Mageia 9 Errata

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Notes

This page is a companion to the Release Notes.

Entries below prepended with "FIXED", have a released update. So if you experience a problem marked fixed, try to do a full update. Some issues may need logout/login or reboot. Some are installation or upgrade issues. Note it may take a day for a released update to reach your mirror.

Significant issues with packages contained in the ISOs are listed here, plus wider coverage related to upgrading. - We have a lot of additional software in repositories.

A non-listed issue you experience may be fixed if you do a full update.

Also see Release Notes Known issues and Bug reporting sections.

THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

Note that we will be updating issues from the bugtracker, i.e FOR_ERRATA9, IN_ERRATA9, FOR_RELEASENOTES9 as they are decided. We try to keep it rather relaxed, but notorious even so, and each issue must be short and effectively described to not make the whole page too big. So, to-the-point descriptions of symptom and possible remedy. Sometime a link directly to a bug comment where a good workaround is described, or other resource that may help.

This English version errata is the master, German version usually kept updated, other languages often lag and miss being kept updated.

Boot

Also see Graphics.

mga#27117 - If rootfs is btrfs, and /boot is on rootfs, GRUB complains about ../../grub-core/commands/loadenv.c:216:sparse file not allowed. This is only cosmetic. Manual fix in Comment 3.

mga#32165 - Default boot selection: When you select in grub menu an option different to default (other OS or old kernel version by example), at next reboot that option has become the new default and will be booted if you don't select other. This behaviour is expected and has become a standard in Linux distributions, see the bug if you want to change it.

Live images

Non-working graphics

By default the Live images allow the X.org display server to automatically configure itself. If you have no graphical display at the end of the boot cycle, try removing noxconf from the boot options in the initial boot menu (press e to edit the boot options), which enables service_harddrake to perform the display configuration. This may also help to force the initial language and locale selection dialogue to be duplicated on each monitor when you have two or more monitors connected, instead of being spread across them.

Some NVIDIA graphics cards don't work properly (or at all) with the free video driver (nouveau). In this case, as well as removing noxconf, try replacing xdriver=free with xdriver=modesetting, or alternatively, try using the non-free (proprietary) drivers by selection directly in the boot menu.

If you don't get a graphical display on a laptop with hybrid graphics, as well as removing noxconf, try replacing xdriver=free with xdriver=intel. This will force the system to use the Intel GPU which often is the one electrically connected to the monitor.

If persistence is enabled with the Live image, your settings will be preserved.

Non-working WiFi cards

Some WiFi hardware from Broadcom is known not to work, because they only work with Broadcom's proprietary driver, which we cannot have pre-built on the ISOs (because of licensing issues), and which needs be loaded at boot time. Once Mageia is installed you can configure the WiFi and reboot. Similarly, if persistence is enabled with the Live, you can configure the WiFi, and in following boots it will work.

Live installer

mga#33135 If using an updated Live system (using persistence or it is updated while running) and there is no internet connection during install but updates to grub2 or dependencies exists, installer will fail the last step of install as it fail retrieving the needed packages. WORKAROUND is to disable the online repositories - before starting the installer. Note that the internal default Live repositories need to be enabled. For more information see notes on Live installer.

Retaining a third party bootloader

If, during Live install, you want to retain your existing third party bootloader, then, when you get the bootloader screen, proceed to the NEXT screen titled 'Mageia Live' where there is an 'Advanced' button below the 'Probe Foreign OS' option.

In this advanced section there is a checkbox labeled "Do not touch ESP or MBR". Checking this box will stop your current bootloader from being modified. You will then need to add Mageia to a bootloader yourself. See also the Live install manual.

Installer images

mga#32214 Fails to automatically eject DVD at end of install. This only concerns the classic installer, when put on an optical disk.

mga#33293 Installer and rescue system fails to find a root partition inside an encrypted LVM volume.

Intel Rapid Storage Technology, RST incompatibility

If your device is using RST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology) (default for many new devices), you must read Install on device using RST.

Sound

mga#33145 Some sound hardware is not detected by the installer and is not installed automatically.

This is true for the platforms Haswell, Broadwell, Bay Trail, Cherry Trail.

Notably present on Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series.

MANUAL FIX: Install the package alsa-sof-firmware and reboot.

Crashes in install process

Crash before the end of install

mga#31628 At least one case is reported on where in an old BIOS laptop the installation process crash before the end. It is possible that after reboot you get a bootable Mageia 9. Try immediately a full update.

Crash at end of install

mga#27838 Some computers have buggy firmwares, causing writes to EFI NVRAM to fail at end of Mageia installation. Workaround: When configuring the bootloader at end of the install: Select rEFInd instead of GRUB, check "Install in /EFI/BOOT", uncheck the option to store to NVRAM.

