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A vulnerability has been discovered and corrected in davfs2: Davfs2, a filesystem client for WebDAV, calls the function system() insecurely while is setuid root. This might allow a privilege escalation (CVE-2013-4362). The updated packages have been patched to correct this issue.

Updated otrs package fixes security vulnerability: It was discovered that otrs2, the Open Ticket Request System, does not properly sanitise user-supplied data that is used on SQL queries. An attacker with a valid agent login could exploit this issue.

Updated xymon package fixes security vulnerability: A security vulnerability has been found in version 4.x of the Xymon Systems & Network Monitor tool.

The first alpha release of Mageia 4, the distribution derived from Mandriva Linux, is now available. There isn't too much to see out of Mageia 4 Alpha 1 over the Mageia 3 stable release at this time, but there's a whole list of features being planned.

Your answers also showed us just how diverse the readership here is. Not only did we see a lot of you offering up the usual suspects, such as Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora, we also got reminders of Linux’s rich history. It was somewhat gratifying to discover that some who visit here first tried Linux using long gone but not forgotten distros such as Yggdrasil and Soft Landing System.

Multiple vulnerabilities has been discovered and corrected in ruby: The safe-level feature in Ruby 1.8.7 allows context-dependent attackers to modify strings via the NameError#to_s method when operating on Ruby objects. NOTE: this issue is due to an incomplete fix

Multiple vulnerabilities has been discovered and corrected in squid: Due to incorrect data validation Squid is vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack when processing specially crafted HTTP requests.

Mandriva has committed itself to protecting its customers’ privacy and digital independence for years. But we would like to show you how, by using Mandriva’s technologies and solutions as well as the upcoming OpenMandriva Linux distribution, it will be possible to significantly minimize and the data collection by specific governmental agencies and even keep its privacy and the ownership over one’s own data.

A new version of OpenMandriva LX is ready for bug hunting. There is still a lot of work to do, some already identified bugs to fix and artwork to implement. Let us know if you find any bugs and help us get rid of them. You can communicate with the QA team and log bugs here. We expect to have a beta release ready for you by 30th of July, so let's begin the hunt. OpenMandriva LX alpha features: Linux kernel 3.8.12, KDE 4.10.4, LibreOffice 4.0.3, Firefox 21.0, Clementine 1.1.1, ROMP 1.6-1.

Caixa Magica is a Portuguese Linux distribution based on Mandriva Linux. Linux Caixa Mágica 20 is now available for download. You can get it from our Linux Caixa Mágica download page by selecting the version from the drop-down menu. This new version brings updates to all packages, new installation options (like LVM support), latest hardware support, and global performance improvements among many other things. For the main software packages you have Linux kernel 3.8, GNOME 3.6.3, LibreOffice 4.0.2, Firefox 21, Chromium 25.0.1364.160, LibreOffice full manual (Portuguese only) and much more.

The first alpha release of OpenMandriva Linux is now available. This new OpenMandriva distribution is derived from the Russian-based ROSA Linux distribution, which in turn was forked from mainline Mandriva last year. OpenMandriva Lx/2013.0 is the new version in development and this alpha release features the Linux 3.8 kernel, KDE SC 4.10, LibreOffice 4.0, Firefox 21, Clementine 1.1, and ROMP 1.6. OpenMandriva hopes to be in beta by the end of July.

According to our “Newbie” Distro Poll, someone considering moving from Windows or Mac to Linux should consider taking Linux Mint for a spin. The poll asked the question, “What Linux distro would you be most likely to recommend to a new Linux user?” Evidently this was a subject that interested many of you, because a whopping 1,339 votes were cast in this poll, making it the most number of votes one of our polls has ever received.

We mean, what’s really advanced about an advanced distro? Firefox and Chrome are the same, whether you’re in Linux or Windows, as is Thunderbird–and even grandma can usually make the jump from from Word to LibreOffice with little to no difficulty. When you get right down to it, the “advanced” part of a “not user-friendly” Linux usually has to do with either installation or configuration, and when did grandma ever do either? If your grandma’s like ours, she calls you up to get you to come over even to do a simple little configuration trick with her Windows machine.

