I first installed Linux as a project for a PC hardware class I was taking. I installed Red Hat 6.something I believe. The Red Hat manual at the time was, without a doubt, the most poorly written technical manual that I have ever seen. I think a class of third graders could have done better.

Which brings me to Mandriva, witch was Mandrake at the time. I purchased a Mandrake program sometime after my Red Hat experience. I was very impressed with the Mandrake manual. The Mandrake manual was well written and did an excellent job of explaining Linux at that stage of development. I had nothing but praise for the French company that understood the importance of providing clear, easily understood, technical information.

I subsequently had to laud the German company (at that time) SUSE for providing an Users manual and an Administrators manual. One thing about the Germans, they are always thorough when it come to technical information.

But I still like many of the features that Mandriva Linux Software features. I find myself frequently checking out the latest Mandriva release. So far, Mandriva and PC Linux are the only releases that are able to perform the number lock function from the first install. In fact, I never have been able to figure out how to get other releases of Linux to perform the number lock. I suppose that shows my lack of sophistication with all the technical stuff required to run Linux. But I really prefer operating my PC instead of having to spend all my time trying to make things work. That is something I will miss about Mandriva.