NetInstaller

On some UEFI machines, the NetInstaller ISO boots with a Grub error message: error: ../../grub-core/video/readers/png.c:595 invalid filter value And shows Grub2 menu using text mode instead of graphic. Functionality is not affected; it is just a cosmetic quirk. mga#28225

mga#28539 Downloading fails for some mirrors and user network aspects. WORKAROUND 1: Select another mirror. WORKAROUND 2: Use another downloader: At the initial boot screen (requires legacy BIOS boot mode) enter "linux downloader=wget" to force it to use wget. For the corresponding problem on installed system or Live, see Downloading software below.

USB memory formatted with Ventoy

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. With Ventoy, you don't need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly.

After booting a network image, if the source of the Mageia installation (could be a DVD Classic installer or local copy of Mageia's tree of files) is in the Ventoy labelled partition (i.e. where the ISO images must be stored) you may have to unplug and replug the USB device to get access to the partition. Comment#23 in mga#28371

Other workaround is reserve some space at the moment of format the USB memory with Ventoy, format that partition with any of the filesystems supported by the installer and store the source of Mageia installation in that partition (Comment 33 in mga#28371).

Note: Of course if you have one of the DVD Classic installation images you can instead directly select it from the Ventoy's boot menu.

To use the 32-bit Classic installer on USB as a repository

After system install, the Classic Installer ISOs can be utilized as a repository, to install software from without using internet - if you have left enabled the CDROM entries in the urpmi media.
The 64 bit ISO works for this both when placed on DVD and on a USB stick.
The 32 bit ISO works for this directly for DVD, but not USB. To allow the USB install ISO to function as a repository, do the following:
As root, manually mount the ISO filesystem by
mount /dev/sdX /mnt
replacing sdX with the appropriate drive identifier, e.g sdb, and noting that is the raw disk device, not a partition (e.g. not sdb1).
urpmi will then be able to use the USB stick as an install source.

Graphics

For how to change driver and some other tips see here.

mga#15629 - XFdrake crashes: can't call method "attron" when changing video driver
Occasional error. If it happens, comment 2 of the bug indicates one successful path to success.

mga#20835 - Avoid the Test button in MCC graphic setup! 1.) it may give false negative. 2.) it may hang your system. 3.) it may cause you to be unable to log in to desktop because user's .Xauthority file got set to owned by root - Fix: (for 3.) Set user and group on ~/.Xauthority to your normal user. (Ask in forum if you need help.)

mga#31095 Running Mageia 9 Plasma as a VirtualBox guest, the 3D acceleration must be enabled in guest settings.

mga#32182 - Incomplete OpenGL support with old GPUs. Example: Blender show no text in menus and dialogues - Possibly more software are affected and with different symptoms. Rare. When you use an old GPU that have no modern driver, OpenGL may not provide enough support for some applications needs. One symptom may be that you see "[INVALID_OPCODE]" in journal. For changing driver and see logs etc see here. This is a complex issue of application need, the driver chain, and actual GPU. For example per the bug it mostly works with nouveau+modesetting, but fail on another Nvidia GPU. FIXED partly by updates. However nothing can cover all cases on old hardware... Workarounds: 1.) try another driver. 2.) Try without modesetting (if you use that), or change to modesetting. 3.) Disable hardware acceleration: Mageia Control Center Section Hardware > Set up the graphical server item Options) and checkmark "Disable Hardware Acceleration" (available only for intel, amdgpu, nvidia proprietary, nouveau and modesetting).

AMD/ATI

Described problems are most visible on Live media or systems installed with Classic ISO without update repos enabled. Some updates have improved the situation, some resume fixes coming in kernel, and most importantly see the explanation and workaround below.

Explanation: For AMD graphic cards based on Southern Islands family (Tahiti, Pitcairn, Oland, Verde, Hainan) and Sea Islands family (Kaveri, Bonaire, Hawaii, Kabini, Mullins) we are now defaulting to the newer amdgpu driver instead of the older, less developing radeon. We appreciate feedback if it fails on your hardware, see mga#28154, mga#28863, mga#28817.

Workaround for both cases above: use the older radeon driver (like Mageia 7 default) by adding the following on kernel command line:

For Southern Island cards: radeon.si_support=1 amdgpu.si_support=0

For Sea Islands cards: radeon.cik_support=1 amdgpu.cik_support=0

First use drakx11 (Mageia Control Center Section Hardware > Set up the graphical server item Graphic Card) to set driver to "ATI radeon HD 4870 and earlier" (at least for Bonaire cards).

In case booting to graphic desktop fails, use Ctrl+Alt+F3 (or reboot to maintenance mode) to open a console and launch drakx11 to select another driver, and reboot type reboot.

AMD OpenCL

Support was missing in Mageia 9 release, but landed in nonfree updates repository October 2023:

• amdgpupro-opencl-orca for ie. Grenada XT, Carrizo and Polaris.
• amdgpupro-opencl-pal for i.e Banded Kestrel, Picasso and Vega.

These packages downloads the AMD OpenCL library from AMD official website during package installation. For details see the links.

Also see AMD proprietary drivers.

