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The Free x86-64 edition is available, from the download mirrors or at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public . There's no x86-64 One at the present time, I'll have to update that text. If you get to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , that means you hit a broken link. We just changed www.mandriva.com , concurrent with the 2008 release, but the new site is still having some kinks worked out. www.mandriva.com/archives/ is the old version site, preserved for now in case we need it. As it's the old site and it won't be used any more, nothing on it was updated for 2008. We are currently sending all broken links under www.mandriva.com to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , on the basis that whatever you were looking for is probably still in there somewhere. As we get all the kinks worked out of the new site, you won't see this happening so much. We would've liked a few more days to polish the new site, but we couldn't push 2008 release without the new site, and we didn't want to delay the release solely to finish the website. Slashdot initially ran this story with a broken link to www.mandriva.com/download.html (should have been www.mandriva.com/en/download.html ), so you may have got to the /archives page that way.

While the feature-list and included packages is very impressive, the default KDE desktop is truly hideous:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/uploads/9/9a/2008-kde-desktop.png

I realize this is a matter of personal taste, and that one can easily alter the look of the desktop, but still... I challenge someone to claim that the taskbar and menu-button look nice. Even the easter bunny wouldn't pick that light pastel blue as a default color. First impressions do matter.

You never actually had to do that to install software on Mandrake / Mandriva, though some people got the idea that they did. Ever since the very early releases Mandriva has had a dependency resolving package manager, urpmi, and a proper set of online repositories. For information on how the system works in the current release, see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software .

I can't tell if my inability to find the 64-bit version of One or Free is due to their confusing site design, my incompetence, or because those versions don't actually exist. Several places on their site say that all versions are available from "the official download site": http://www.mandriva.com/archives/ But there's no indication there at all of how to get the 64-bit versions (at least, not at the time I'm writing this). I can't say that I'm impressed by the apparent lack of internal coordination on their website for this release: several links point to the Spring 2007 edition as still being current.

I hate to draw the conclusion that this is (yet) one more sign of Mandriva's decreasing relevance, but I would be very surprised if Ubuntu's upcoming release exhibited any of these kinds of quirks.

Yes, I submitted a correction to the story about five minutes after I submitted the story. The editor obviously missed it :(. That is indeed the correct link. There are also torrents at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public .

Proper link should be: http://www.mandriva.com/en/download.html

It's interesting to note that the XO is diskless. The idea of putting the OS on a solid state device is catching on. If the XO allowed a USB-like boot, I think that would be even more useful. A number of distros support just this type of boot (see for example http://www.mandriva.com/ or http://www.faunos.com/ ). Here's an article from the second of those distros that argues why its useful for the user to be able to physically detach the memory device (USB) from the rest of the computing hardware: http://www.faunos.com/articles/article-01.html

You may also try Mandriva, it's the second distro most voted in a recent lenovo sponsored poll after Ubuntu. I've been using it for years and it's a great distro, the 2007.1 repositories for 64 bits are really a big bonus.

The installation of Mandriva is not solely (or even by default) internet-based, so I think you probably are downloading the wrong ISO - I suspect you're using either boot.iso (which is simply a bootstrap for a hard disk / network based install) or the Mini ISO (which is a very minimal single CD intended as a base for futher customization).

The editions we recommend for the general public are Free - a full disc-based distribution on a single DVD - and One - a full live distribution on a single CD (there are KDE and GNOME versions) which can also be installed to the hard disk. With either of these editions, you do not need to use a remote repository to do the installation, it's fully self-contained. If you're a Club member, you can also get the Powerpack edition, which is also a complete and self-contained distribution.

You certainly don't need to re-install if you find you're having trouble with your repositories. You can just use the repository configuration tool - 'Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system' in the Mandriva Control Center - remove the troublesome repositories, and click the 'Add...' button to add new ones.

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software contains a lot of useful information on installing software and managing repositories in Mandriva.

Well, I haven't tried it in a while.. and to be honest, I probably won't. No ill feelings, just that the timing wasn't right.

I was a RedHat user from 6.2 to 7.3. I stayed on that release a long time... too long. My system was flaky, I couldn't get some apps to run, I was in dependency hell. So it was a fresh install. I tried out SuSE, it was just OK. I ended up with Mandrake. Loved it. But after a couple of years, it got stale. I ended up in dependency purgatory. The package management of Mandrake just didn't deliver. Some things just didn't work quite right - usb devices like my camera weren't automatically recognized and mounted. I don't mind tinkering in the least (remember, I said I used to run RehHat 6.2) but the tinkering was getting in the way of getting things done.

