The new version of OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 arrives with these changes

The launch of the new version of the Linux distribution "OpenMandriva Lx 4.1", version that adds some changes and above all a large number of updates to the system components.

For those unaware of Open Mandriva Lx, they should know that is a Linux distribution created and oriented for all types of users. The project is being developed by community forces after Mandriva SA transferred management of the project to the non-profit OpenMandriva Association.

For those people who do not know the name Mandriva Linux I can comment on the following about this Linux distribution that ended its development several years ago.

Mandriva Linux was a Linux distribution published by the French company Mandriva intended for both beginners and experienced users.

Time passed and the moment came when it was not affordable to maintain development of the distribution so the end of it came.

Given this, OpenMandriva Lx arose, retaking the project, but under its own reins. And that's how the development of this distribution began.

Over the years OpenMandriva Lx development has been slow so to speak, but this does not neglect the great effort to continue it.

Although OpenMandriva Lx not very popular, but has a large community of users and developers who maintain the project.

Main new features of OpenMandriva Lx 4.1

With the release of this new version of OpenMandriva Lx 4.1, in addition to the standard Linux kernel compiled on GCC (package "kernel-release"), a kernel version was compiled in Clang ("Kernel-release-clang"). Clang in OpenMandriva is already used as the default compiler, but so far the kernel has had to be built in GCC (the Clang compiler used to build packages has been updated to the LLVM 9.0 branch).

Besides that added support for packet compression using zstd algorithm instead of the "xz" used earlier. Whereby compiling the packages in the zstd format led to a negligible increase in the size of the packages, but a significant acceleration in the compilation process.

Regarding the system components, we can find that the kernel was updated to the version of the Linux kernel 5.5, Glibc 2.30, systemd 244, Java 13, Qt 5.14.1, KDE Frameworks 5.66, KDE Plasma 5.17.5, KDE Applications 19.12.1, LibreOffice 6.4.0, Falkon 3.1.0, Krita 4.2. 8, Kdenlive 19.12.1, SMPlayer 19.10.2, DigiKam 7.0.0.

While the versions of Firefox 72.0.2, Chromium browser 79.0.3945.130, Virtualbox 6.1.2, Thunderbird 68.4.1, Gimp 2.10.14 they are also available in the repositories.

It is also mentioned in the announcement that Zypper is being proposed as an alternate package manager for the system.

And desktop presets configurator added (om-feeling-like), which offers a set of presets to give you to the KDE Plasma desktop the appearance of other environments e.g. make it look like Ubuntu interface, Windows 7, Windows 10, macOS, etc.).

The package ffmpeg adds support for AV1 video codec using dav1d and nvdec / nvenc for the NVIDIA GPU. Chromium includes VAAPI support for hardware video decoding in h264 and vp9 formats.

Of the other changes highlighted in the announcement of the OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 release:

• Instead of firewall-config, NX Firewall is proposed to simplify firewall configuration
• The repository has expanded the number of desktop environments available for installation;
• Added a new Configuration Update utility (om-update-config), designed to configure automatic delivery of updates.
• A "znver1" compilation was generated optimized for AMD Ryzen, ThreadRipper and EPYC processors

Download and test OpenMandriva Lx 4.1

If you are interested in trying this new version of OpenMandriva Lx 4.1 you can get the new image from their website.

You will only have to go to your official website where you will find the 2.6 GB live build (x86_64). To save the system image to a USB device, you can make use of Etcher, which is a multiplatform tool.

Finally, if you want to know more about it, about this launch you can check the publication in the following link.