Linux distribution Mageia 9 has been released with Linux Kernel 6.4 and reduced disk footprint

Mageia, a secure and stable Linux distribution, has launched its latest version, Mageia 9. This community project, backed by a nonprofit organization of elected contributors, is powered by the Linux 6.4 kernel series and comes with a smaller disk footprint. The minimal install size has been significantly reduced, making it the smallest since the release of Mageia 4.

In a shift from the old and unmaintained Berkeley DB, Mageia 9's RPM database now utilizes the modern SQLite. The conversion process is executed during the upgrade from Mageia 8. Also, Mageia 9 has moved away from using its 15-year-old forked NFS code for NFS support. Instead, it now relies on system tools, thereby gaining support for NFSv4 & co.

Mageia 9 offers enhanced flexibility when using a HTTP server by allowing users to specify a port different from the default “80”. It also replaces GNU Wget with cURL for downloading packages during installation, and activates the NetworkManager system service by default in the KDE Plasma live ISO.

Hardware support in Mageia 9 has been upgraded. It now uses the Mesa 23.1 graphics stack and supports the current libre Xorg Nouveau drivers for NVIDIA. Both PulseAudio and PipeWire are supported as sound servers, although PulseAudio remains the default.

Mageia 9 also brings a host of bug fixes and improvements, particularly in the partitioner, further enhancing the overall user experience.