So I went on a quest for a different distro, and found one that so far has been excellent. Kubuntu has been good to me for the most part. There's been some glitches here and there, but it is the best distro I have used. I am all for trying other distros for fun, but it would be hard for me to switch to be honest. Right now, it is easier for me to maintain my stable, up-to-date system than it is to switch to a new one.

That would suggest a bug in the build - that path is the temporary fake 'root' where files are installed during a Mandriva package build, and should never show up in the final package. I can't seen any such problem in the spec, though. If you give me more context I can figure out what happened.

The 2.3.6 thing I just fixed: there was a perl substitution command lying around in the spec to convert all occurrences of 2.2 to 2.3 in configure. I guess it was something from years ago to fix a Python 2.2 / Python 2.3 issue, or something. I've taken it out.

I'll push a build of 2.2.8 to 2007 Spring /backports, just for you. :) You can then just direct people to: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Advanced_use:_Backport s_and_candidate_updates to enable the /backports repositories, and they will find 2.2.8 available (from tomorrow or so, it takes a few hours for packages to propagate out).

For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available .

We've made big improvements in overall polish and stability since the releases that many people remember badly (2005, 2006). 2007 Spring looks much better, has far fewer package quality problems and runs more stably than those releases on most systems. 2008 will be better again, there's been a lot of work done on improving overall package quality, and it includes a very good and recent kernel build with very good hardware support. For instance, we have probably the best graphics card detection and configuration system in a major distro. I'm pretty sure that 99% of cards from major manufacturers (Intel, NVIDIA, ATI) will be correctly detected and configured in 2008. Our support for VIA / S3 (Uni)chrome chips (which are used on VIA's popular mini-ITx motherboards, for e.g.) is better than any other major distro to my knowledge.

Since 2007 Spring, we have a public non-free repository (that is configured when you set up repositories following the instructions above), so it's easy for anyone to get stuff like the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Sun Java and so on. For instance, for the NVIDIA / ATI drivers, just enable the repository and then re-run the graphics card configuration tool, and it will give you the option of using the proprietary driver.

Since 2007, we have official /backports repositories (in 2007 Spring and later, these are configured when you set up repositories, but not enabled by default for stability; you can enable them with a single click in the repository configuration tool). These contain up-to-date versions of popular applications. For instance, the 2007 Spring /backports repositories have amaroK 1.4.7, Compiz Fusion (0.5.2), VirtualBox 1.5.0, k3b 1.0.3, pidgin 2.0.1 (will update to 2.1 soon), avant-window-navigator latest SVN, brasero 0.6.0, deluge 0.5.4.1, gimmie 0.2.7, jokosher 0.9, mediatomb 0.10.0, miro 0.9.8.1, ntfs-3g 1.516, powertop 1.3, seamonkey 1.1.4, smplayer 0.5.21, tovid 0.30, transmission 0.72 and a *huge* amount of other updated packages (these are just some examples I picked). These are not officially supported, but they *are* built in a clean environment on the official Mandriva buildsystem and all built against each other, so they represent a contiguous set of packages that you will never have trouble using together, which is far better than the case on many other distributions where you have to use dozens of single-purpose or tiny third party repositories that are unofficial, not necessarily cleanly built, and often conflict with each other. There's a couple of other distros with /backports repositories to my knowledge, including Ubuntu, but Mandriva's are far bigger than any other distro and include far more useful packages.

so, yes, Mandriva is changing, quite a lot in fact. It'd be great if you'd give us another chance with 2008, read up on the forums - http://forum.mandriva.com/ - and the Wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/ - and see if your issues aren't improved.

On the Bugzilla situation - N7DR is not at all wrong in his criticism as it relates to earlier times. During the 2008 release cycle, we created a Bug Squad and I was appointed Bugmaster. The Bug Squad now triages all bugs reported, which has helped immensely with the response rate and time for newer issues.

For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available .

