OpenMandriva Lx 2014 Has Been Released

OpenMandriva Lx 2014 has been officially released with many new features, improvements and major changes.

This second release of the OpenMandriva operating system under the community of the OpenMandriva Association is a major update from the previous version of OpenMandriva Lx and it comes with a better desktop system performance and responsiveness due to the implementation of the 3.13.11 nrjQL stock kernel.

“This is first kernel version where we have enabled two new kernel keys to test the “EDID ovverride” feature, with this we should be able to override an incorrect screen EDID with boot time options, we have included EDIDBINS in the ISOs, a package containing 5 basic firmwares for the most common resolutions so that users may force different resolutions than the ones detected automatically by X. The CONFIG_ACPI_CUSTOM_DSDT key allows loading of a customised acpi table.”, reads the official announcement.

Thanks to some patches that the network filesystem has received in this release of OpenMandriva, your NFS services will have a faster start. Some other patches have also been implemented in this release making possible to improve device compatibility and also ensure that devices re-awake properly after suspend or hibernate.

OpenMandriva Lx 2014 contains all the necessary software needed for word processing, media playing and web browsing. The latest version of Firefox web browser is available in this version of OpenMandriva offering the user a new graphical interface, amazing features and a great web surfing experience.

Firefox 29 was released a few days ago with a new user inteface known as Australis, important changes, new features and a finalized Gamepad API which allows gamers to use almost any traditional gamepad controller for playing games in the web.

But Firefox 29 is not the only one fresh app in OpenMandriva Lx 2014. The latest LibreOffice 4.2.3 is also present in this release featuring much faster load times and many bug fixes.

What about the desktop environment used in OpenMandriva Lx 2014? OpenMandriva Lx 2014 features the latest version of the KDE desktop, but with a different menu launcher. Developers of OpenMandriva have decided to use Homerun as their default menu launcher which is a free launcher that organises the content in tabs.

The Homerun launcher has the following features:

  • Homerun can browse your installed applications and start them or add them to the favorite list to be able to quickly start them from the homepage.
  • Homerun lists your favorite places and let you browse them: clicking an item from the “Favorite Places” section will list the content of this folder, making it possible for you to navigate your folders to open a document without having to use a file manager.
  • Homerun can be used from a launcher button in a panel (like Kickoff), or as a containment (like the Search and Launch containment).

Now, if you are thinking to upgrade from previous OpenMandriva Lx Releases follow the instructions shown below.

Open a new terminal and as root, run the following commands:

urpmi.removemedia -a
urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist 'http://downloads.openmandriva.org/mirrors/openmandriva.2014.0.ARCH.list'

Substitute ARCH with your architecture, e.g. i586 or x86_64.

Then run the following commands:

urpmi --auto --auto-select --replacefiles 2>&1 | tee /root/upgrade.log

Reboot when completed. The upgrade log is stored in /root/upgrade.log.

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