I'm about to switch back to Mandrake after being frustrated by Slack for a few months. After going through the reviews, I'd like your honest opinion between the three I've listed.

10.1 has great reviews, although looks like it's a bit difficult to configure the internet.
10.2 is available, apparently, but no reviews
Mandriva (the latest) has OK reviews, looks like it could be better, but scores are worse than 10.1.

I'm leaning toward 10.1 since I have to dl the free version (poor college student can't afford the club membership). What's your opinions?

I've had no problems with 10.1 or 10.2 (officially called 2005LE). But that has just been my luck/configuration.

You should know that 10.1 desktop support is no longer available by Mandriva (mandrake) and that base support ends in February. Desktop support has also ended for 2005LE (it was considered a limited release) with base support ending in April.

http://frontal1.mandriva.com/en/secu...roductlifetime

I am personally content right now with 2005LE and use a number of other inspired people to keep my most used packages up to date. If bleeding edge is your thing then wait a few weeks as the free 3CD isos of 2006 are due soon.

Regards,
Crispus

I currently run Mandriva 2006 and I'm very pleased. I first installed 10.1 on my Dell laptop and upgraded to 2005LE. This version was a great improvement from 10.1, but I had some bugs (essentially with the wireless...) which are now resolved in 2006. Moreover, the 2006 comes with KDE 3.4.2 which has some new interesting features.

Like Crispus said, the lifetime of Linux products is very short so I definetly recommend you to install the most up to date distribution if security and features are important for you.

Cheers!

So Mandrake and Mandriva are the same thing first of all. I believe they even went back and renamed the 10.1 release Mandriva, so don't get confused by that. 10.1 and 10.2 (aka LE 2005) are essential the same with some minor package updates. Basically, there are 10.1, 10.2 (aka LE 2005), and 10.3 (aka 2006). You can obtain the free download of either 10.1 or 10.2. Also, if you wait a few more weeks you will be able to get the free download of 10.3. Again, the only really bad thing about any of them that sticks out is that 10.2 has an UGLY UGLY boot up sequence. Schizophrenic starry-eyed penguin anyone? In other words, no big deal.

i found it on this server, so you dont have to do a slow bittorent.
ftp://ftp.ndlug.nd.edu/pub/Mandrakel...so/2006.0/i586