Linux® Bible, 2008 Edition: Boot Up to Ubuntu®, Fedora®, KNOPPIX, Debian®, openSUSE®, and 11 Other Distributions

Chapter 16. Running Mandriva

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Exploring Mandriva

• The Mandriva community

• Installing Mandriva

Before becoming Mandriva Linux, Mandrakelinux was created as a fork of Red Hat Linux (in 1998). It initially had such tight ties to Red Hat Linux that the Mandrakelinux installer even stated that you were installing Red Hat.

After those early days, Mandrakelinux became a solid distribution in its own right, with the main focus on an easy-to-use desktop distribution. It is often mentioned along with Linspire when people talk about the easiest distributions for someone new to Linux to install and use.

From the beginning of 2005 to the present, Mandrakelinux has gone from the brink of bankruptcy to its current incarnation as Mandriva, after MandrakeSoft (the parent company of Mandrakelinux) merged with Conectiva Linux in February 2005. Conectiva Linux is a South American–based Linux company with goals similar to those of Mandrakelinux.

Note

The Mandriva live CD, called Mandriva One, is included on the DVD that comes with this book. This is a desktop-oriented live CD that can also be used as an installer, to install the contents of that live CD to your hard drive.

Mandriva Features

Unlike Linux distributions that are community-driven, Mandriva is a company that sells Linux products. Community-like activities are available through the Mandriva Club (http://club.mandriva.com), which provides more of a customer support-type function than a Linux development center.

In addition to the merger ...