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| Synopsis: This page describes the various available installation and Live ISO files for the Mageia distribution, and how to download and put them on media for use. We also describe checking and repairing the download, how to restore the USB stick, and short about the usage and possibilities of the different ISO. |
Contents
Choices
The various Mageia ISO files.
- Live: You can run them directly from DVD or USB stick without installing. Can install itself to disk but not upgrade earlier Mageia release. Use them to check out Mageia and machine compatibility - or use as a portable system. They contain the most popular applications, and comes in four variants with different desktop environments to try: three 64-bit systems with Plasma, GNOME and Xfce respectively, plus a 32-bit Xfce. On USB you can enable persistent storage which will be automatically used for settings, user files, updates, and added applications.
- Classic installer: Can be used offline to install or upgrade Mageia, optionally with internet connection for updates (recommended during upgrade) and to retrieve more packages. Comes in two variants: 32- and 64-bit. It contain a lot of applications and desktops to choose from, and still much more are available online.
- Netinstall: Minimal installer boot disk, must be connected to network and download what it install. Four variants: 32- or 64-bit, with proprietary drivers or not.
For further detail see below under Classic installer ISO, Network Installer ISO, Live ISO. Also see our documentation: Select and use ISOs.
SIZES:
All the ISOs fit easily on an 8GB USB stick.
For DVD, since Mageia 10, most ISOs have outgrown standard DVDs: the Classic, Plasma Live, Gnome Live. If you want to install these from DVD, you will need to use dual-layer media.
However, both Xfce Live ISOs (32 and 64 bit) still fit onto a standard single-layer DVD. If this is your only option, install this ISO and later add to the installed system what else you want, like a different desktop.
All Mageia ISO images are hybrid, which means you can burn them to a DVD (CD works for netinstall) as well as USB stick and and they can boot.
Download
Use our download page or find the Classic and Live ISOs on your favourite mirror under <mirror url>/mageia/iso/, (i.e http://mirror.accum.se/mirror/mageia/iso/). Netinstaller can be found at <mirror url>/mageia/distrib/$RELEASE/$ARCH/install/images/ (i.e http://mirror.accum.se/mirror/mageia/distrib/9/x86_64/install/images/). For all except Netinstaller you can choose Bittorent if you like.
Checking the Downloaded Image File Integrity
Principle
Did you notice in the Download Mageia page, the hexadecimal number called md5sum, sha512sum or sha3-512sum ? (In the mirror folders they are available as files.) They have been calculated by an algorithm from the ISO file. If you ask this algorithm to calculate again this number from your downloaded file, either you have the same number and your downloaded file is correct, or the number is different and your ISO is broken, probably an incomplete download. Do not try to use the broken ISO. Either download it again or use the BitTorrent (How to fix a Broken ISO Download) method below.
Furthermore, our checksum files are signed to avoid that images and checksums are usurped.
Practical
Open a terminal, as a standard user, and type the command sha512sum /path/to/image/file.iso :
For this example we use the Mageia 7.1 iso image, the folder is /Mageia-7.1-x86_64 the ISO file is Mageia-7.1-x86_64.iso. You need both the ISO and the checksum file in the same folder.
You can do the same with sha3-512sum :
How to fix a Broken ISO Download
If you have spent a long time downloading an ISO only to find that it fails the checksum test, do not panic. You may not need to download the ISO again. It is possible to use BitTorrent or wget to rebuild the ISO and download or fix the missing parts. See this article from the Damn Small Linux wiki for a very useful primer on the subject.
Put the ISO on a media of your choice
It is also possible Installing Mageia from ISO on disk.
| Warning! Starting with Mageia 10, Classic Installer and the Plasma and Gnome Live ISOs no longer fit in single layer DVD, you should use Dual Layer DVD or USB devices with 8 Gb or more space. Both 32 & 64 bit Xfce Live ISOs still fit on a standard single-layer DVD. |
Burn an ISO to optical media
The netinstaller ISOs fits easily on a CD. All other need a DVD.
See Writing CD and DVD images.
Dump Mageia ISO on a USB flash drive
All Mageia ISOs are hybrid, which means you can 'dump' them on a USB stick and use it to boot, test, and (optionally) install the system.
Note the size limitation as for example a 4 GB ISO image can be too big for some 4 GB USB drives due to rounding the size to GB.
Note that you can not copy the file using a file manager, you need a tool to write the file content directly to the root of the device (and not a partition).
From a Mageia system, use IsoDumper. It also supports creating persistence - so the stick remembers your work, settings, system updates, added applications...
For various methods to perform this on several operating systems, see Dump Mageia ISO on a USB flash drive - Alternative tools.
There, you can also read about Removing the ISO files from USB Media.
Installation-only media
Mageia's Classic and Netinstall ISO both use the traditional drakx installer. These are not Live DVD/CDs, i.e. they cannot be used to preview or test run the distro, they can only be used to install Mageia on an HDD (or USB HDD). Below is a detailed explanation of the features that each of these media provides.
Classic installer ISO
The Classic installation ISO image can be used without internet connection, and includes lots of software including the most prominent desktops to choose from: Plasma5, GNOME, Cinnamon, MATE, LXDE, Xfce.
Optionally you may add the online Mageia repositories during the installation, which means you can install updates while installing, and more packages than those available on the disc.
