You probably won't wind up here if you don't have an idea what Mandriva is, but just in case - Mandriva is one of the longest-standing Linux distributions. It was founded in 1998. Mandriva is a broad-church distribution, not aimed at any specific type of use but with customizations for many use cases, from basic desktop use to advanced server level. Mandriva is a 'commercial' distribution in that its development is backed by a for-profit company (Mandriva S.A., based in Paris, France), but development also involves extensive community involvement, and Mandriva is committed to producing fully-functional free (as in speech and as in beer) editions of the distribution.
- The main Mandriva site: http://www.mandriva.com
- The Mandriva Wiki: http://wiki.mandriva.com
- The official Mandriva forums: http://forum.mandriva.com
- the Mandriva Club: http://club.mandriva.com
- Mandriva downloads: http://www.mandriva.com/download
The main Mandriva Linux releases on a six-monthly schedule, every April and October. It comes in three editions, Free, One and Powerpack. Free is a traditional installer-based edition which contains only free / open-source software and is free to download. One is an installable live CD which contains proprietary drivers and browser plugins and is free to download. Powerpack is a traditional installer-based edition which contains commercial software and is available from the Mandriva Store: http://store.mandriva.com .
Particularly useful information about Mandriva from the Wiki:
- Choosing the right edition of Mandriva: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Choosing_the_right_edition
- Installing Mandriva: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Installing_Mandriva_Linux
- Installing and removing software: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software