Nvidia

Nvidia no longer update 390 series driver so we had to drop it, see Release Notes. The 340 driver got dropped already for Mageia 8 for same reasons. Instead, the free/libre nouveau driver will be installed. You may see here if you want to compile 390 or 340 yourself.

If nouveau does not work try selecting the "xorg modesetting" driver, mga#31695 - that may also help if you only have problems after resuming. You may also try Xorg nv. An alternative is to use nouveau with hardware acceleration disabled (this may degrade performance substantially though): in XFdrake after having selected nouveau go back and click the bottom button "Options" and checkmark "Disable Hardware Acceleration". Also see Non-working graphics in the section about Live above, about setting modesetting at boot if needed to do it manually. You may also try another driver, selecting it manually.

CUDA and OpenCL are supported for "nvidia-current" and usually also works for nvidia-newfeature.

For more information see here.

FIXED by kernel 6.5.13 mga#32623 and above: mga#31994 - Virtual tty terminals are black (i.e Ctrl-Alt-F4), after booted to graphics mode (desktop) - and shifting back and forth may hang the system.

How to run XFdrake a.k.a drakx11.

More on issues see here.

mga#32352 - drakx11 do not for nvidia check whether kernel-devel is installed, nvidia-newfeature exist, nor if nvidia module really got built. Implication: If you install a nvidia card and switch to nvidia proprietry driver, you must install the corresponding kernel-devel package for the running kernel before using MCC to configure the driver ( = executing drakx11 ), so the nvidia kernel module can get built. And also make sure the -devel packages are installed for other installed kernels, so drivers can get automatically built when booting them.

Recording your desktop

mga#29405. Strange results when recording your desktop. The extent of this problem is not known. Possible workaround: Disable the compositor of your desktop, close the session and start the session again.

Desktops

Various

FIXED by update: mga#18706 - Sugar desktop had missing dependency. Some issues still left, see bug.

mga#23929 - The folder "Desktop" in $HOME is not translated with Plasma or MATE only DE installation.

mga#24134 - Xfce: After login the display may show black and white bands or interesting effects for a couple of seconds.

mga#25877 - Netapplet/Mgaapplet/nm_applet with Cinnamon or Xfce: When the applet is in a panel at the bottom of the screen, its pop-up appears only as a black bar at the bottom of the screen. WORKAROUND here.

mga#27601 - The boot hangs with a black screen and the mouse cursor still mobile. This is due to a change of hostname during SDDM start, set by avahi or networkmanager when the hostname is localhost. The workaround is to set the hostname to a personal value, for example with the command hostnamectl set-hostname myhost.local.

mga#32078 - LXQt : Installing LXQt from installer media, default login is set to IceWM-session. MANUAL FIX: set it manually.

mga#32805 - SDDM : first login after boot shows no text, or characters as blocks. Seems to happen on some old/lower end machines with nouveau graphics driver. WORKAROUND: use another Display Manager, such as XDM, LightDM, LXDM.

mga#33352 - Xfce programs show no help in minimal installation, as well as in the Xfce Live ISOs. MANUAL FIX: install yelp.

GNOME

mga#15793 - Internationalisation: A default input method is not set in desktop session. You need to set it manually in Setting.

mga#31908 - gnome-control-center mouse crash on 32 bit systems.

mga#32350 - Applet visibility - The display of applet icons in the tray (update applet, network, NextCloud...) depends on gnome-shell-extension-appindicator which is installed but not enabled by default. To enable it, either 1.) use the GUI tool GNOME Extensions to enable "Appindicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support" or 2.) run as a user in a terminal: gnome-extensions enable appindicatorsupport@rgcjonas.gmail.com

Under Wayland

*** Generally, if not solved by tips below, Workaround is to when logging in select a desktop alternative with "Xorg" or "X11" in its name.

For Firefox, Thunderbird, Chromium, Chrome and Teams, see this Release Notes section.

As a VirtualBox Guest

In a VirtualBox guest especially, it is known to be issues using Wayland. Not distro specific.

mga#32840 is one example: Mageia Control Center may show up totally black.

GNOME and Wayland

By default, GNOME uses the Wayland display server. If Wayland fails to start, GNOME will automatically fall back to using the X.org display server - but in rare cases, this fails. If the GNOME desktop fails to launch, or if you experience display problems, you can try forcing GNOME to use the X.org display server by editing /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf and set WaylandEnable=false. For GNOME Live ISO there is a shortcut: add nowayland to the boot options in the initial boot menu (press e to edit the boot options). (But if you use persistence, edit custom.conf.)

mga#31351 - Dasher does not function correctly under Wayland.

mga#31846 - gnome-terminal does not work under Wayland (except for Adwaita theme).

Plasma and Wayland

mga#31841 (various issues), mga#31984 (resuming)

Software

Chromium browser

We seem not to have packagers for keeping Chromium browser updated, mga#33609. Workarounds: As Flatpak install app/org.chromium.Chromium/x86_64/stable, or Chrome. Or Chrome rpm from Google. Update January 2025: currently it is updated.