You'll be given the choice to add nonfree software (you don't pay for it: the non-free means it's not covered by the Free Software Foundation licensing) during install, for finding nonfree software on it (e.g. the NVIDIA or AMD/ATI proprietary graphics cards drivers or firmware for wifi cards... etc). You can also add the online repositories during the installation and you can reconfigure your hardware at the Summary stage (towards the end of the installation) to install the nonfree software needed for your hardware.
The Classic Installer ISO comes in two editions:
- i586 (32-bit)
- x86_64 (64-bit)
| Note: the 64-bit version will not work on 32-bit hardware. UEFI is supported by both the 32-bit and the 64-bit ISOs |
Network Installer ISO
You can perform installs by downloading over network by booting on either netinstall.iso or netinstall-nonfree.iso.
Both netinstall.iso and netinstall-nonfree.iso are very minimalistic images, which boot stage 1 of the drakx installer to set up the sources to download stage 2 and packages from.
The -nonfree version contain non free drivers needed for some hardware. Both comes in both 32- and 64-bit versions. For more information see Mageia_Netinstall_Iso_(Boot.iso).
Note: only nonfree works with wifi.
Live ISO
Live mode
A Live ISO can be used to preview Mageia without first installing it on your computer. Simply download the ISO, burn it on a disk using your favourite ISO burner (or dump it on a USB key using dd or IsoDumper , see Dump Mageia ISO on a USB flash drive), boot the system to see how well Mageia works on your computer.
- To limit the size of ISOs, each Mageia Live ISO contains only one desktop environment (Plasma5, GNOME or Xfce). CDs size ISOs are no more available since Mageia 5.
- Starting from Mageia 7, booting on a UEFI system is supported by both the 32-bit and 64-bit media (previous releases supported UEFI only for 64-bit media)
Installing a running Live to disk
When you find Mageia Live runs fine you may install it as it is to your HDD; there's an icon on the desktop to start the draklive installer. The install will be with all settings and updates the Live currently use included.
| Note: Installing a Live ISO to your computer simply copies the virtual file system of the Live ISO to your drive, along with some machine-specific configuration. For this reason, Live ISOs can only be used to create completely fresh installations, they cannot be used to upgrade from previous releases. |
| Warning! Create a user with a new login if you don't format a /home partition. User's configuration is written in user's space, which can overwrite some personal data. This can be the case for Firefox, Thunderbird, Kmail data... |
Persistence with memory devices
If you use a memory device like USB stick, Live Mageia 7 and later can be run from it in persistent mode.
Also see Persistent Live systems.
Advantages of persistence
- Store your work, logins, settings - from Mageia 8 and later encrypted if you like, see below
- As it no longer uses the RAM file system, it stands more chance of working on machines with low amounts of RAM. (Like an internal disk installed system.)
- If you really need to use one of the proprietary drivers, it doesn't have to be rebuilt each time you reboot. This is particularly important if you need the Broadcom wl driver, because that often only works after a reboot.
- Faster easier boot - no questions of locale, time...
- Network etc configured, you can surf the net, reach your cloud... quickly
- Have your printer and other devices installed
- Add additional program of choice
- Functionality updates to programs
- Security updates i.e to your web browser
About speed
The disadvantage is that writing to a filesystem on the USB stick can be slow. It's worth investing in a high-speed USB stick if you want to use persistence, and using USB 3.0 if you can, and check the write speed specification when buying USB stick. Here is about Testing storage speed. And naturally, the lightweight Xfce desktop will be more agile than Gnome or Plasma.
To minimise the number of packages downloaded and stored in the persistent partition: uninstall packages you do not need - good to do before the first update. See Removing packages#Persistent Live USB and more on that wiki page.
Realisation
Use our graphical tool isodumper when burning the stick. You can select persistence and encryption, see IsoDumper Writing ISO images on USB sticks.
Later boot on it, answer the first time questions of language etc, configure network, remove packages per above, update the system.
(Technical details follow)
A partition in ext4 format has to be added in the remaining space alongside the system partition and be named "mgalive-persist".
| Note: Mageia 7 diskdrake and gparted do not show nor handle partitions on Live ISOs. Mageia 8 diskdrake have been improved and tested successfully for this task.
|
The partition may be encrypted - you enter a key at boot time - securing sensitive data like logins and your files.
The partition is searched on the same base device as the ISO image, and if found, used for the writeable layer of the live filesystem instead of creating a temporary RAM disk for the purpose. Thus stored information will be recovered at the next boot. This includes your choice of language, network settings, all your files, and any system update and alteration.
LiveUSB MultiBoot Methods (verified)
| Note: Easy2boot works only with Windows. |
- Make an Easy2Boot USB Flash/Hard drive Easy2Boot - copy the
ISO file (and any others)to the\_ISO\LINUXor\_ISO\MAINMENUfolder. - The Linux tool MultiSystem is supported in French and English.
Other LiveUSB Methods (not yet verified)
- The free Windows tool LiLi supports many distros.
- Easy2Boot project RMPrepUSB is a grub4dos multiboot USB drive solution. It boots 99% of all linux distros (it uses a generic method). All you need to do is copy the ISO file to the grub4dos USB drive's \_ISO\MAINMENU folder (no utility needed) and then run some defrag utility to ensure the ISO file is contiguous. (author's post in the forum)
Other LiveUSB Methods (currently not working)
- A sourceforge project multibootusb, a tool for several Linux distros or Windows versions, uses the Grub4dOS bootloader (and Gambas3).
- The Windows tools YUMI and UUI at PenDriveLinux (for single-boot and multi-boot) may work someday, likely with boot parameters specifying the location for distro files; both unpack an ISO to flash and use syslinux to make it bootable.
