hmmmm
interesting,
I've heard good things about it too, easy install, seamless HW support.
hmmmm

"Never try to teach a pig to sing---it wastes your time, and annoys the pig."

Getting anyone to switch operating systems is a fragile concept---I don't even try. Just down the hall is a colleague with a killer system: RHEL + Parallels + WinXP. All this on 3--yes THREE-- 24" monitors. Just one small problem--it doesn't work. It relates to a known issue, so I'm sure that there will be a solution but--in the meantime--I'm glad that I never tried to convert him.
Other people here are happily running RHEL systems with various math tools (system modelling), and seem to never have issues.

I **did** convert my wife, but that was easy:
She has used Linux exclusively for many years now....

Don't expect easy wireless setup on Mandriva. Don't get me wrong i'm using Mandriva at the moment, and I really like it, but setting up wireless was a complete pain in the ****.

Also if you do go for it, when the installer asks you if you want to remove unneeded modules after autoprobing, say no. If you let it it will remove all sorts of important modules including wireless ones. A massive ballsup from the Mandy team in the 2010 release.

I think that depends on the wireless card you have. I've had Mandriva instantly pick up wireless and use it correctly and immediately.

On my workstation, I only have a wired connection and I have never had a problem getting it to work - even after major system changes (new mobo, with integrated ethernet adapter...)

Well i'm using a common intel (4695 Kedron??) one, and the only way I could get decent performance (after I had reinstalled because of the autoprobe/module removal bug) was by installing wicd from the PLF repo (not included in the MandyOne repos). The default network manager applet thing was useless for me. The only time i can remember having more problems from a modern distro was with Slackware 12.

It is worth the hassel though imho :), now its up and running it is a lovely polished desktop, a really nice KDE i think. But, for the purposes of the OP I just think it's worth being prepared for a bit of effort up front. A lot of windoze/mac bods simply will not even attempt to use an OS that doesn't have perfect wireless OOTB.

Because ubuntu's approach is to prioritise the latest wizzy stuff ahead of stability and they have committed to a six-monthly release cycle which apparently doesn't always leave enough resources available for testing and debugging.