Firefox ESR

mga#33812 - Problem with 30 bit colour depth. (Note that to encounter this problem, you need to have manually increased colour depth from 24 to 30 in xorg.conf, see bug.) Upstream. WORKAROUND: force hardware acceleration by setting: gfx.webrender.all = true, when starting Firefox.

A few sites choose to not accept Firefox ESR (even upstream version), and demand non-ESR version. Please help informing the problematic sites that Firefox ESR does not come with the latest features but it has the latest security and stability fixes. Workarounds: 1.) try using a user-agent switcher to spoof a non-ESR Firefox. 2.) install the Firefox non-ESR version for example by using Flatpak or other Ways to install programs. 3.) Use another browser.

Flatpak

Plasma Discover and Gnome-software prefer Flatpak over Mageia RPM packages.

Backports problems

mga#30084 - mgaapplet does not list all updates available in Core Updates if Core Backports is enabled.

Phone USB connection

iPhone: mga#28669 The packages ifuse and usbmuxd are missing by default. Manual fix: install them.

Virtualization software

To use virtualization software, the machine must have virtualization support enabled. Since this is usually disabled by default, we recommend reading this link, which can help enable virtualization support on your machine.

FIXED by update: mga#32332 QEMU and Xen update. NOTE: remove any installed qemu-user-static* package before updating.

VirtualBox

7.0.12 Upstream problem: For Microsoft Windows guests lower than Windows 10, do not use the 7.0.12 Guest Additions - Workaround see mga#32587.

7.0.14 Above problem corrected. Minor upstream issue is warning in journal, mga#32858, for both versions and kernel 6.6.

FIDO2 Security Keys/Smart Cards

gpg now talks directly to USB smart cards rather than going through pcscd, which causes gpg access conflicts if pcscd is running (gpg --card-status fails in this case). If pcscd isn't needed for other software, it can be stopped and the pcsc-lite package deleted from the system, or if pcscd is still needed, the line disable-ccid can be added to ~/.gnupg/scdaemon.conf to allow gpg to work around it running. See mga#33065.

Games

Several packaged games did not launch, and got fixed February 2024. If still problems please search our Bugzilla and if needed enter a new issue.

Various software

mga#27926 - Xine may crash at launch, or exit silently when trying to play various multimedia files. WORKAROUNDS: 1.) try another player. (Xine is default in LXDE). 2.) If not starting, can you use another video driver? (i.e modesetting instead of nvidia) 3.) (At least if it throws an error about vdpau) To be able to change Video and Audio codec, first change "configuration experience level" to "Advanced", then select "video tab" and select "video driver to use", change from "Auto" to "opengl2". Now select "Audio tab" and select "audio driver to use", change from "auto" to "pulseaudio", click OK, close and restart Xine.

mga#28582 - phppgadmin (umaintained upstream) did not work with php8 - that got FIXED by our patched update. But it still do not work with postgresql15 - WORKAROUND: downgrade to postgresql13. Both are in Mageia 9.

mga#28814, mga#28840, mga#31989 - Wine missing a few dependencies, especially for 32 bit libs. (Thus also PlayOnLinux.) Manual fix and also other tips here. If launching a wine app gives warnings that suitable versions are missing, see mga#16273.

mga#30937 - Thunderbird leaves temporary files on desktop if set to open pdf in external program. Upstream. Workaround is the default setting to open in TB, see linked bugs.

mga#31676 - Fileroller crashes if you specify an absolute pathname for the archive filename. The user interface separates the filename from the directory it is in, its location; so the problem only happens if you misuse this. Upstream.

mga#31928 - mate-notification-daemon: Segfault in libgobject being looked at.

mga#32135 - Gramps: Pane can not be resized. Manual fix in bug.

FIXED BY UPDATE: September 2023: now support ext4 feature C12. mga#32136 - fsarchiver do not handle the new ext4 version which some distros and future Mageia use. (And Mageia 9 did for installs up to beta2.) Same problem for qt-fsarchiver / qt-fsarchiver-terminal, with the twist that qt-fsarchiver seem not maintained upstream. Problems concern making backups - it works to restore an old backup regardless of the format on the target partition, as any fsarchiver reformats the partition per that backup. Also, qt-fsarchiverhave some quirks: needs sudo, and asks an extra time for user password - Details: see bugs. Tip: Add yourself to the wheel group.

mga#32262 - CodeBlocks was removed from Mageia 9 by accident, will be back.

mga#32278 - pdfmod crashes when opening some .pdf files. Upstream development is dead. Please use another software such as packaged pdfarranger.

FIXED BY UPDATE: mga#32467 - Waydroid not was working on mageia 9 an update fixing the issues was published on 27/Feb/2024, take care of get the right lxc version see bug 32687 on lxc here below! For kernels before 6.6.14 you need dkms-anbox plus manual actions described in the bugs. For kernels 6.6.14 *avoid* dkms-anbox! Is no longer needed - see bug 32797 here below.

