launch the upgrade process by entering the
   following in a terminal:
   Konsole.png
   [user@computer ~]$ su -c 'mgaapplet-upgrade-helper
   --new_distro_version=8'

   It will notify you of the availability of the new Mageia 8
   distribution, configure Mageia media sources and start the migration.

Upgrading online, using urpmi (CLI)

   This method is useful when the root partition is encrypted as the
   booted system is already decrypting the partition.

   There are multiple ways of getting a Command Line Interface (CLI).

   The best method for performing an upgrade is to use run-level 3 so that
   the X server and graphical environment is not running.

   Therefore, the upgrade should be cleaner using run-level 3 than using a
   terminal application as fewer programs are running which could
   potentially mess up the upgrade.

   If you have dnf installed, you will have to stop the dnf makecache
   timer, because it causes a crash of urpmi when run during the upgrade.
   The commands are included below. See mga#25072.

   Run-level 3 can be enabled by appending "3" to the kernel command line
   by editing it at boot and to get then a login prompt. Other option is
   to use the command: systemctl isolate multi-user.target

   It is recommended to run "script upgrade_log.txt" before launching the
   next commands to capture the upgrade messages just in case a failure
   occurs. The messages will be written in upgrade_log.txt file. Use
   "exit" to quit out of "script".

   Here are the general upgrade steps:
     * Become root in a terminal

   Konsole.png
   [user@computer ~]$/bin/su -
   password:
   [root@computer ~]# _
   Warning
   From this point all the commands are executed as root
     * As recommended previously, be sure your system is updated

          urpmi --auto-update --auto --force

     * Disable dnf makecache (this step can be skipped when dnf is not
       installed)

          systemctl stop dnf-makecache.service
          systemctl stop dnf-makecache.timer && systemctl daemon-reload

     * Remove all of the existing media sources on your system by
       executing this command:

          urpmi.removemedia -a

     * Add the Mageia 8 online sources, either:
          + Using the MIRRORLIST method (which will select a mirror
            automatically based on your geographical location):

                urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist
                'http://mirrors.mageia.org/api/mageia.8.$ARCH.list'
                (urpmi knows what to substitute for $ARCH)

          + Using a specific media mirror:

                urpmi.addmedia --distrib <mirror_url>
                You can get the mirror_url using the Mageia mirrors web
                application.

     * Finally start upgrading:

          urpmi --auto-update --auto --force

     * It's best to run the above command twice because in the first run
       some packages may be downloaded but not installed.

   Please note!

   It is often a good idea, when you have more than enough free disk
   space, to test the upgrade before carrying it out.
   With this command: urpmi --auto-update --auto --force --download-all
   --test all the packages are downloaded and the 'upgrade' is only a
   simulation. This needs a lot of free space before starting the test -
   like more than 2GB free space on /var partition ( / of you have no
   /var). (If you have several large desktops and many programs you may
   need more - if only a lightweight desktop, less.) If you have space on
   another partition, you can specify the destination of downloaded files
   by adding a path pointing to this partition after the --download-all
   keyword.
   If the result is good, then upgrade for real with the command urpmi
   --auto-update --auto --force --download-all (same but without --test).
   Add also the path of downloaded files if specified previously.
   If the result is not good, restore the Mageia 7 repositories with
   urpmi.removemedia -a and urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist
   'http://mirrors.mageia.org/api/mageia.7.$ARCH.list' like above, and
   clean the cache by issuing urpmi --clean .

Upgrading online, using DNF (CLI)

   If you're using (or now change to use) DNF for software management
   (configured appropriately per our wiki page on using DNF), you can
   upgrade Mageia in just a few steps. Note all commands must be run as
   root.
    1. Ensure you're fully up to date: dnf --refresh upgrade
    2. Install the system-upgrade plugin: dnf install
       'dnf-command(system-upgrade)'
    3. Start it: dnf system-upgrade --releasever 8 download
       --allowerasing.
         1. It will ask before downloading packages, and tell how much
            space is required. If you do not have what it says plus a
            couple of hundred MB free space on /var partition (if /var is
            not separate but part of / partition, add another couple
            hundred MB), then either make enough space or add the option
            --downloaddir path_to_directory_with_free_space to this and
            the next system-upgrade commands. Also, if you have a separate
            /boot partition make sure it has space for adding two kernels.
            Also make sure / have additional room for the larger new
            programs.
         2. When you know all kinds of space is enough, say yes to let it
            download. It will also dry run a transaction test.
    4. If the downloading and transaction test succeeded,
         1. Save your work, and close applications!
         2. Trigger the upgrade: dnf system-upgrade reboot /!\ NOTE: This
            immediately reboots your system! /!\

   Now enjoy some beverage while looking at the bubbles on our boot splash
   - and above it, messages what is happening. When done, it will reboot
   to let you enjoy your new Mageia.