We've made big improvements in overall polish and stability since the releases that many people remember badly (2005, 2006). 2007 Spring looks much better, has far fewer package quality problems and runs more stably than those releases on most systems. 2008 will be better again, there's been a lot of work done on improving overall package quality, and it includes a very good and recent kernel build with very good hardware support. For instance, we have probably the best graphics card detection and configuration system in a major distro. I'm pretty sure that 99% of cards from major manufacturers (Intel, NVIDIA, ATI) will be correctly detected and configured in 2008. Our support for VIA / S3 (Uni)chrome chips (which are used on VIA's popular mini-ITx motherboards, for e.g.) is better than any other major distro to my knowledge.

Since 2007 Spring, we have a public non-free repository (that is configured when you set up repositories following the instructions above), so it's easy for anyone to get stuff like the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Sun Java and so on. For instance, for the NVIDIA / ATI drivers, just enable the repository and then re-run the graphics card configuration tool, and it will give you the option of using the proprietary driver.

Since 2007, we have official /backports repositories (in 2007 Spring and later, these are configured when you set up repositories, but not enabled by default for stability; you can enable them with a single click in the repository configuration tool). These contain up-to-date versions of popular applications. For instance, the 2007 Spring /backports repositories have amaroK 1.4.7, Compiz Fusion (0.5.2), VirtualBox 1.5.0, k3b 1.0.3, pidgin 2.0.1 (will update to 2.1 soon), avant-window-navigator latest SVN, brasero 0.6.0, deluge 0.5.4.1, gimmie 0.2.7, jokosher 0.9, mediatomb 0.10.0, miro 0.9.8.1, ntfs-3g 1.516, powertop 1.3, seamonkey 1.1.4, smplayer 0.5.21, tovid 0.30, transmission 0.72 and a *huge* amount of other updated packages (these are just some examples I picked). These are not officially supported, but they *are* built in a clean environment on the official Mandriva buildsystem and all built against each other, so they represent a contiguous set of packages that you will never have trouble using together, which is far better than the case on many other distributions where you have to use dozens of single-purpose or tiny third party repositories that are unofficial, not necessarily cleanly built, and often conflict with each other. There's a couple of other distros with /backports repositories to my knowledge, including Ubuntu, but Mandriva's are far bigger than any other distro and include far more useful packages.

so, yes, Mandriva is changing, quite a lot in fact. It'd be great if you'd give us another chance with 2008, read up on the forums - http://forum.mandriva.com/ - and the Wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/ - and see if your issues aren't improved.

On the Bugzilla situation - N7DR is not at all wrong in his criticism as it relates to earlier times. During the 2008 release cycle, we created a Bug Squad and I was appointed Bugmaster. The Bug Squad now triages all bugs reported, which has helped immensely with the response rate and time for newer issues.

For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available .

We've made big improvements in overall polish and stability since the releases that many people remember badly (2005, 2006). 2007 Spring looks much better, has far fewer package quality problems and runs more stably than those releases on most systems. 2008 will be better again, there's been a lot of work done on improving overall package quality, and it includes a very good and recent kernel build with very good hardware support. For instance, we have probably the best graphics card detection and configuration system in a major distro. I'm pretty sure that 99% of cards from major manufacturers (Intel, NVIDIA, ATI) will be correctly detected and configured in 2008. Our support for VIA / S3 (Uni)chrome chips (which are used on VIA's popular mini-ITx motherboards, for e.g.) is better than any other major distro to my knowledge.

Since 2007 Spring, we have a public non-free repository (that is configured when you set up repositories following the instructions above), so it's easy for anyone to get stuff like the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Sun Java and so on. For instance, for the NVIDIA / ATI drivers, just enable the repository and then re-run the graphics card configuration tool, and it will give you the option of using the proprietary driver.

Since 2007, we have official /backports repositories (in 2007 Spring and later, these are configured when you set up repositories, but not enabled by default for stability; you can enable them with a single click in the repository configuration tool). These contain up-to-date versions of popular applications. For instance, the 2007 Spring /backports repositories have amaroK 1.4.7, Compiz Fusion (0.5.2), VirtualBox 1.5.0, k3b 1.0.3, pidgin 2.0.1 (will update to 2.1 soon), avant-window-navigator latest SVN, brasero 0.6.0, deluge 0.5.4.1, gimmie 0.2.7, jokosher 0.9, mediatomb 0.10.0, miro 0.9.8.1, ntfs-3g 1.516, powertop 1.3, seamonkey 1.1.4, smplayer 0.5.21, tovid 0.30, transmission 0.72 and a *huge* amount of other updated packages (these are just some examples I picked). These are not officially supported, but they *are* built in a clean environment on the official Mandriva buildsystem and all built against each other, so they represent a contiguous set of packages that you will never have trouble using together, which is far better than the case on many other distributions where you have to use dozens of single-purpose or tiny third party repositories that are unofficial, not necessarily cleanly built, and often conflict with each other. There's a couple of other distros with /backports repositories to my knowledge, including Ubuntu, but Mandriva's are far bigger than any other distro and include far more useful packages.