FIXED BY UPDATE of mga#32525 (fontconfig) : Font rendering in i.e PDF preview in Firefox and Thunderbird displays bad for some PDF documents not embedding standard fonts. Workaround in Firefox before shipped fix: in the address field type "about:config", and in search field enter "browser.display.use_document_fonts", change value "1" to "0".

mga#32636 - Bitmap fonts broken by fontconfig update mga#32525.

FIXED BY UPDATE mga#32687 - lxc 5.0.2-1.mga9 is broken. Updates fixing the issues are available, but it is necessary to take manual actions before installing the packages (see comment 10).

mga#32797 - dkms-anbox do not work, and may even make the system unbootable with kernels 6.6.14 - see mga#32797#c10, mga#32834 and thread in English forum. WORKAROUND: Uninstall dkms-anbox. Alternatively you can try kernel options modprobe.blacklist=ashmem_linux or modprobe.blacklist=ashmem_linux,binder_linux. dkms-anbox is no longer required for Waydroid and is uninstalled when you update to kernel 6.6.18.

mga#32806 - rtorrent crash (and gets automatically restarted). Upstream.

mga#33330 - aegisub crashes at start in wayland session. - WORKAROUND: Start it from command line this way: env GDK_BACKEND=x11 aegisub.

FIXED mga#33366 - After 1st run neochat in light desktops can't start session once you quit from application icon in taskbar, its fixed but if you already bite by this you note still can't star session, I hope you have your account data because you need to remove

~/.local/share/KDE/neochat
~/.config/neochatrc
~/.config/KDE/neochat.conf
~/.cache/KDE/neochat

Also if you have some preference in password manager application (gnome-keyring , kwalletmanager, keepassxc) please install before the update and for kwallet and keepassxc you have to make some configurations.

mga#33697 - Nextcloud client - We fail to keep it updated. Instead, upstream AppImage can be used, see Nextcloud-client.

mga#34028 - gnome-calculator hang when trying to update currency rates, which it do by default on start. WORKAROUND: Set it to not update currency rates: issue gsettings set org.gnome.calculator refresh-interval 0 before starting it. Currency rate is broken:Selecting Advanced mode, and in the dropdown "Currency", that section goes blank. To be able to select something else, set another mode temporarily. Some other calculators available in our repositories: galculator, mate-calc, kcalc or the less good looking xcalc, or more text based like qalculate-gtk / qalculate-qt or speedcrunch.

mga#34029 - grisbi We update grisbi to offer compatibility to users comming from other distributions that have the 3.0.4 version, but the 1st time wizard can't select custom folder for backups, please select it later in Edit -> Preferences

External software

Not packaged by Mageia, only prominent external software is to be listed here.

mga#30103 - Video problems with Remote Desktop Tools (VNC, TeamViewer, AnyDesk, etc) Workaround: Firstly, at least TeamViewer and Anydesk are not Wayland compatible, so use Xorg. Problems can often be mitigated by on host computer selecting a lower resolution and/or switching off desktops effects (in for example Plasma: press Shift-Alt-F12), but better: in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, under devices, add Option "LinearFramebuffer".

mga#28018 - Google Earth Pro - See our wiki page Google Earth on how to install it for Mageia 9.

mga#33428 - Google Chrome - urpmi fails to update google-chrome-stable >= 127.0.6533.72, because urpmi do not support rich depencencies, mga#17799. Workaround: update it manually using urpmi google-chrome-stable --allow-nodeps Also see How to install it.

System

F2FS as root filesystem need "rootflags=noflush_merge" on the boot command line, info in mga#31923#c6.

Mageia tools

mga#15829 - Install and Remove Software (rpmdrake): starts in groups mode but view menu says "All packages, alphabetical" instead, if you need view packages in alphabetical order select other option and select again "All packages, alphabetical"

mga#24828, mga#29406 - Install and Remove Software (rpmdrake): search for applications with GUI+desktop file to install or remove produce an empty list if the package is provided by third party repositories. Workaround: change the filter "Packages with GUI" to "All"

mga#31382, mga#31699#c28 - urpmi --auto-orphans tries to remove too much. For now, simply don't use it, or see bugs for tips if you really need.

FIXED by update mga#33149 (drakconf) for mga#32185: Sometimes Mageia Control Center do not show the icons to click. (It works to click the space where they should be.) For running over SSH you may need to downgrade webkit, see bug.

mga#32626 Kernels and their devel packages in backport repository have another naming scheme, that may be problematic together with similar packages installed from normal updates due to same base name.

Update notifications

• FIXED by update of mgaonline in mga#32382: mga#32354 - In some cases not yet fully understood, the PATH variable is set with /usr/sbin having a higher priority than /usr/bin. (Seem to be related to GDM, affecting all desktops.) As a consequence, mgaapplet launches urpmi.update without asking for execution privileges and fails. Thus no updates notifications are raised. A workaround is described in bug report.

