Mandrake Linux is a popular and user-friendly distribution and it offers a choice of window managers. This includes KDE and GNOME, plus alternatives including Enlightenment, Window Maker, IceWM and XFce.
Mandrake provides friendly KDE-based tools for installing and managing the system, such as the Mandrake Control Center, which allows you to configure everything from booting to screen resolution.
MandrakeSoft has also enhanced its version of the KDE Control Center with many additional options to simplify things, and it also supplies a menu editor, user manager and so on. However, many of these customisations only appear in KDE – GNOME users get no such hand-holding.
In addition to categorised lists of applications, setup tools and documentation, there's a simple, task-oriented 'What to do?' menu, which dispenses with application names altogether in favour of tasks like 'Listen to a CD'. These menus are identical across KDE, GNOME and all the window managers. It's similar to Red Hat's approach, but with more options.
Version 9 contains many updated components, but unlike Red Hat it retains useful older tools, making it accessible to new and experienced users alike. There's improved driver support too, including USB 2.0 and hot-pluggable hardware. The installation has been simplified and a new 'minimal' category added that takes only 60MB. It's fully compliant with the Linux Standards Base 1.2 specification, which should make it more compatible with third-party software. Also, Mandrake was the only one of the three Linux packages reviewed to default to formatting the hard disk using the safer 'ext3' file system.
Apart from some hardware problems on installation, Mandrake 9 is impressive. It's easy to install, highly polished and smooth, and comes with an excellent range of beginner-friendly admin tools. Linux power users might prefer the safe choice of Red Hat, but Mandrake is friendlier and more flexible, if not as good-looking. SuSE has the edge in breadth of included software, hardware support and the elegant YaST2, but Mandrake's collection of setup and administration tools are even easier for the Linux novice.