More than three years after its release in August 2023, Mageia 9 is nearing the end of support, which will conclude on September 30, 2026. After that, it will no longer receive validated updates, including security fixes.
Mageia 9 debuted on August 27, 2023, powered by Linux kernel 6.4 and offering KDE Plasma 5.27, GNOME 44, and Xfce 4.18 among its main desktop options. During its lifetime, the release received over 24,000 updates, including security fixes delivered by the distribution’s packaging, security, and QA teams.
The distro follows a policy of supporting the previous major release for three months after a new one becomes available. With Mageia 10 officially released on June 30, 2026, that grace period is now coming to an end.
Users still running Mageia 9 are encouraged to move to Mageia 10. The upgrade can be started through Mageia’s major-version update application in the system tray or done from the command line using the steps in the project’s release notes.
A clean installation is another option. Mageia notes that Classic installation images can be used for this, while Live images are intended for testing or clean installs only and cannot upgrade an existing Mageia 9 system. Users choosing a clean installation should back up important data beforehand.
Mageia 10 represents a substantial refresh over its predecessor. It ships with Linux kernel 6.18 LTS, KDE Plasma 6.5, GNOME 49, and Xfce 4.20, along with RPM 4.20, DNF 5, GCC 15.2, and Mesa 26.
With Mageia 9 now being retired, the project says its efforts are shifting toward maintaining Mageia 10 while development of Mageia 11 is already underway.
So, if Mageia 9 is still running on one of your systems, September 30 is the date to remember. Moving to Mageia 10 is necessary to continue receiving security fixes and regular updates.
For additional details, see the official announcement.