• For GNOME, Applet visibility need to be enabled.

Security

Boot of system with cyphered partitions

Entering password in text mode boot

The question asking for password get scrolled away. - Just start typing the password when scrolling have stopped.

Increasing security

mga#19800 - CVE-2016-4484 Failed tries to enter the password of a cyphered partition with LUKS end with a shell.

People who want to secure their system have to:

• add a BIOS password
• add a grub password
• add “rd.shell=0” to the kernel command line

Change in defaults of system-wide crypto-policies

During the development of Mageia 8, the upstream defaults of the system-wide cryptographic policies (which come with the package crypto-policies) have changed. Previously the default was LEGACY, which allowed TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols. The algorithms DSA, 3DES, and RC4 were allowed, while RSA keys and Diffie-Hellman parameters are accepted if they are at least 1023 bits long. The new setting of DEFAULT allow the TLS 1.2 and 1.3 protocols, as well as the IKEv2 and SSH2 protocols. RSA keys and Diffie-Hellman parameters are accepted if they are at least 2048 bits long.

The current setting can be seen in /etc/crypto-policies/config

It is not advised to change the default system-wide crypto-policies back to LEGACY, please instead report bugs for applications which are not working due to those new defaults.

For more details, please have a look at Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Security hardening - Using system-wide cryptographic policies

Miscellaneous

Hibernation

Resuming from hibernation instead start fresh. Unusual. We have reports it works to as root execute: dracut -fv and reboot. This should get investigated more, so if you hit this please open a bug to help tracking it down, or at least tell in Forum.

Some systems fail to shut off power, and you have to hold down power button to shut off manually.

Networking

mga#27795 - net_applet (internet connection systray icon) does not show connection status properly.

mga#33236 - openvpn kills Internet when used with resolvconf; it really wants openresolv to work with Protonvpn. WORKAROUND see bug.

Downloading software

For a few users, the default download method intermittently fails. Workaround: Start drakrpm-edit-media which is Mageia Control Center section Software Management -> Configure media sources for install and update. In Options -> Global options set "Download program to use" to "wget". mga#24362. UPDATE: Since Mageia 9 beta 2, wget is the default except for downloading metadata. If it do not work with wget try another downloader selectable in the mentioned dropdown; we provide aria2, curl, wget. Which downloader that works best may depend on your network and how your chosen mirror is set up so changing mirror may also be a solution, see below. If you have problems downloading metadata (i.e set up or update repositories), then see bug for detail. After any failed try, clean per below.

You can also tell urpmi what downloader to currently use by the option "--downloader=TheDownloaderYouChoose".

If you already hit this (as described in mga#26827), failed downloads may result in messages like

There was a problem during the installation:
package firefox-0:91.3.0-1.mga8.x86_64 does not verify: Payload SHA256 ALT digest: BAD (Expected
6ba98a0b474689bd5bbf15f361faf4116279e7c52d921ef5283db0e6f08d11c3 != 49b9a8f7b34a063e966a0133f5f84701d61ffd41ee3c595df575696a43c221bc)

If that happens, issue urpmi --clean, and try again (after changing downloader).

If that did not help, maybe the package on your mirror is broken, so remove your mirror set and add a new set, clean again, and try again:

To remove all repositories, either use command line urpmi.removemedia -a or graphical tools: Start drakrpm-edit-media which is Mageia Control Center section Software Management -> Configure media sources for install and update, shift-click all media, and click the button "Remove".

To add all Mageia repositories from a specific mirror, either use command line - example for 64 bit Mageia 9 Swedish mirror: urpmi.addmedia --distrib http://mirror.accum.se/mirror/mageia/distrib/9/x86_64, or graphical tools: in the Configure media sources for install and update, Menu File -> Add a specific mirror.

Mounting NFSv3 shares

In Mageia 9 you have to configure /etc/nfsmount.conf to use NFSv3 if your NAS doesn't support higher protocol versions.

This only affects some NAS devices. Check the settings of your NAS which protocol versions are supported and setup the highest possible protocol version as example NFSv4. See mga#31725

DAVFS crashes subsequent to files being refused

mga#31702 With DAVFS, files refused by the remote host are saved in 'lost+found'. Subsequent access to that directory crashes DAVFS. The solution is to to remove them from the cache folder when davfs is UNmounted. Upstream.

Network sharing

mga#30891 - no method to stop sharing internet connection. Workaround: delete the interface and reconfigure it from scratch.

Samba

mga#30090 - Samba folder sharing not working. Manual fix see bug.

Firewall

FIXED by update:mga#32573 - Firewall not starting when Mageia is installed using the netinstall ISO or classical installer with online repositories enabled, pulling updated iptables.