At long last the third major version of Mageia, the popular community fork of Mandriva Linux, is now available. There's a lot of new stuff to Mageia 3 like a new version of RPM and updated systemd, but the distribution is still not shipping GRUB2 by default...

As the saying goes, "Good things come to those who wait". After Mageia 2's success, everyone is eager for Mageia 3. Be patient. Dietrich Schmitz explains.

Looking for Virtual machine images for Virtualbox and/or VMware? That quick tip is for you then.

For a Linux distribution only a little over two years old, the uptake of Mageia has been impressive, with the distro now regularly being found Distrowatch's top five distros, along with heavyweights such as Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint.

The latest release of ROSA, announced on the 19th of December 2012, got the name ROSA Desktop.Fresh 2012. You can read the official press release yourself. However, after reading it I decided to ask some clarification questions of Konstantin Kochereshkin, the PR-manager of ROSA Labs.

Charles H Schulz has announced, on behalf of the Mandriva community, that the submission to create the non-profit OpenMandriva Association as an NGO under French law (Association de loi 1901) has been approved by the relevant authorities. With this, the organisation governing the development of the Mandriva Linux distribution "is now legally independent and fully autonomous," according to Schulz.

ROSA company is pleased to announce a new operating system for desktops - ROSA Desktop.Fresh 2012. The product is targeted at enthusiasts who are likely to appreciate the wide choice of fresh software components. ROSA Fresh edition is a non-commercial product distributed free of charge.

Mandrake Linux was my best early experience with Linux, way back in the last millennium, back when literal floppy disks roamed the Earth and 4 megabytes of RAM was riches. Back then you could buy boxed sets of Red Hat Linux in stores, and Red Hat was popular as a desktop Linux. Red Hat had good printed manuals, but it had one difficulty: it did not support as much hardware as Mandrake, and I had a lot of trouble getting 3D acceleration on my video card. Red Hat didn't support my fancy Promise 66 IDE controller, so I had to connect my hard drive directly to the poky old 33Mhz controller on the motherboard. It didn't like my sound card either.

Progress on creating an independent Mandriva organisation is being made with documentation being filed with the authorities to create the new OpenMandriva Association and online resources being prepared for a hand-over

What is new in ROSA Desktop 2012? I believe there was a huge work for the "under the bonnet" stuff. But this is not so much visible to users. The interface changes are more likely to attract the attention.

As we’ve announced a few months ago, Mandriva S.A., the company behind the popular Mandriva Linux operating system decided to cease the Mandriva Linux operating system and transfer the responsibility to an independent entity.

If you fancy game playing, the latest release of the Mageia Linux OS will be a fun experience. Even if you never open a game, Mageia 2 is a solid distribution well suited to newcomers and seasoned Linux users alike. Mageia is a fork of the now defunct Mandriva distro. It was developed by a team of former employees of the France-based company that folded Mandriva.

As many of you might already be aware of, our first Mandriva Linux 2012 alpha has been ready for release for almost a week now, yet it only made its way to the public mirrors today, so with that I declare it as officially released! Some of the highlights since 2012 Tech Preview include: faster, smaller and much improved installer; installer text-mode is now working again; a slimmer, much-improved and fixed rescue mode; dual architecture CD image has been improved with a more complete set of packages filling it and also LXDE now shipped with it and installed by default

This distribution we chose to show you today sure is an interesting combination. According to their Distrowatch page, it's a combination of features from Mandriva, on which is based, Fedora and Ubuntu, and can be used at school, work or home. Are these rather bold statements true? Stay tuned to find out.

I just loved the time I worked in Mandriva. Hard conditions but exciting experience for an open source editor and distribution community. It was hard to leave and turn this page. Now it's done. New projects, new experience

Some time ago, I promised myself to stay away from LXDE-based distributions. At the same time, I wrote about three of them in the last 6 weeks.