so, yes, Mandriva is changing, quite a lot in fact. It'd be great if you'd give us another chance with 2008, read up on the forums - http://forum.mandriva.com/ - and the Wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/ - and see if your issues aren't improved.

On the Bugzilla situation - N7DR is not at all wrong in his criticism as it relates to earlier times. During the 2008 release cycle, we created a Bug Squad and I was appointed Bugmaster. The Bug Squad now triages all bugs reported, which has helped immensely with the response rate and time for newer issues.

... I don't understand why anyone would connect any machine directly to the Internet without some type of hardware firewall.

That is what the Internet is for. You're projecting Windows' problems onto real computers. There is no reason why a router or hardware firewall should be necessary to add security -- they're both computers with instructions and flaws. Increasing the number of hardware pieces increases the number of failure points at the cost of also increasing latency and reducing actual bandwidth.

There are only three reason why a computer needs to be isolated from the Internet:

• There are not enough addresses in the IPV4 space to expand forever. IPV6 fixes that.
• The network administrator's convenience.
• Experience has shown the software provider doesn't know how to write or fix network code. These links can help with that.

That is why I use Mandriva on my desktop, everything just works.

Really? Within moments of googling I found out that to do that you have to use the "fglrx" drivers on your model. I know that driver isn't open sourced, but you'd have to use a closed source driver in Windows to get it working as well..

Here are some relevant links:
Mandriva Wiki which claims compatibility with the t60.
Gentoo User
Ubuntu User w/ xorg.conf

I'd like to help you more, but I'm not a Mandriva user. Good luck with your problem anyway! Next time you buy a laptop, try and get something with easier Linux support.

Also, if you do live in the US, and you do want DVD on your Linux box, you could just buy Mandriva which comes with LinDVD to watch your DVDs legally. Sure it's not open source software, but it seems to me that if you're really that worried about the legal issues, and actually want to watch DVDs on your computer (as opposed to your home theatre), then there are options available to you.

Look at Mandriva's Metisse window manager, it already handles arbitrary rotation of application windows, even along multiple axes. I can definitely see this being used on a table-based display.

http://www.mandriva.com/projects/metisse/

In my experience, I can confirm the missing 2%. I've repeatedly installed Mandrake/Mandriva for my father over the past 5 years or so, and something's always broken out of the box. Last time, earlier this year, I specified the wrong network gateway address during install. I fixed it in the "Network & Internet" control center, but the applet wasn't actually writing to the necessary config file (while telling me the opposite). I fixed it by hand, then tried to file a bug with Mandriva only to find that the "Network & Internet" control panel wasn't listed in their bugzilla product list. I picked something that sounded similar and the bug was tagged with "wrong product" and seemingly ignored:

http://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=30204

Time before that, it was sound. The driver for the onboard sound device was buggy so I'd added a rock-solid es1370 sound card. Mandriva doesn't seem to have a graphical way to disable hardware or choose the primary audio device, so the bad chip's driver kept loading first and becoming the default sound device. I had to delete its module.

Luckily, Dad's a stick-with-it be-different occasional-user type (and adamant fan of the Opera browser), so he's been willing to put up with things not working until I can make a house call and spend a few hours doing diagnostics. One of these days, I'll get him to install Ubuntu.

Disclaimer: I use Gentoo at home. I like it because I prefer command lines and I absolutely love the fine-grainedness of the package management system. When I work on "ease of use" systems for other people, like Mandriva or Ubuntu, I typically try to do everything through their graphical interfaces rather than going straight for the terminal. This is slower, but it informs me about the distro and gives me a better chance of giving informed advice over the phone the next time something comes up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa

http://corp.mandriva.com/webteam/2007/06/19/we-wil l-not-go-to-canossa/

Confirmed directly by François Bancilhon: http://corp.mandriva.com/webteam/2007/06/19/we-wil l-not-go-to-canossa/

from their corp announcement

That French company will withstand Microsoft, I think. Ok, at least I hope.

