I just recently too the plunge and started working with various Linux Distros which I find fascinating. I have tried Ubuntu (Don't really like gnome) and Mepis so far. I read alot of favorable reviews about Mandriva but do you really have to subscribe to the club to get full benefits?!? Is the free version inferior to the one you have to pay for?

If I try the free version are there free help,Tutorial site and free access to current packages?


TIA,

Ausm

I think the membership scheme is more for updates, support, priority releases, etc. Quite a few members seem to run the LE versions without issues. When I had 2005LE on my test system it didn't seem to be lacking in anything, but I didn't poke around much. Check out the Mandriva website and see what the different membership levels offer. I'd say try it, see what you think, and if you like it, then it's worth giving some financial support back to the distro of your choice.

You can have free help and tutorials in this web site =P

About the packages, once you install Mandriva you need to configure urpmi tool to be able to install thousands of packages from the internet.

Just google for "easy urpmi", enter the easy urpmi website and follow the instructions. It is pretty straigth forward. Just 3 easy steps.

About the download, yes it's free, but they like to make it look like as if you have to pay.

Even if you download the free version you can still get all the software, plus a lot more, than is in the club versions by going to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org as
sekelsenmat mentioned. You get free updates whatever version you have, although there is some kind of 'MandrivaOnline' premium update management thing you can pay for if you want to. Help and tutorials can get found around the net and on sites like this.

What you don't get with the free version:
Packages for commercial apps and drivers - Nvidia, Adobe Reader, Flash and Java all install and work automatically if you use a club powerpack version, which is pretty nice I think.
Package upgrades - eg. the club recently released packages for OpenOffice.org 2.0 (Mandriva 2006 comes with 1.1.5 since 2.0 was still in beta when they released). They'll also probably release KDE 3.5 packages when that gets released too.

If you're just wanting to try the distro then just get the free version - there's no point spending money on something you might think is crap. Just remember that the free version is a bit cut down so you need to goto http://easyurpmi.zarb.org before you can install some important things like compilers and video codecs.

Here is the download page: http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/down..._x86_64_en_ppc

Currently they don't have ISOs for the 2006 edition. Only some raw stuff that I don't know how to use. I think they will release the free ISOs in a month or so.

But on that link you can find lot's of mirrors for downloading 2005 Limited Edition. A great operating system.

Mandriva was the first distro that I really took to when I was (and still am) learning linux. I definitely think the URPMI suggestions are good, and Mandriva has great hardware support. There is nothing that I need to do that I cannot do with Mandriva.

BTW - the 2006 isos are out. I have downloaded them from the Mandriva website but I have not yet burned them to disks. I may not, since 2005LE runs perfectly on my box.

The 2006 ISO images are out: http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors
or here http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownl...load-3418.html

Thanks, I'm downloading 2006 now =)

I thought it wouldn't add much, but then I received an email from mandrake and one of the features is an integrated skype!

I haven't being able to configure skype correctly so far, so I am definitively going to try 2006 =P

if you do, make sure you read the errata as there's a nasty surprise iin the fact that the X server is a development version and the nv (for nvidia graphics cards) drive is borked!

Thx for all the great information! I will definately check this out!



Ausm