Can I compare them somehow? Probably yes. Let’s do it.

It's hard to say what the most popular Linux distributions are. There are no good surveys. But, these are the ones that have been getting the most buzz in recent months.

Mageia is a distribution forked from Mandriva some time ago. That's not a secret. Also, it's not a secret that Mandriva's preferred desktop environment was KDE. Even the fact that the latest version Mandriva 2011 has only a KDE option proves that position. At the same time, Mageia continued the old Mandriva strategy, and released their distribution with two options: KDE and GNOME. I have only tried Mageia KDE so far, and had no chance to try GNOME. I finally got a chance to try Mageia 2 GNOME myself.

We’ve actually seen this theory in practice on numerous occasions, and it nearly always worked out just as Torvalds predicted. As an example, take the case of LibreOffice, which started as a fork of OpenOffice.org. Most users agree that The Document Foundation has greatly improved on the original OOo code, so much so that many if not most OpenOffice users have made the switch to LibreOffice.

I was disappointed after my first acquaintance with ROSA Marathon 2012 KDE. Honestly, ROSA Marathon 2012 LXDE was a real surprise for me! What can I say in general? I think ROSA team showed us this time that they have a big future.

Not for the first time, Mandriva, the Paris-based Linux company, is fighting its way back from the edge of bankruptcy. This time the outcome might be different as the company sets about constructing a sustainable business model, building bridges and healing rifts with the community.

In three short months, Windows 8 will be upon us. And with it will come the phenomenon known as "secure boot", one that is going to have an extraordinary effect on the lives of most computer users

The decision taken by Mandriva SA, the French company that produces the Mandriva GNU/Linux distribution, to base its workstation and server products on two different codebases is a pragmatic one, based on the state of the two codebases.

Mandriva gets new life from Mageia, Meego gets new life as Jolla and GPL forks toward Copyleft.next

Several Phoronix readers have written in that Eugeni Dodonov, a former Mandriva developer who since last year has been working for the Intel Open-Source Technology Center on their Linux graphics driver, lost his life this weekend...

Mandriva S.A., through Charles Schulz, posted a very interesting announcement on their blog, asking users to vote for the new name of the Mandriva Linux distribution.

Charles H Schulz has announced the opening of voting to select a new name for the Mandriva community distribution that will emerge from the current work on creating a new Mandriva foundation. Mandriva is currently in the process of reorganising, and part of the plan involves handing the development of the distribution to the community.

To be honest, I was slightly scared by the previous not-so-good experience of a Mageia upgrade described by Gene on his ERACC blog. The second option for me would be to make a fresh install, which I could always revert to. I had so little to loose that the decision was easily made.

First look at Mageia 2 KDE.

While the process to transfer the leadership of the Mandriva distribution into a non-profit foundation continues, the developers have released a first technology preview of Mandriva 2012

Per Øyvind Karlsen announced a few days ago the immediate availability for download and testing of the Tech Preview (TP) release of the upcoming Mandriva 2012 Linux operating system.

To just read the weather foreacst you could be sat waiting for your PC to boot for 20 minutes. On top of this fact simply reading the weather could leave you with 50 popups on the screen.

PCLinuxOS was there for me when I needed it most.

A busy week on the Linux Planet as a new chapter is written in the saga of the company once known as Mandrake Linux.

Mageia is based on the Mandriva distribution and comes with a lot of software installed by default. This is the answer to those who enjoy Mandriva and will feel right at home

The Mageia development team, through Anne Nicolas, proudly announced a few minutes ago, May 22nd, the immediate availability for download of the Mageia 2 Linux operating system.

Mandriva 2011 Hydrogen and ROSA 2012 Marathon are almost twins with indistinct differences. Is ROSA a new name for Mandriva Linux? This well may be. As long as the Mandriva company has less and less chance to survive, then company management may make a decision to move the development wholly to new pastures. Why not?