Introduction to Mandriva
Desktop Training - Mandriva

Although Mandriva is a relatively new distribution it offers a high degree of quality that is highly regarded in the Linux community. Claiming to be the leading European Linux distribution, Mandriva has a new simplified user interface, updated applications, and many configuration utility improvements.

The major recent changes to Mandriva are:

  •  Parental Controls - Gives parents a better way to supervise children's internet activities by identifying any improper content before allowing your child to visit a web site. Parental controls also allow for manual blocking of sites and time limits on computer use.
  • Elisa - This multimedia player allows you to use a beautiful graphical interface to browse and manage photos, music and videos.
  • Mobile Device Support - Both the KDE and Gnome environments offer mobile device sync support Windows Mobile 5, 6 and 6.1 based devices, Blackberry devices and many Nokia phones are supported also.
  • Codenia - Play media files which support is not already available through automatic installation of the codecs.
  • PulseAudio - Adopting PulseAudio has made Mandriva sound management easier and more powerful.
  • Graphical Design - Completely new graphical design including a KDE background that changes according to the time of day
  • Coherence -A media server that allows you to share video and audio files between either two PCs or a  PC and a gaming system.
  • Eee PC Support - Complete support of the Asus Eee PC including wireless networking, native resolution, Mandriva tools adjusted to fit the small screen of the Eee PC, suspend and resume support, and full support for the special and multimedia keys on the keyboard.
  • KDE 4.02 is available in the repositories
You can download Mandriva, for free at Mandriva.com. Alternatively you can buy the powerpack and other Mandriva products in the Mandriva Store.