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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. |
The various Mageia ISO files.
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.
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.
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.
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 :
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.
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. |
The netinstaller ISOs fits easily on a CD. All other need a DVD.
See Writing CD and DVD images.
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. But please 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 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).
| Warning! "Dumping" an image onto a device destroys access to any previous files! |
| Note: To later restore the flash drive to full empty capacity, many popular tools fails - but good methods exist, see Removing the ISO files from USB Media below. |
| Warning! Unetbootin should not be used to copy the ISO image to a USB drive (see below). |
To dump a Mageia installation or Live ISO on a USB stick, you can choose one of several tools:
Disks with the action "Restore an image" and select the .iso file.Minstick, which is similar to IsoDumper.dd (see example below).Open a console and go to the directory, where the name_of_the_mageia.iso is stored (in this example the file Mageia-7-Live-Plasma-x86_64.iso is stored in the directory Downloads)
| $ cd Downloads |
| Warning! BE VERY CAREFUL TO USE THE CORRECT DEVICE NAME AS YOU CAN OVERWRITE YOUR HARD DISK WITHOUT ANY WARNING |
HINT: type lsblk or mount in a terminal window to see the USB device name.
NEVER USE /dev/sda (that's usually your main system drive).
Since this method uses the whole USB stick you have to specify the node of the device and not of a partition on the device (e.g. use /dev/sde not /dev/sde1); you should be very careful when using this method because writing the image to a SCSI or SATA hard disk will render it unbootable and destroy some data on it.
Become after that a root with the command
| $ su -p |
and enter the root password. After that you can dump the ISO to an USB device via the following command
| # dd if=Mageia-7-Live-Plasma-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sd(x) bs=1M status=progress && sync |
where (x)=your device name eg: /dev/sdb;/dev/sdc....etc
| 2887+1 records in 2887+1 records out 3027845120 bytes (3,0 GB, 2,8 GiB) copied, 145,719 s, 20,8 MB/s |
mount again and see which device is missingMageia'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.
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:
| 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 |
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.
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.
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... |
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.
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.
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.
| Note: Easy2boot works only with Windows. |
ISO file (and any others) to the \_ISO\LINUX or \_ISO\MAINMENU folder.Removing the files from a USB stick once you've installed Mageia, so they can be used for other purposes again.
Most graphical formatting tools have problems with media where an ISO file has been put. But in Mageia we have tools that work great for that. Here we also give example for *nix command line and another OS.
'If you just want to put another ISO on the stick, there is no need for this procedure.
IsoDumper - Most safe!
This is the safest option as it tries hard to make you unable to select system drives.
Apart from dumping ISO files to the device, it can also take a backup image, and in this case, you select to format it to one of a few common filesystem types, and label (name) it.
Diskdrake (From Mageia 8 onwards)
Select the device - Make very sure it is the right one - all data on it WILL be lost!
Then press the Clear button down left, then partition the device.
Installer (From Mageia 8 onwards)
(Yes you can perform a conventional install to a removable device.)
Classic and Live installers from Mageia 8 onwards take care of it when you select use the whole disk, or when you press Clear in custom partitioning.
... in Mageia or similar *nix system.
1) Open a Terminal and type:
| su - |
to switch to root. You will be prompted for the root password
2) Confirm the device by typing (or copying & pasting) this command.
| fdisk -l |
This list all drives and some info on them. The entry for a 4GB flash drive may start like:
| Disk /dev/sdb: 3980 MB, 3980394496 bytes |
...and some info on that drive. Note the /dev/sd<some letter>
| Warning! Make sure you are reformatting the correct drive, there is no going back - all data on that drive *WILL* be lost!
|
3) Unmount the device by typing (or copying & pasting):
umount /dev/sdb
4) Reformat the USB device to fat32, by typing (or copying & pasting):
| mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sdb |
Now you can remove it.
A normal format will not restore access to full storage capacity although if you use the Disk Management tool (right-click on the Windows Logo > Disk Management, or type "Disk Management" into the search box either at the Start Button or in Control Panel), you should be able to restore full storage access. You will need to delete the partition on the Flash Drive and then create a new one and format it. If that's just a little bit daunting, then rufus or HPformatUSB can restore partitioning (this section to be completed).
