In mid-December, I informed you about Mageia’s plans for its upcoming tenth release. Today, that takes a step forward with the arrival of the first alpha ISO for Mageia 10, powered by the Linux kernel 6.18 LTS and officially available, giving developers, testers, and early adopters the opportunity to evaluate what is coming next.
Here are the most important points. Software stack updates and versions:
- PHP: Mageia 10 development includes PHP 8.5, with continued support for PHP 8.4.
- Python: There is no immediate migration to Python 3.14; Python will remain at the versions currently in Cauldron.
- Java: Java 21 will be the Long-Term Support (LTS) version for general use, with Java 25 available as an optional
java-latestpackage for 64-bit users. - Compilers and toolchains: Current builds use GCC 15.2 and LLVM 20.1.8, and Mageia plans to maintain these versions for release stability.
- Golang: Migration toward Go 1.25.x is underway, with ongoing work to update dependent packages.
Regarding desktop environments, Mageia 10 will include multiple desktop environments, maintaining support for Plasma 6.5, GNOME 49, and Xfce 4.20 in live and install images. Plans also include updates to major applications such as LibreOffice, moving from version 25.8.3 to 26.2 by early 2026.
Finally, classical installer ISOs will continue to support both 32-bit (i686) and 64-bit architectures, though maintenance challenges persist as upstream moves away from 32-bit.
For more information, see the announcement. Those eager to try out Mageia 10 Alpha can download the ISO images from here.
