Make the switch or not?

Whether (Mandriva) Linux is apt for you, mostly depends on your priorities. If you want a system for basic usage (Office, e-mail, Internet, photo and video editing,...) you'll be better off with (Mandriva) Linux because of the security and price. Certainly people with a somewhat older PC will have a better experience with Mandriva Linux. Often it is still running an old Windows version (Windows 98 or Windows Millennium) that is even not fully supported anymore by Microsoft and as such inherently insecure. But if you are a real gamer, or of the early adopter type, you'll probably get frustrated once in a while if you wish to use Linux.

Taking it all

Our PC at home came with Windows installed We used it like that for a while until we started to use Mandriva Linux. But why get rid of the Windows on the PC? It is perfectly possible to leave Windows on it and install Linux next to it in a dual boot configuration. That will allow you to choose which OS to start. That is really not difficult to get going and a lot of Linux users do it like this. We use Mandriva Linux for almost all applications since:

All Office applications, e-mail, Internet browsing, web banking (for sure, we would not want to risk this under Windows with such a large spyware risk), photo editing, music management, video editing and returning the finished video back to the camera, etc. We also created for each member of the family their own user account (those for the children without password for simplicity). The children use it regularly to play some games and the oldest (who can read already) for his e-mail.

Nevertheless the PC is still booted under Windows regularly, mostly for games for the children.

And why Mandriva and not another distribution?

That is a good question. Damn, why can't you stick to the simple ones? OK, I'll try to give an answer anyway: As with a lot of things concerning Linux there is a lot of choice when it comes to distros. A lot of distros bundle more or less the same software, but have a slightly different take on things. Some are really aimed for developers or for beginners, others are specialized for a certain goal (for instance multimedia applications). So again, Mandriva Linux will not be the best choice for everyone. But I'm convinced it will be for many. People that have never worked with Linux before, best start with a user friendly distro with a low learning curve.

Mandriva is such a user friendly distro that has added a lot of graphical aids that allow you to administrate and configure your system. It really is a distro that considers home users as a prime target user base.

Mandriva allows you to get started with Linux with relative ease, to get to know more of the system piece by piece, and adapt it more and more according to your own wishes. Mandriva Linux has a very good and helpful user community which is a big advantage to get the best out of your distro. It's not for nothing that Mandriva is always well rated on http://distrowatch.com/.

Mandriva Linux offers a real lot of software packages (that are all updated, see our earlier comments on security). For nearly all applications for home users, the best packages are present.

Mandriva is a distribution that is able to find a reasonable balance between the newest versions (with the newest functionalities) and sufficient stability. Also the Mandriva installer can hardly be improved. And in the 2007 version not only looks good, the 3D desktop environment is spectacular.

And if that weren't enough Mandriva comes in different versions for different purposes, so that you can pick the one that is most suited for your situation. This time I will not try anymore to list all the different possibilities, there are so many. They are all described on http://www.mandriva.com/en/download. Let's just mention that there are install CDs and DVDs and live CD's (the Mandriva ONE versions). A live CD is a bootable CD. That means that if you put it in your CD drive and the computer is enabled to start (boot) from the CD, when restarting the PC, it will start up Mandriva Linux from the CD. If you shut down the PC and remove the Mandriva ONE CD, nothing remains and it is as if you've never run Linux on it (you hard drives have not been touched). Ideal for testing Mandriva Linux on a PC before installing. And if you like it, you can install it on the hard drive from the live CD. Or you can use it to test out hardware in a shop before deciding whether to buy it or not, although it is not sure that if some HW does not work with Mandriva from a live CD, that it will not work with Mandriva properly installed. But if it works with the live CD, that gives you an assurance.

I'm running Mandriva Linux 2007 in live CD mode now while writing this article in OpenOffice.org. It is slower of course than installed on a hard drive but it works just fine.

As we have already some years experience with the Mandriva club, which gives right on the PowerPack via download, that is the version that I run on my main PC. However as this article is directed to new users, who are more likely to give a first shot at it with Mandriva ONE, that is the version that I will be describing in this article. As I prefer the KDE desktop and speak dutch, I choose the mandriva-one-2007-kde1 version.

TIP: In order to be able to run a live CD on a PC, the PC needs not to boot what is on the hard drive, but what is on the CD. Most of the time it will not. When a PC starts up, it loads a small program from resilient memory called the BIOS. The BIOS will then look for a bootable system. It is programmed to do that in a certain order. Often first the floppy disk drive, then the hard drive and only then the CD or DVD drive is verified. In that case the BIOS will first find the installed Windows on the hard drive and boot Windows, not Mandriva on the CD. Therefore we need to change that order. You need to get into the configuration of the BIOS to do that. When the PC starts up it should show very briefly what key to push to do that. Sometimes that is the Delete key, sometimes the F2 or F10 key. If your PC starts up so fast that you cannot see it, try them all during the beginning of the startup (when you see a windows thing, you are too late and will have to try again). If you find the right key you will get into the BIOS configuration. It should be self explanatory. You need to go to the boot order section and set the optical drive or CD or DVD drive as the first one to boot from. Make sure to save the changes and exit the BIOS configuration. The PC will start up but now boot from your Mandriva ONE CD.

License

This work is governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. In order to obtain a copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

The author to be credited is Wim Coulier (website: coulier.org).

English translation polished by John Barron (http://www.europa.demon.co.uk/)