OpenMandriva Lx is a KDE-focused community-driven Linux distribution that is also inspired and forked from Mandriva Linux, and offers a host of open-source software to complement the whole package. Developed by the OpenMandriva Association, OpenMandriva Lx caters to experienced KDE users, as well as first-time Linux converts.
The OpenMandriva project was created back in May 2012, when Mandriva S.A. avoided bankruptcy by abandoning the development of its consumer product to the Mandriva community.
The OpenMandriva project announced today the general availability of the latest stable release – OpenMandriva Lx 4.3. This release includes updated bundled applications and various improvements. With that said, let’s quickly take a look at what’s new.
OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 Highlights
OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 is powered by Linux kernel 5.16.7 and includes the KDE Plasma 5.23.5 desktop environment, which is accompanied by the Plasma Frameworks 5.90 and KDE Gear 21.12.2 software suites, all built against the latest stable Qt 5.15.3 open-source application framework.
It’s important to be noted, however, that some NVME SSDs may not be recognized by OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 Live ISO. The issue is known and being worked on by OpenMandriva developers and upstream developers.
The distro uses Calamares as an installer framework. Installation is butter smooth, with no confusion. Total installation time was around 7-8 minutes – super fast!
On OpenMandriva Lx 4.3, everything can be controlled in OM Control Center. You find there software management aside from configurations for keyboard, mouse, printer, services as well as security and firewall. It is organized like a book, open a page to see a configuration from the page list at the top.
Apart from those mentioned above, this release of OpenMandriva Lx supports booting and installation with and without UEFI. Note that secure boot is NOT supported. If you wish to perform an EFI installation on an existing MBR disk it will be necessary to convert the disk partition table to the newer GPT partitioning scheme.
Another interesting change in OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 is the fact that the distro provides a Clang compiled kernel. For those of you unaware of Clang, it is a front-end to LLVM that supports C and the GNU C extensions required by the kernel. Users can install the same version of kernel-release-desktop and kernel-release-desktop-clang for comparison.
In the latest OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 release, you can also find updated packages that include:
- Mesa 21.3.5
- FFMPEG 5.0
- OBS-Studio 27.1.3
- Blender 3.0.1
- GIMP 2.10.30
- Audacity 3.1.3
- Firefox 96.0
- Falkon 3.2
- Steam 1.0.0.72
For detailed information about all changes in OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 you can refer to the release notes.
Download
OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 requires at least 2 GB of memory with at least 10 GB of hard drive space. For the best compositing performance, you need a suitable accelerated 3D graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.0 or above.
This release is available as a live media DVD or USB flash drive, downloadable in ISO format. It is available in two variants:
- x86_64 KDE Plasma desktop – full featured (includes the most commonly used functionalities, multimedia, and office software).
- znver1 KDE Plasma desktop – a version specifically built for current AMD processors (Ryzen, ThreadRipper, EPYC) that outperforms the generic (x86_64) version by taking advantage of new features in those processors.
In addition, installable images are also offered for the Pinebook Pro, Raspberry Pi 4B, Raspberry Pi 3B+, Synquacer, and Cubox Pulse.
If you want to give the KDE Plasma-focused OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 a try, you can download the ISO here.
Tried it on VMware. Nothing working except a larger than usual initial screen. Messed around and got the live CD running. Install not working.
Chose another run method from the trouble-shooting section. Terminal was asking for a user/password. Gave up!
I have tried dozens of Linux distributions recently and this one had the shortest life.