It is one of the distros I would recommend. The installer is graphical, has all the tools you need to get it up and running. Mandriva is very good these days detecting most hardware. Once installed it has nice configuring tools like MCC ( Mandrake Control Center ).

Another distro to consider is Ubuntu. Works well, and has most of the apps a beginner would want.

Pick either, for your first stab at linux, you can't go wrong with either.

Sorry I can't answer this one for sure. However, I think all you need is Real Media Player. I have it installed, (Mandriva 2006) and it works fine.

Power Trials??? Do you mean Power Tools? The two versions they refer to, the first is for any Pentium 32 bit processorm and the second is for the newer 64 bit processors. You should install the version that matches your cpu.

Hope this helps.

I went and looked at the site you posted. It looks to me as if Mandriva is playing a word game. Looks like they are implying the 'free' version is for 'trail' use. I guess they are trying to get you to pay for one of their support packages. That is a user option. I have never paid a for using their code.

As for real player, you can download it from here:

http://www.real.com/linux/

Note there are install instructions on the site also. I have URPMI set up. I looked there, and could not find Real Player on any site with Mandriva packages. So I guess this is what was meant by " does not support " real player. As far as I'm concerned, the package from the above site works on Mandriva. There may be some licencing issue at the route of the reason Mandriva does not have Real Player as an available package.

Mahred, the 3-CD Madriva 2006 version is pretty good. I would recommend it for beginners. But there's two things I want to warn you about, just so you know (and I just went through re-installing it myself, so I sorta know how this goes).
First, at least on my hardware (an old 600 mHz P3 and an ASUS motherboard), the installation goes very smoothly. But there are some obvious defects out of the box, most noticably an almost transparent cursor that is very annoying! Almost all of these defects can be taken care of when you do the Mandriva Updates (click on the 'kicker' in the taskbar, then System>Configuration>Packaging>Mandriva Updates). There are bug-fixes, security fixes and updates, all of which you should install.

Next, you should go to the Easy Urpmi page at http://mandrivausers.org/easyurpmi/index.php and go through their simple 1-2-3 procedure to get access to almost all the stuff available (um.. software, that is) for Mandriva. It's very convenient.

The second thing I want to warn you about is with Real Player. You can install it (I always use the version for linux offered on their site. Their instructions are pretty good). But you'll find pretty quick that you'll want something like "plug-ins" for your browser, to play stuff in FireFox or Konqueror. I suggest that you use both mplayer and mplayerplug-in for that. I had a bit of difficulty, but the solutions were to install these things in the following order:
1) install real player before you install mplayer. I understand that this is because realplayer makes available some codecs that you will need.
2) before installing mplayer, go to their site and install their "essential codecs" package. mplayer wants them installed before mplayer is installed.
3) install mplayer, mplayer-gui and mplayerplug-in using mandriva's install (system>configuration>packaging>install software. You'll understand when you see it!). There are also some libraries, but the system will tell you about those.

Now if you're not familiar with installing 3rd party packages like real player, it can be pretty simple. Download the package, and if it's a .bz or .bz2, unpack it by right clicking, and using ARK to extract the stuff. Usually there's a read-me or INSTALL file that will guide you after that. If it's an .rpm, then right click, and select to install. Most of the time, it'll find what it needs.
Of course, if you *are* already familiar, then enjoy!

mahred; Can you tell us what kind of hardware you are planning to run Mandriva on? It would be frustrating to try and install it on a 166mhz machine, though there are distributions that can be used like that.

How fast is your machine and how much ram does it have?

C

First , i am too sorry for the late reply .
Second , i can't find the words to thank you with . You are the best .
till now i didn't install the linux on my pc but i will today .

for lotusjps46 , my pc is 556 MHz Pentium 3, 256 Sdram

Thanks again for camorri

and Thanks for jbuckley2004

and Thanks for lotusjps46

Wait for my questions

You'll need the i586 version, though you have an i686 processor (Pentium 3). It won't make too big a difference, but it will be slower than a distro optimized for a '686.

i got my first Shock

the first step in installing Liunx it told me :

Your cpu doesn't support long mode . use a 32 bit distribution .

i think i downloaded the wrong distro .
this is mentioned on the site i downloaded from it :

i don't see that there are mirrors for i586 and others for x86-64

i will download another version

Both i585 and x86-64 are on the same mirrors. Make sure you download i586 version.

Long mode = 64-bit CPU's. I've had one nice Suse Linux distro once start and give me the message "Nice PC but... long mode is not supported with this version os Suse Linux. Remove the CD and reset."

Now, a small explanation about Mandriva.
Linux is about free and GPL software. Which means open-source, non-paying, essentially.

So, in order to be fidel to its philosophy, Mandriva offers you as a free version a really free version, without paying programs, and without programs whose code isn't open-source.

Mandriva also excludes some elements that could cause the company legal problems if threatened by bigger companies, like for instance some audio-video codecs, on top of all the DeCSS hack that allows you to read css-protected commercial DVD movies.

Yet, those excluded elements are essential for 99.9% of the users.
That excludes : macromedia flash player (you can't play stupid games in your browser without it), DeCSS, the graphic drivers to use your video card's 3D potential (basically just 2D and slow-as-hell 3D will be possible), third-party but essential proprietary programs and codecs like the real player and real video/sound codec. (the Real company provides a free linux version of its player, but it's not open-source.)

Mandriva offers mirrors to install in just two clicks drivers and programs.
But when you need to install the exluded elements, you'll need to add other mirrors to your system : these are the PLF (Penguin Liberation Front) mirrors that jbuckley2004 gave you, http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ and follow the steps.
Don't worry, they are as close to being official as possible, there is no risk of screwing your system.
And, with PLF, you can install everything else.
There is just one exception, I couldn't remember the reasons : DeCSS. To install the capacity of reading video DVDs on your system you'll need to download and install the program, from mplayer.org, don't worry it's simple enough for a newcomer to Linux.

Hope that explanation clarified a bit things for you

Thanks a lot for your reply Sabinou
i am sorry for replying late (as usual ) but i have just seen it now .

i will follow all your valuable advices .