Select and use ISOsIntroductionMageia is distributed via ISO images. This page will help you to
choose which image best suits your needs.There are three types of installation media:Classical installer: Booting
with this media provides you with the maximum flexibility when
choosing what to install, and for configuring your system. In
particular, you have a choice of which Desktop environment to
install.LIVE media: This option allows
you to try out Mageia without having to actually install it, or make
any changes to your computer. However, the Live media also includes an
Installer, which can be started when booting the media, or after
booting into the Live operating system itself.The Live Installer is simpler compared to the Classical
Installer - but you have fewer configuration options.Live ISOs can only be used to create clean
installations, they cannot be used to upgrade previously installed
Mageia releases.Net Install: These are minimal
ISO's containing no more than that which is needed to start the DrakX
installer and find DrakX-installer-stage2 and other
packages that are needed to continue and complete the install. These
packages may be on the PC hard disk, on a local drive, on a local
network or on the Internet.These media are very light (less than 100 MB) and are convenient
if bandwidth is too low to download a full DVD, or if you have a PC
without a DVD drive or is unable to boot from a USB stick.More details are given in the next sections.MediaDefinitionHere, a medium (plural: media) is an ISO image file that allows
you to install and/or update Mageia and, by extension, any physical
medium (DVD, USB stick, ...) the ISO file is copied to.You can find Mageia ISO's here.Classical installation mediaCommon featuresThese ISOs use the Classical installer called DrakXThey are used for performing clean installs or to upgrade a
previously installed version of MageiaDifferent media for 32 and 64-bit architecturesSome tools are available in the Installer
Welcome screen: Rescue System, Memory
Test, and Hardware Detection
ToolEach DVD contains many available desktop environments and
languagesYou'll be given the choice during the installation to add
non-free softwareLive mediaCommon featuresCan be used to preview the Mageia operating system without
having to install itThe Live media also includes an Installer.Each ISO contains only one desktop environment (Plasma,
GNOME or Xfce)Different media for 32 and 64-bit architecturesThey contain non-free softwareLive DVD PlasmaPlasma desktop environment onlyAll available languages are present64-bit architecture onlyLive DVD GNOMEGNOME desktop environment onlyAll available languages are present64-bit architecture onlyLive DVD XfceXfce desktop environment onlyAll available languages are present32 or 64-bit architecturesNet install mediaCommon featuresDifferent media for 32 and 64-bit architecturesFirst steps are English language onlynetinstall.isoContains only free software, for those who prefer to not use
non-free softwarenetinstall-nonfree.isoContains non-free software (mostly drivers, codecs...) for
those who need itDownloading and Checking MediaDownloadingOnce you have chosen your ISO file, you can download it using
either http or BitTorrent. In both cases, you are provided with some
information, such as the mirror in use and an option to switch to an
alternative if the bandwidth is too low.If http is chosen you will also see some information regarding
checksums.md5sum, sha1sum and
sha512sum (the most secure) are tools to check the
ISO integrity. Copy one of the checksums (string of alphanumeric
characters) for use in the next section.In the meantime, a window to download the actual ISO will
open:Click on Save File, then click
OK.Checking the integrity of the downloaded
mediaThe checksums referred to earlier, are digital fingerprints
generated by an algorithm from the file to be downloaded. You may
compare the checksum of your downloaded ISO against that of the original
source ISO. If the checksums do not match, it means that the actual data
on the ISO's do not match, and if that is the case, then you should
retry the download or attempt a repair using BitTorrent.To generate the checksum for your downloaded ISO, open a console,
(no need to be root), and:To use the md5sum, type: md5sum
path/to/the/image/file.isoTo use the sha1sum, type: sha1sum
path/to/the/image/file.isoTo use the sha512sum, type: sha512sum
path/to/the/image/file.isoExample:then compare the result (you may have to wait for a while) with
the ISO checksum provided by Mageia.Burn or dump the ISOThe verified ISO can now be burned to a CD/DVD or
dumped to a USB stick. This is not a standard copy
operation, as a bootable medium will actually be created.Burning the ISO to a CD/DVDWhichever software you use, ensure that the option to burn
an image is used. Burn data or
files is NOT correct. See the the
Mageia wiki for more information.Dump the ISO to a USB stickAll Mageia ISOs are hybrids, which means you can dump them to a
USB stick and then use that to boot and install the system.Dumping an image onto a flash device destroys any previous
file-system on the device and all existing data will be lost.Also, the only partition on the flash device will then just be
the Mageia ISO partition.So, if an ISO of about 4GB is written to an 8GB USB stick, the
stick will then only show up as 4GB. This is because the remaining 4GB
is no longer formatted - hence not currently available for use. To
recover the original capacity, you must reformat and repartition the
USB stick.Using a graphical tool within MageiaYou can use a graphical tool like IsoDumperUsing a graphical tool within WindowsYou could try:Rufus using
the "ISO image" optionWin32
Disk ImagerUsing the Command line within a GNU/Linux systemIt is potentially *dangerous* to do this by hand. You risk
overwriting potentially valuable existing data if you specify the
wrong target device.Open a consoleBecome a root (Administrator) user with
the command su - (don't forget the
- )Plug in your USB stick - but do not mount it (this also
means do not open any application or file manager that could
access or read it)Enter the command fdisk -lFind the device name for your USB stick (by its size), for
example /dev/sdb in the screenshot above, is
an 8GB USB stick.Alternatively, you can find the device name with the command
dmesg. Towards the end of the following
example, you can see the device name starting with
sd, and in this case,
sdd is the actual device. You can also see
that its size is 2GB:[72594.604531] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 27 using xhci_hcd
[72594.770528] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=8564, idProduct=1000
[72594.770533] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[72594.770536] usb 1-1: Product: Mass Storage Device
[72594.770537] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: JetFlash
[72594.770539] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 18MJTWLMPUCC3SSB
[72594.770713] usb 1-1: ep 0x81 - rounding interval to 128 microframes, ep desc says 255 microframes
[72594.770719] usb 1-1: ep 0x2 - rounding interval to 128 microframes, ep desc says 255 microframes
[72594.771122] usb-storage 1-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[72594.772447] scsi host8: usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[72595.963238] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access JetFlash Transcend 2GB 1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[72595.963626] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] 4194304 512-byte logical blocks: (2.14 GB/2.00 GiB)
[72595.964104] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[72595.964108] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[72595.965025] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] No Caching mode page found
[72595.965031] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[72595.967251] sdd: sdd1
[72595.969446] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable diskEnter the command: dd if=path/to/the/ISO/file
of=/dev/sdX bs=1MWhere X=your device name eg:
/dev/sddExample: dd
if=/home/user/Downloads/Mageia-6-x86_64-DVD.iso of=/dev/sdd
bs=1MIt might be helpful to know that if stands for input file and of stands for output fileEnter the command: syncThis is the end of the process, and you may now unplug your
USB stick.