OpenMandriva Lx 2014 Alpha 2 has been released. Here the announcement:
Today is a good day in many senses: winter ended and OpenMandriva Lx 2014 Alpha2 is here!OpenMandriva Lx 2014 Alpha 2 released
To keep up to high standards we decided to move Beta to RC1 date, and have Alpha2 today, to deliver you new fun according to the promise. This change does not affect the final release date.
You can download it (Codename for this release is Phosphorus) here:
(32-bit)
https://abf.io/platforms/openmandriva2014.0/products/71/product_build_lists/2827
(64)bit
https://abf.io/platforms/openmandriva2014.0/products/70/product_build_lists/2828
Have fun with bug hunting and please report them here:
https://issues.openmandriva.org/
So what’s in?
Kernel and hardware support
OpenMandriva Lx 2014.0 has been improving with every iteration – we’ve tried to make sure that your system works in a stable yet powerful manner.
The kernel has been upgraded to 3.12.13 nrjQL – a powerful variant of the 3.12.13 kernel. The CPU and RCU have been configured with full preemption and boost mode, while we’ve also added the CK1 and BFQ patchsets to provide optimisations (including a better CPU load scheduler, better disk I/O scheduler, a better memory manager via UKSM, and TuxOnIce for better suspension and hibernation), designed with desktop system performance and responsiveness in mind.
Added support for SQUASHFS_MULTI_DECOMPRESSOR to allow make use of all CPU while booting from ISO which greatly speed up booting Live CD.
ARM
armv7hl (hardfloat) port of OpenMandriva available with RazorQt Desktop Environment. Port is ready for wandboard and qemu. With some skill it’s easy to run on any popular hardware like pogoplug, arndale, i.mx6, etc.
aarch64 (ARM64) image available in basesystem-minimal package, include: rpm5, coreutils, busybox, vim, ruby, perl, python, openssl, krb5 and lot’s of others.Ability to produce ARM64 rpms added to Automated Build Farm, and now finished two mass rebuilds of aarch64 platform.
Port to armv6 (Raspberry Pi) postponed to solve technical issues.
Boot process
Latest stable systemd 208 with all kind of “safe” updates from upstream and our specific patches makes boot faster than ever as based on experience of 4 years of supporting systemd.
A stable and working out-of-box dracut 036 version with our specific patches to support uvesafb and graphics driver blacklisting for dual graphics cards(nVIDIA Optimus) laptops.
X.org
Updated x11-server to 1.15.0 version and and Mesa to 10.0.2. to provide best graphics experience with free drivers.
Networking
Support for realmd for easy and out-of-box user authentication in network environment
We feature firewalld as a feature-rich replacement for drakfirewall and shorewall
Fresh artwork
We know you are hungry for it! – 2014 theme for desktop, Grub2, Plymouth, KSplash and KDE environment, new screensaver and user avatars.
Java
The java stack has been remade in cooker to be 100% compatible with Fedora 20, and the work backported to 2014.0.
Spotlight is a fully functional eclipse 4.3.1.
KDE
We’ve included the latest release of KDE 4.12.2 with our distribution, bringing with it the latest KDE stable, secure, and reliable KDE release:
We use Homerun as a new launcher and brand new OpenMandriva panel for best look and feel.
There are also some changes:
We feature plasma-mediacenter!
KMail is our default email client, which has improved greatly since our last release.
VLC is our default video player.
For more information about KDE 4.12.2, check out the KDE’s website.
Multimedia
We support IOS7 with latest ifuse and libimobiledevice also whole set of devices based on MTP protocol thanks to KDE’s kio-mtp application.
Office
Updated to LibreOffice 4.1.3 version
Web Browser
Firefox has been updated to version 27, with bugfixes and new features.
For more information, see Mozilla’s website
Drakx tools
A refreshed drakxtools with many bugfixes with important fix to ldetect and XFdrake to finally support graphic cards recognition.
Installer
Currently we are still working on EFI support.
End user orientation
Added Join and Donate desktop activators to ease our users to help community.
Server
We finally finished a switch from MySQL to MariaDB keeping best packaging practices based on our policy and experience.
For those who want SimpleWelcome:
1. Install rosa-launcher package as a superuser
urpmi rosa-launcher
2. After installation un-lock the desktop by clicking right mouse button on desktop or panel and choose un-lock widgets.
3. Click one more time with your right mouse button on desktop and choose add widgets.
4. From list of available new widgets on bottom of your screen choose SimpleWelcome and simply drag’n’ drop this widget on panel or desktop – wherever you want.
5. You can remove homerunlaucher from default place on left bottom of OpenMandriva panel
For more information please follow 2014.0 release notes .