Printing

mga#28746 - Printer is not discovered. For security reasons this functionality is by default not opened through the Firewall. To enable: Checkmark "CUPS server" and "Network printer/scanner autodiscovery" in Mageia Control Center Section Security > Set up your personal firewall.

mga#28758 - Printing in gtk webkit applications: Upstream bug in sandboxing may make printing from gtp applications such as Evolution not work. Workaround, upstream links and more info see bug first post.

mga#30626 - Booting up with usb-connected printer powered up may show "device communication error" in the HP Device Manager if package ipp-usb was removed (i.e due to conflicts, see 31623 below).

mga#31623 - hp-toolbox can't use the installed HP printer if the ipp-usb package is installed. Problem: some printers need ipp-usb. Workaround: Choose if you want ipp-usb or not installed for your printer. Fresh installs from Classic installer do not have this package installed unless on-line repositories have been used during installation. Live media have ipp-usb installed.

mga#32198 - Blank pdf output from the virtual printer cups-pdf version 3.0.1-3.mga9. Fix is in progress. Possible Workarounds: Many programs can export pdf directly. Sometimes by a menu entry like "File > Export" (i.e LibreOffice). In some programs the pdf export is a choice in the print dialogue, like choosing any printer and where also CUPS-PDF is listed, named as "Save to pdf", "Print to pdf" or similar. (Okular, Firefox, Thunderbird, Chromium ...)

mga#32266 - After upgrading from Mageia 8, USB-connected printers may not work and it can not be reinstalled manually. Manual Fix: Remove the printer forcibly by as root execute lpadmin -x <printername>, then install the printer as usual - you may find it listed under Network Printers due to ipp-usb.service.

mga#32270 - Issues setting default printer. Setting printers as system default works with no problem. (Mageia Control Center Section Hardware > Printing right click a printer...) The problem: If you once have set a printer as personal default (a choice in same dialogue), the file /etc/cups/lpoptions is created and updated by any new personal default printer. Problem is that the option to select default printer is greyed out in the menu on the printer that is set as system default, so you can not set it as personal default. Workarounds: 1.) As root, delete /etc/cups/lpoptions 2.) Select another printer as system default, so you can select the printer you want as your personal default. Note: Some programs have built-in printer dialogues that seem not to respect defaults.

Boomaga virtual printer

mga#31980 - Sometimes not working at all. Really need upstream update, but is stalled since years. When it works, which it most often do, be happy :) Workaround: System reboot is known to have effect.

mga#31859 - Boomaga sometimes crash when printing to it from some applications, notably Okular. Alternative Workarounds: 1.) Just try again, 2.) Launch Boomaga first, 3.) Use another application with Boomaga.

Printer duplicate - not a bug

You may see your printer shown twice. That is because you are shown all available printers on both the local CUPS server (localhost) and all connected CUPS servers. So if you share a printer to the network, which is the default, it will be shown as two on the sharing computer. This behaviour is not specific to Mageia.

Workaround: Tell CUPS to not share the printer queue job on local network if you do not need to use it from another computer. See Mageia Control Center Section Hardware > Printing menu Server -> Settings.

Shell / Terminals

"bracketed paste" mode affecting copy&paste

By default readline 8.1 enabled the so-called "bracketed paste" mode, which in turn is effective for example in the bash shell. This means that if anything is pasted in your terminal, the pasted text will be enclosed by invisible escape characters \e[200~ and \e[201~
The visible effect is that this swaps the background and foreground highlighting colors for the pasted text, and one also needs to either press any key or click with the mouse to be able to execute the pasted text.
For more information about this, refer to bracketed paste mode.

This can be disabled for bash by adding bind 'set enable-bracketed-paste off' to ~/.bashrc and sourcing ~/.bashrc or by running a new bash shell.

Supposedly it should also be possible to disable this by adding set enable-bracketed-paste off to ~/.inputrc but this does not seem to have any effect.

ext4 feature C12 is not recognized by older fsck

FEATURE_C12 is the orphan_file feature, which is enabled by default in e2fsprogs 1.47.0. Problem: other systems having fsck in previous release, i.e Mageia 8, are not able to check it. mga#31641. This feature was enabled for some time in Cauldron, but is for compatibility now disabled by configuration settings in Mageia 9. (metadata_csum_seed and orphan_file are now removed from /etc/mke2fs.conf)

If you installed Mageia 9 before mid June 2023 (beta2 or earlier ISO) and formatted ext4 partitions, they have this feature which is not recognised by i.e Mageia 8. Also, when using tools, i.e IsoDumper from such pre release install without editing /etc/mke2fs.conf, it create ext4 partitions (i.e persistence) not usable on i.e Mageia 8 or 7 Live - mga#32006, Workaround here.

The feature, when enabled, speeds up workloads that are deleting or truncating a large number files in parallel. First supported in the v5.15 Linux kernel.

To see features of an ext4 partition, use dumpe2fs -h /dev/sdb1 | grep features (edit to suit).

Upgrade issues

Be sure to follow one of the procedures in Release Notes. Avoid screen saver interfering! mga#25251

If upgrade failed

Possible reasons

• Interrupted internet, interrupted power...
• For online updates, if your system use dkms and you have forgotten to update and reboot to latest kernel, per instructions, dkms fail.
• Various other...