Just go there
No DRM inside, only Freedom.

mandriva has a 4gb flash that is this. http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/node_3827 once again "someone" has taken a great linux product and claims it is new technology

i'm liking Metisse a lot. i only played with it a little, but it seemed to be actually useful eye candy. dont get me wrong, i like compiz/beryl, but it doesnt seem to be geared toward productivity.

Metisse, on the other hand, seems to be all about giving you quick access to the window you're looking for, and being able to store more windows on a single desktop.

The only reason I switched from it was that I was dumb enough to do a full upgrade of Mandriva 2006 to 2007 shortly after 2007 was released.

The only reason I switched from it was that I was dumb enough to do a full upgrade of Mandriva 2006 to 2007 shortly after 2007 was released.

Why do people always seem to assume the worst possible motive for everything?

As you say, all the advertising is present no matter what type of install you do, so what possible reason do you have to assume some kind of penny-pinching malice as the 'reason' we're 'hiding' the files? I just don't get it at all.

If you're really asking for a list of mirrors:

http://api.mandriva.com/mirrors/basic.2007.1.i586. list

it's really not that hard to find one. Easy URPMI, smart URPMI, http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/CookerMirrors , there's loads. I've never run into anyone else who has as much trouble as you claim to finding a mirror.

Why do people always seem to assume the worst possible motive for everything?

As you say, all the advertising is present no matter what type of install you do, so what possible reason do you have to assume some kind of penny-pinching malice as the 'reason' we're 'hiding' the files? I just don't get it at all.

If you're really asking for a list of mirrors:

http://api.mandriva.com/mirrors/basic.2007.1.i586. list

it's really not that hard to find one. Easy URPMI, smart URPMI, http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/CookerMirrors , there's loads. I've never run into anyone else who has as much trouble as you claim to finding a mirror.

Well we're trying to keep things simple and easy and having network install stuff on the download page isn't really the way to achieve that. It's not hiding anything, just not exposing overly complex stuff on what's meant to be a simple page.

The 'installing Mandriva' page on the wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Installing_Mandri va_Linux - has full instructions on doing a network install (among other types). It's linked from most of the release PR.

You can use the Mandriva configuration tools to set up remote repositories. See: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available

Excellent summary. I might add that this is an excellent distribution to give to a family member - the configuration menus are not *too* overwhelming. It's an easy competitor to opensuse 10.2 in the automatic patch management realm, but to be honest I haven't used this current release so I can't speak to the stability of their patch process. Security updates were easily setup and non-intrusive.

The application menu was *horrid*, I hated how everything was laid out. This is the best example I could find quickly of their menus - not that great - but I didn't look that hard. But really, that's the worst thing I could say about it. USB devices always detected out of the box, and using other (out of the US) servers to bring in DVD and other 'proprietary' codecs, it was a perfect desktop system.

Direct link to the torrents (from OSNews.com story)

http://torrent.mandriva.com/public/

Compiz and Beryl are mostly eye candy. I don't see much useful in either. Metisse looks much more interesting. I'm anxiously awaiting the release of Mandriva 2007.1.

One of the contributors to Mandriva developed a drop-in parallel init system, which uses LSB tags in the init scripts to determine dependencies. This was tested in the development version for a while, until it was selected as the default before the release of Mandriva 2007.0.

See more information on prcsys

The advantages with prcsys are:
-traditional serial startup can be used
-minimal changes are required to initscripts
-LSB compliance for free

The Fedora wiki has some good discussion of why some aspects of new fangled init systems may not be desirable.

One of the contributors to Mandriva developed a drop-in parallel init system, which uses LSB tags in the init scripts to determine dependencies. This was tested in the development version for a while, until it was selected as the default before the release of Mandriva 2007.0.

See more information on prcsys

The advantages with prcsys are:
-traditional serial startup can be used
-minimal changes are required to initscripts
-LSB compliance for free

The Fedora wiki has some good discussion of why some aspects of new fangled init systems may not be desirable.

