First off, is mandrake as good as they say? I really dont care if I can reprogram my programs or not, I'm just a desktop user that wants to try something other than windows and get it legally free. I seem to be having problems FTP installing suse so I'm considering other flavors. I've already tried RedHat. What I'm thinking about doing is going with Mandrake until SuSE 8 comes out, then buying that and getting all the manuals and installation support.

Also, is anyone here a member of the Mandrake Users Group? Just wondering if its worth the 5 bucks a month.

it's good to support Mandraksoft by getting a member of the mandrake user club. but why should u?
about mandrake: mandrake is a total different linux distro then the rest. mandrake is based on userfriendlyness. this gives the creeps to a lot of hardcore users who use slackware, LFS, BSD etc.
also the fact that mandrake installs a lot of crap is not true. just make sure u do the expert install and you're ok.
Mandrake gives you a good working OS within an hour. those are benefits for a newbie. once u start to know mandrake a little its not as bad as the harcore users say. it's just different.

But there is a problem that u can encounter. recently I have a lot of issues installing newer versions of libs, java etc. which I didnt had on Slackware. but hey, u can't have everything, and this problem sure has a sollution.

right now I managed to get mandrake stable. (except the XFree4, but that is a known issue) as server it runs stable. but I'm having some issues on desktopside.

I get on fine with MDK8.2 - just upgraded from 8.0 - went fine. Everything works well. I was the same - windows user who wanted to try and break free, whilst still having a relatively new operating system (my Microsoft one was 4 years old!)

So, I've got an operating system which is now about a week old and made a donation to mandrake (not the user club) www.mandrake.com/donations - a one off thing. You might want to do the same.

Mandy is a very nice-and-easy Linux distro. It is aimed quite squarely at the desktop user. I am currently running Mandy and Slack, and I have to say that I spend more time in Mandy - principally because I know that I can get something done and I won't have to edit this file or that file before hand. If you want something that is easy to install (and a word of advice: always, always, always go for the expert install - it's not hard since they give you info on everything) and easy to use, then go for it! If you run into problems, we're always here to help.

As for the MUG, I'm not at the moment because I can't afford it (poor, scrounging Uni student having to sell body parts for cash - you know the type ) but as soon as I can I will be - they seem to be having a bit of a cash flow problem and I, for one, do not want to see them disappear.

After trying Slackware (several versions) and SuSE, I settled on Mandrake as my distro of choice while I'm coming up to speed with Linux. I did have to install it three times, but that was because I made wrong choices the first two times and at that point it was easier to reformat and reinstall than it would have been to undo the bad choices.

That all happened early last November and it's still going nicely for me, serving as the router and firewall for my 5-station home-office network. About the only time I need to reboot is when the power supply in that box cuts out (It's happened twice this year, because the fan is sorta flaky; I have a new supply ready to install the next time it goes out). Security is better than it ever was when I was an all-Win9x site, and I'm having fun learning the system...

I joined Mandrake Club mostly to support them and help keep them alive. So far the "benefits" haven't impressed me but I'm sure it will get better as they overcome their start-up pains, and even if they don't my primary purpose was to show support for a system that works well from the start and only cost me download time for the three ISO images...