Mageia is a fork of Mandriva Linux formed by former employees and contributors to the popular French Linux distribution.

Mageia is the name of a non-profit organization and Linux distribution.

Mageia is a fork of Mandriva Linux formed in September 2010 by former employees and contributors to the popular French Linux distribution. Unlike Mandriva, which is a commercial entity, the Mageia project is a community project and a non-profit organisation whose goal is to develop a free Linux-based operating system.

The term "mageia" — μαγεία in Greek — means "magic" in English. It is a reference to Mandrake the Magician, the original name of the Mandriva distribution (Mandrake Linux).

Creation.

On September 18, 2010, a group of former Mandriva employees and community supporters announced that Mandriva Linux was being forked and a new, community-driven distribution would be created, called Mageia.

This action followed the dismissal of most employees working on the Mandriva distribution when Edge-IT (a company owned by Mandriva) was liquidated. The group explained that they "do not want to be dependent on the economic fluctuations and erratic, unexplained strategic moves of the company."

The Mageia organization intends to manage and coordinate the distribution: code and software hosting and distribution, build system, marketing, foster communication and events.

Goals.

The following goals were listed in their announcement on September 18, 2010:.
    * Make Linux and free and open source software straight forward to use for everyone;
    * Provide integrated system configuration tools;
    * Keep a high-level of integration between the base system, the desktop (KDE Plasma / GNOME) and applications; especially improve third-parties (be it free or proprietary software) integration;
    * Target new architectures and form-factors;
    * Improve understanding of computers and electronics devices users.

Updates (via Distrowatch):

Version 1 of Mageia, a Linux distribution built and maintained by many former developers and contributors to Mandriva Linux, has been released: "We are the Mageia community, and today we are happy to tell everyone that our first release, Mageia 1, is out and available for download. Mageia began in September 2010 as a fork of Mandriva Linux. It is supported by a not-for-profit organisation, governed by a body of recognized and elected contributors, and made by 100+ people around the world. Our work adds to the excellent work of the wider Linux and free software community. We aim to bring one of the best, most stable, reliable and enjoyable experience and platform we can make; for a regular user, a developer, or a business.

Read the release announcement and release notes for more information.

Download (mirror list): mageia-dvd-1-i586.iso (3,826MB, MD5, torrent), mageia-dvd-1-x86_64.iso (3,726MB, MD5, torrent). Quick links to the live CDs supporting English and other major European languages: mageia-livecd-1-KDE4-i586.iso (693MB, MD5, torrent), mageia-livecd-1-GNOME-i586.iso (621MB, MD5, torrent).

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Recent releases:

• 2011-06-01: Distribution Release: Mageia 1
• 2011-05-17: Development Release: Mageia 1 RC
• 2011-04-26: Development Release: Mageia 1 Beta 2
• 2011-04-05: Development Release: Mageia 1 Beta 1
• 2011-03-15: Development Release: Mageia 1 Alpha 2
• 2011-02-15: Development Release: Mageia 1 Alpha 1
New grounds.

Mageia is a community project: it will not depend on the fate of a particular company.

A not-for-profit organization will be set up in the coming days and it will be managed by a board of community members. After the first year this board will be regularly elected by committed community members.

This organization will manage and coordinate the distribution: code & software hosting and distribution, build system, marketing, foster communication and events. Data, facts, roadmaps, designs will be shared, discussed through this organization.

We will discuss and lay down details in the coming days.

Mageia distribution will be what the board makes it to be, with the help and contribution of the whole community. We already have ideas and plans for this distribution; we want to:

* make Linux and free software straightforward to use for everyone;
* provide integrated system configuration tools;
* keep a high-level of integration between the base system, the desktop (KDE/GNOME) and applications; especially improve third-parties (be it free or proprietary software) integration;
* target new architectures and form-factors;
* improve our understanding of computers and electronics devices users.

Screenshots.