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Pay them again to join the club? No, thank you. Enough is enough.

A user friendly and user oriented distro.
It is not perfect, it has flaw but they still try to improve it with end users in mind.

There is the club which can be seen as a way to support the distro and pay back for what you receive if you're not into development and contributions, but it is also a place to receive support ot to have your voice heard.

There has been time when the "voice heard" part was not obvious, but there are right now 2 paid moderators in the us forum and 1 in the french one. They are there to help users but also to make informations flow between developpers, head honchos and users.

recent example:
the one year release date comes from users, they are now arguing that 18 months support is too low for a one year release schedule, it is being debated.
kiosk, a new click to install web service was going to be only for silver users, both standard and silver complained, it will be available to standard users.
a spanish user who posted many insightfull comments in the forum and attracted attention toward its support site has seen his forums become the official spanish language forums.
I have many examples in mind, and it is true with cooker too, the development version, where some external users have a big influence on the distro itself.
The problem till now was more that this external user influence was not very obvious than that it didnt exist.

So, all in all, I would say, users would find in mandriva a distro for them and by them. You don't need to be technical to have influence over there like in most other distro.

Also, the discussion as to what will be in 2007 have started, so it's time to voice you preferences. (and contrary to what is often heard, you don't need to pay to log in in the forums or to acces the mandrivaclub.com site).
http://forum.mandrivaclub.com/index.php?op=En
http://club.mandriva.com/
DISCLAIMER: I'm the french moderator (see above). It therefore explains both my bias and the mistakes and frenchisms in my post.

I thinks it's a very good idea to describe the softwares installation process under linux, which may be puzzling at first to grasp when coming from windows but is really a no brainer afterwards.

As for the online documentation that the article describes, it is contained in the distribution, just install with the "Software Packages Installation wizard" those packages :
mandriva-doc-Starter-fr
mandriva-doc-Drakxtools-Guide
mandriva-doc-Command-Line
mandriva-doc-Server_Conf_Guide

The first 2 being the most importants for the beginner. Once installed, they will be accessible in the documentation menu.

Also, if you need help and support afterwards, go to the mandrivaclub forums, you don't need to be a paying member to post there, you just have to register a login as in any online forum.
It is a community driven forum, yet with the en/us forum admin being a paid mandriva employee, an uber help machine and an "original doom" speed freak.
http://forum.mandrivaclub.com/

apt-get upgrade

There's one - an upgrade to the next version via network connectivity. Hell, you can install an entire Debian system over the net. With Mandrake, I got to download 3 CDs, hope they install properly (they actually were getting really good at getting no errors as of 9.2) and then you're off. With Debian, you can fire up the business card CD to set up the network, then unplug the monitor and ssh to the machine remotely for the rest of the install. Mandrake, several times, had you start from scratch just to upgrade to the newest version. I had to more than once. Last ones I recall were from 7.x to 8.x, and then again from 8.x to 9.x. "Wipe it clean and start over" isn't my cup of tea, so before I bothered with 10.x/2005, I decided to look at my options. Ubuntu nailed everything on my desktop and laptop - every piece of hardware just worked. From my cheap cheap firewire card, to both wireless cards on my laptop - two things that Mandrake could never seem to take hold of.

Don't take this wrong, I really did like Mandrake and it served its purpose well for several years. I thank Mandrake for turning me on to Linux. But when they decided to change, so did I.

The download version (iso's) can be extended to be equal to the enterprise-level edition by simply adding the free urpmi repositories to the media manager.

I would be very interested in finding these free urpmi repositories as every time I tried to find more, I kept running into "join mandrakeclub first". The closest I came was here, which took me to distro link, then to a list of alphabetical packages, then to a description of the package with a link of where to download the package (similar to rpmfind.net), and then you get to install it and hope you have the dependencies required for the package. ARGGG! If you have to jump through hoops to find/download several rpms, you're in for a long night doing it that way. With three checkmarks to configure what package lists to include, I was ready to go. Either use Synaptic or apt-get install in the terminal. There was no guessing as to "will this rpm have all the dependencies or do I have to search for those too?", apt-get simply grabs the most recent stable release and installs it with any dependencies needed.

Well, good luck with Mandrake/Mandriva anyways. I'm not looking back.

Flash Newsletter: Mandrakesoft Announces Name Change!
It's been in the air for a few weeks...
After spending weeks balancing pros and cons, Mandrakesoft has decided to change its name!
The name change will apply worldwide to both the company and its products. The management team sees two good reasons for this change:
1. The recent Mandrakesoft - Conectiva merger calls for a new identity that better represents the combination of two key companies and their global presence.
2. The long-winding trademark lawsuit with Hearst Corporation has reached a point where we decided it is more reasonable for us to move forward. By adopting a new name, we eliminate the liability attached to the Mandrakesoft name and we can focus on what is important to us: developing and delivering great technology and solutions to both our customers and our user community.
We will endeavor to build even stronger brand recognition in our new name. So what is the new name?
The winner is ...

M A N D R I V A

Why Mandriva? This new name, simple and efficient, is the synthesis of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva. This will further a smooth transition and will build on our existing brand recognition in the IT world.
* Company & Products
Mandriva is the new name for the company. Mandriva Linux is the new name covering products.
Additional derivations follow directly: Mandriva Club, Mandriva Store, Mandriva Expert and so on.

* Websites
Our web addresses become accordingly:
http://www.mandriva.com/ for the corporation
http://www.mandrivalinux.com/ for the community project
http://www.mandrivastore.com/ for the online Store
http://www.mandrivaclub.com/ for the Club
http://www.mandrivaexpert.com/ for the web-based support platform


We encourage everyone - users, partners, and the media - to start using the new name as soon as possible. In particular, Mandriva users are encouraged to update their bookmarks ASAP! New Mandriva logos are now available on our website at:

http://www.mandriva.com/company/press

* Mandriva Club Contest!

Help the new Mandriva name to spread everywhere and win many prizes such as a HP laptop!
A big contest has opened on Club, learn more at: http://www.mandrakeclub.com/article.php?sid=3589

The Mandriva Management Team