Using the traditional Mageia 8 DVD to Upgrade

   You can use the traditional (so, non-Live) Mageia 8 DVD to do clean
   installs, but also to upgrade from Mageia 7.

   To upgrade:
     * Download the ISO from the Mageia download page and burn it on a
       DVD, or dump it on a USB stick. For more details, have a look at
       this Available installation media article.
     * Boot the DVD and make sure it booted in the same mode (legacy/BIOS
       or UEFI) as Mageia 7 was installed in.
     * Select "Install Mageia 8" from the GRUB (the bootloader) menu.
     * Select the upgrade option.

   It is recommended that the online repositories be set up during the
   upgrade as the DVD only includes a subset of the complete set of Mageia
   online repositories. This is especially important if you use important
   32-bit packages in an otherwise 64-bit install, because the 64-bit ISO
   will only contain the 64-bit packages, so the upgrade is likely to fail
   if you do not add online repositories.

   Moreover, it is possible that a particular Mageia 7 installation may
   have received an update to a later version of software than that
   available on the ISO. When this happens, an upgrade may fail to
   complete. At the time the ISOs are tested, it is impossible to
   anticipate which Mageia 7 packages may be updated in the future, so
   offline upgrades (i.e., upgrades attempted without setting up the
   online repositories) are not supported.

   On the first reboot, use the command 'urpmi --auto-update' to make sure
   all packages were updated.

Upgrading an encrypted install

   Firstly, on the running Mageia 7 system:
     * Remove unnecessary kernels, and big programs you do not need.
     * Perform a full update.
     * Make a note of which media are used, and have been used (Are any
       tainted enabled? If it is a 64-bit system, are any 32-bit media
       enabled?).
     * Make a note of which partitions are used, and their mount points.

   Then prepare and boot the traditional installer as described above,
   and:
     * Select install, select language, accept the licence, select
       country, select keyboard, custom partitioning.
     * Click your encrypted partitions, select Use and enter your key.
     * If it is LVM a new tab containing the LV partitions appears.
     * Assign the mount points for all needed partitions except swap (as
       per your notes as above, or judge from partitions name, size, and
       type. Don't forget the /boot outside of the encrypted LVM!).
     * IMPORTANT: After clicking Next make sure to deselect formatting of
       all partitions! Or, if you want a fresh system but wish to keep
       user data: format /boot, / and any /usr /tmp etc you might have,
       but NOT /home.
     * You should enable all media repositories (using your notes as
       above) corresponding to those used in your previous Mageia
       installation - except backports.
     * As with a nonencrypted install, it is recommended that the online
       repositories be set up, including relevant update repositories.

Known issues

User action needed

   User actions needed that are not described elsewhere on this page nor
   in Errata.

VeraCrypt

   After upgrade to Mageia 8, VeraCrypt does not work with sudo as before.
   mga#28001

   Since veracrypt-1.24u2 you have to add the command line switch
   '--use-dummy-sudo-password' when starting VeraCrypt to get the old
   behaviour with sudo. See also Arch Linux forum.

Bugs

   See the Errata page.

Bug reporting

   We have a bug tracker. Before reporting any bugs, please read the
   Errata and also search the bug tracker to see if the issue is already
   reported. - If it is, then maybe you can add valuable information, or
   help testing a proposed update. To contribute, you need a Mageia
   account, which you can create at https://identity.mageia.org/. If you
   don't know, see how to report a bug.

   You are also welcome to our Forum. For the development phase visit the
   section "Testing : Alpha, Beta, RC and Cauldron".

Packages removed from the distribution

Without removal on upgrade

   The following packages have been removed from the distribution. They
   won't be affected by the upgrade process, they should continue to work,
   but won't receive any support anymore if they don't. Moreover, they
   won't receive any updates anymore, which means they are likely to get
   outdated from upstream versions first, and potentially get exposed to
   security issues second. You should probably switch to an upstream
   version, but that's your own decision.

   The category contains the following packages:
     * GLPI and its previously packaged extensions
     * galette
     * Nextcloud (temporarily)

With removal on upgrade

   The following packages have been removed from the distribution and
   marked as obsolete in the task-obsolete package: they will be removed
   by the upgrade process.

   The category contains the following packages, alphabetically:
     * Iceape
     * kde-rootactions-servicemenu is removed as it is unmaintained
       upstream and have issues.
     * nvidia340 driver packages.
     * PlayOnLinux, because it is upstreams not ported to Python3. We
       suggest to try Lutris and Steam instead.
     * VirtualBox 32 bit host.
     * youtube-dl-gui (Python2). Suggested alternatives: the Python3 port,
       or Tartube.
     * ...
