Let’s say that you want to dump Windows, but you don’t want to go to Mac? That leaves LINUX as your only option. But you’re scared about moving to LINUX as you’re not sure that it’s right for you. No problem, there’s a LINUX for you and It’s called Mandriva LINUX One. I tried this out a week ago and it is nothing short of amazing!
First off the installation is dead easy. Simply boot your computer with the CD (which you download the disk image from their site and burn) and follow the wizard. Within 15 minutes or less you’ll be up and running. That’s right, I said 15 minutes or less. It was that quick to install the OS onto my Pentium 4. Compare that to an hour for Windows or Mac OS X. Plus you can play games while waiting for it to install. Finally it allows you to easily configure the various devices on your system with literally one push of a button. This makes it accessible to a large group of users who might be afraid of LINUX.
Secondly, it comes with a ton of stuff included. When I installed it I had chose all the categories except server and LBS from the Custom path, which gave me a system with 3.9GB worth of applications, including Firefox 2.0.0.6, GIMP 2.4.0 rc2, and OpenOffice.org 2.2.1. Not only that, but it includes some multimedia applications that allow you to create and edit sound files. You can edit video, watch DVDs too. There’s even a music player included.
Third, you can still run your Windows games. Mandriva includes an application called Cedega which allows you to run some (but not all) of your Windows games. I had half decent results with it.
Fourth there’s a utility that migrates all your Windows stuff easily called “Import Windows documents and settings.” This utility does as the name implies and works fairly well (at least it did for me). There’s also a Mandriva Linux Starter Guide, which is written primarily for new LINUX users. If you’re new to LINUX you’ll thank them for putting this in as it is very comprehenshive.
Oh yeah, all of this is FREE.
The bottom line is this: Mandriva is a great LINUX distribution and the hardest part about setting it up was downloading the disk image via BitTorrent (because my ISP throttles BitTorrent… grrrr. Though you can download it via a web browser too. But it will take longer). If you’ve been looking for a way to experiment with LINUX, this is the best way to do it. I highly recommend it.