I would recommend trying Kubuntu, OpenSUSE (or SUSE even, although that would involve supporting that damn Microsoft-Novell patent deal), Mandriva, or Linspire/Freespire. These distributions use KDE (K Desktop Environment), which in my opinion (and even Linus himself along with many, many others) is far more usable, customisable, and useful than GNOME, the default desktop environment for many other distributions such as Ubuntu. Although GNOME tends to look cleaner than KDE, its usability is quite, well, limited. I don't understand the circle jerk going on between most distributions and their need to use GNOME by default, but I do know that a lot of people's complaints in regards to the GUI on Linux are GNOME-specific and are not a problem with KDE.

From the link:

Mandriva Flash: http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/2007/node_3481/

Ok. Yes. It was inevitable...
(So mod me an AC Troll, if you like.)

They're still good solutions for this perniscious problem.

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://fedora.redhat.com/
http://www.mandriva.com/
http://www.debian.org/

or any other flavour of choice:
http://distrowatch.com/

You can even try CD-based versions to see how you really like it before touching a thing on your current system:
http://ubuntu-releases.cs.umn.edu/6.06/
http://www.knoppix.com/

__________

Booting your machine from a CD or DVD ISO to try it out - free.
Selecting your Open Source OS of choice, installing it, and using it however you like - free.
Discovering that, for most things*, it just 'works', will never blue-screen again, and that you've escaped the Microsoft lock-in treadmill - priceless.

* seriously folks, if you want esoterica, it's there too, and yes -- as with all things -- 'your mileage will vary'. But for sane and reasonable interpretations of 'most' this is still true, and not an exaggeration.

Er ... KDE4 already works on Windows. Sure, it's not 100% complete, but it's nowhere near the Herculean task you're making it out to be. KDE has always been extremely good at the Once-And-Once-Only rule, so most of the changes required are localised and very little "rewriting all of the system to make it run on windows" was required. And no, KDE4 is and will be native - no cygwin required.

http://people.mandriva.com/~lmontel/screenshot-kde 4/images.html

Is Mandriva. Is one of the most friendly and easy to "Install and Use" distro I've ever seen. Perhaps there are more popular distros in the U.S., but in many countrys in Europe and LatinAmerica is wide known. And there are many reasons: the very huge software repository in both, free and comercial versions, the easy use of special programs for software and hardware configuration, called drakes, the wide hardware diversity recognized at installation time, the different kind of desktops you may use (KDE, GNOME, ICEWM, etc), and of course, stability.

I try this distro since Mandrake 9.0 and finally when Mandriva 2006 comes, I bought a comercial version: Powerpack +. It covers not only needs for an average user but it is useful too for advanced user, like software, web or database developers, Graphical Designers, Engineers, Enterprise Desktop and even it is posible to obtain a Database, DNS or mail server. You can read more about it in http://www.mandriva.com

Mandriva 2007, with 13328 packages is pretty much the same as Debian (15490 packages) in raw number of packages.

And as Debian, you can use Mandriva a a desktop environment, server system, terminal server or waht not.

In the end, they are all Linux.

Peace!

The computer's operator, however, does not wish to take the time to learn the inner workings of Linux

he (I) can do simple things like install a new piece of hardware.

Make Linux as simple to use as Windows -- in all respects -- and you'll have my ear.

I don't want or need to know how an OS works.

An OS should be seamless, simply a conduit for running software and using hardware.

Oh no- an "I think the best distro" thread...

Mandriva does sound like the intuitive choice to make. I would guess that it is likely to be the best translation to French, and has support in the users' native language (see the language selection combobox and at last bullet - looks like they translated from French to English) - that's a huge benefit.

I tried Mandrake a few years ago on my personal machine. I found it a nice looking interface and decent for desktop users. Last year, I tried supporting a colleague who installed the current (at the time) Mandriva and I pretty much gave up on it. Basically, my current beliefs on Mandriva are that it's a nice distro for a home or office user, as long as nothing has a chance of breaking. Support personnel for these boxes would have to be either current Mandriva users, or require some studying/training. Then again, Mandriva may have a high share of the French Linux market, providing plenty of gurus.

In any other language, I would feel a little better about Ubuntu, since it's also easy to maintain for general Linux/Unix admins (I was an AIX guy a decade ago). It also makes it (mostly) easy to upgrade to newer versions, and you really can't beat the repositories they have.

If it bothers you so much, why not try an alternative?

Fedora Core
Ubuntu
Debian
SUSE
Mandriva
Slackware
Gentoo

or any of these?

Or Mac, or BSD, or even Solaris? There's no shortage of options