Remedies

Do a full update. I.e in a terminal use the command urpmi --auto-update. When everything is updated, reboot.

If problems downloading packages, see Downloading Software.

If your system fail to boot to desktop: In the boot menu select "Advanced options for Mageia", then the item with highest kernel version containing "(recovery mode)", give root password, issue telinit 3 (enables network), then log in as root and issue the urpmi command.

If you can not boot to a usable state, perform an upgrade using a traditional DVD or netinstall installer. It will try to resolve dependencies and missing packages. Remember to not format any partition. Alternatively use DNF to synchronize packages and fix dependencies per below.

Ask for help in our forum :)

If all upgrade attempts fail, the fallback is to do a fresh install, possibly keeping (not formatting) /home.

No upgrade offered by the applet

The applet in system tray that notifies when normal updates exist for your system, will also notify when you can upgrade to a new Mageia release.

We delay enabling this message for some time after release date in order to solve issues found by early installers and upgraders. So just wait, or upgrade per methods described in the Release Notes. Upgrading was enabled in September 2023.

Removed packages

Generally, see at end of Release Notes. See also mga#30163

VirtualBox 32 bit host is no longer since Mageia 8.

Unused packages

After upgrade, you may find that there are a lot of unused packages installed. (Reported as orphans, or you can not directly see what they are installed for.)

Be careful - they may actually be needed:

The user may have third-party software that requires the modules in those lib packages or requires old packages that are not lib packages. The third-party software may be compiled from source, or manually copied binary files - not installed using rpm, therefore the package manager does not know. Also, if you alternate between using DNF and urpmi, the orphan tracking does not work for either of them.

As long as the old packages do not interfere with new packages, we have chosen to let users choose which old packages they do not need and uninstall them manually if they wish to. (If you do, please keep a log of what you uninstall.)

You will also see that the updater will not only let old packages remain, but also installed corresponding upgrade Mageia versions of them - see it as a service.

Even on a new install, there will be multiple versions or alternatives of some packages installed as being suggested by different packages. These packages are not required, just suggested or recommended, so are orphans from the moment they are installed.

For more info see Removing packages.

Synchronizing from development to release

If you have installed/upgraded to the new Mageia release before it was officially released (at time it was Cauldron, Alpha, Beta...), you may have packages that are both elder or newer version than release, or even packages that got dropped.

The package manager DNF have a wonderful command to sort this out automatically, see Synchronize with repos.

If you instead want to do this manually or use urpmi, then you should check the following:

• mga#32257#3 - DNF cauldron repos not removed - Manual FIX in bug Comment 3. Not only DNF but also Plasma Discover and GNOME Software use the DNF repos.

• Make sure you do not have too old packages, issue as root urpmi --auto-update - First make sure you have no media enabled with "testing" or "debug" in its name, or it will install those untested updates too! - Explanation: During development, updates appear in release medias and update applet and drakrpm look there for updates. But when released, those software look for updates only in updates media. So if you have installed/upgraded Mageia and not kept it fully updated when the switch happen, the mentioned software will not see the latest versions entered the release medias. urpmi however, do look for updates in release medias.

• You may have later versions installed than released and maybe is not in updates either. If you have tested versions that did not make it to release media (downgraded in release, or from testing, not yet accepted). To get a list to work with: After updating, you can use urpmq --not-available | sort to list packages and versions not available in any active repo. - Note that it also lists packages that you have manually downloaded and installed from other sources, and packages you have installed from any repo that is currently disabled, i.e backport. It also list packages that have been installed and then removed from Mageia release, or are from earlier MAgeia release, they can not be downgraded - decide if to keep or remove separately.

Various upgrade issues

If you manually upgrade using graphical tools (i.e drakrpm, not urpmi or dnf) while having Mageia 8 backport repos enabled - even if not configured - you may get too-high versions of packages, incompatible with some application. Fix and workaround see Backports problems above.

mga#29182 Upgrading under Wayland using the mgaonline applet / mgaapplet-upgrade-helper does not work. Workaround: Log out and log in using Xorg. Or use another upgrading method.

Optimus / Mageia Prime may need you to run mageia-prime-uninstall followed by mageia-prime-install. See this bug comment and our Mageia Prime wiki page.

mga#28550 - If UID is 500, the $PATH variable doesn't contain /usr/games, thus games can't be launched. This affect systems originally installed with Mageia version 6 or earlier and upgraded since, or a manually set UID < 1000. This can not easily be fixed in a safe way for every case. See bug for ideas how to fix and ask on our forum if you need further help.

mga#28724 - mgaapplet upgrade: asks where to first download all packages, but does not respect neither download location nor "all first".

mga#31586 - isodumper upgraded from Mageia 8 to 9 is liable not to work because of libyui incompatibilities. The solution is to uninstall and re-install it.