Considering the fact that everyone has Ubuntu-fever, with PCLinuxOS as a close second, I thought it might be fun to check in on Mandriva (once known as Mandrake), to see how their latest beginner-friendly distribution is doing.

Today's review was done without screenshots, as I believe that in this case they take away something important from the review. We will focus this review with usability in mind, especially when considering the fact that Mandriva is generally targeting the Ubuntu/Kubuntu crowd with its advertised easy to use abilities. Here at OSWeekly.com, we will be putting this to the test.

Booting Live Into the Live CD. As a personal rule, I always do my partitioning away from my target OS and use Gparted Live CD. It's free, effective and has never let me down when resizing or creating partitions of any kind. With that said, the only NTFS partitions I have ever used it for are Windows 2000 Pro and XP. Use it with Vista at your own risk, since Microsoft has made sure Vista is 'so secure' that making changes to your system can often time produce disastrous results.

Part 1.

Part 2.