Mageia 9 Released With SQLite-Based RPM Package Database, Zstd Compressed Images

While the release cycle dragged on for several extra months, available this weekend is the release of Mageia 9 for this Linux distribution long ago derived from Mandriva that in turn was an evolution going back to the glorious Mandrake days. Mageia 9 is a nice update pulling in many package updates along with other fundamental changes like shifting to SQLite for its RPM package database.

Powering Mageia 9 is the KDE Plasma 5.27 desktop by default, the latest Linux 6.4 kernel is powering the system, Mesa 23.1 provides fresh open-source GPU driver support, SQLite has replaced libdb for the RPM DB, the size of the minimal install has been further reduced, stage 1 images are now compressed with Zstd rather than Gzip, the Mageia rescue system has been enhanced, and many other changes abound.

Going back nearly one year was the Mageia 9 alpha release, so it's great to see Mageia 9 now officially available. OpenMandriva of similar lineage to Mageia is also working towards OpenMandriva OMLx 5.0.

Mageia 9 can be downloaded from Mageia.org. The 32-bit software repositories on 64-bit systems are disabled by default but can be easily enabled for those still wanting 32-bit software support like for Steam.