Mageia 1 Beta 2 Released
Today the second beta of the inaugural release of Mageia was released. This release has received lots of bug fixes and software updates as well as a nice theme change. The development branch is now frozen until after final which is due in little over a month.
Seems the developers are mostly interested in upgrade testing this time from Mandriva 2010.x or earlier Mageia test releases. Unfortunately, I peformed a fresh install, which went smoothly.
There is a new theme this release. It's a pencil sketch draft of the Mageia logo and name. The boot splash has been updated as well, but doesn't fit into the draft theme which starts with the login screen. It continues through the KDE splash and onto the desktop. The KDE splash is animated beyond the usual icons to include the appearance and darkening of the Mageia cauldron bubbles. That's pretty cute. In fact, I love this theme. Mageia has also borrowed Mandriva's Ia Ora windec and style - which is still a nice looking theme.
Some of the software updates include Linux 2.6.38.4, LibreOffice 3.3.2.2, KDE 4.6.2, and Firefox 4.0. The installation of the NVIDIA drivers went smoothly, but after the recommended reboot X wouldn't start. Fortunately, an error message told me why. I was instructed to boot with the option "nokmsboot." With that the boot splash centered properly and X started as desired.
I had a little trouble with the software manager. After searching for NVIDIA and was given the choices, I selected the version I wanted to install. I was shown a list of other software that needed to be installed and once I clicked "Ok" the software manager stopped responding. I had to "killall rpmdrake." Then I remembered I should just be using the Mageia Control Center to configure X anyway. It did the deed.
The release announcement said a security team is being assembled to provide security update packages. Despite being frozen, the blog post went on to say that your favorite software package could still be added.
Overall, Mageia is looking good. Other than the package manager, all other software and tools seem to work fine - not that I tested everything for this quick look. I'm certainly looking forward to final release.