I've been reading about the Mandriva 2007 release (http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/2007/) just recently and it looks fantastic to me. I've been a long time Windoze user and a occasional Linux explorer. I've installed Mandriva 9 & 10 previously and found them somewhat hard for the complete Linux newbie like myself. I eventually settled with a simple Feather Linux distro and found it very quick to learn. 20mins and I could do stuff with it, compared to me previous linux experiences where 2-3 weeks went by and I got sick of it and went back to Windoze.

Now having looked at this new release, having the cedega engine for windoze games (takes car of my gaming needs) and useful programs like VMWare built in make it a very attractive choice for me to convert from the Windoze universe over to what seems to be a ever coming user friendly Linux world.

I'm just wanting to hear what some of you other Linux gurus think of this release (I'm looking specificallly at the PowerPack version) as it completely removes my need of going to Vista, allows me to play windows games, handles my windows needs via VMWare (Also my apache server on VM) and will generally buff my computing experience up a bit running the more stable, secure, effecient Linux plateform.

Linux_0, I'm really interested in hearing you veteran oppinion :-)

***I was actually put onto this by a friend who is a Linux guru, just he's always so busy with work I never get the chance to talk to him about Linux ***

I've just had a look at the link and it looks like a nice bundle. You do say in your post though that you found earlier versions hard work. Are you convinced that either your knowledge or the ease of use has improved enough to feel comfortable droping the money on it?

I've tried Mandriva before when I was first playing with Linux and its quite a nice distro. Personaly I find Ubuntu easier and apt is such a great package management solution. The user forums are also some of the best out there (Gentoo/Ubuntu are the best for community support IMHO).

You can get Cedega as a stand alone product and you could add that to any distro. VM Ware still requires a Licenced copy of Windows to be installed under it (I run my XP in VM Ware - Only way I could get my webcam to work and I already had a licence). ClamAV is available for any distro and is as good as BitKeeper that comes with Mandriva.

You dont state what your reasons would be for moving to Vista but I get the feeling its security and stability that you are after. For me Ubuntu + a copy of Cedega would be my choice. YMMV. Certaily worth the download of the Live DVD for a play. You can always run it in VM Ware for a little while to see if it fits.

I made the move from Windows 2 years ago and have encounted a few anoyances on the way but still love what I have. I lost my XP drive to file corruption so just jumped. If I was doing it again I'd invest in a new HD and install to that. Once I was sure I was able to do what I wanted then and only then would I cut off Windows..

Hope some others kick in with their advise for you.

Greetings :-D

Good advice AudioVoodoo :-D


I agree the bundle looks nice and it is interesting but it is also true with a little bit of work you can get the same stuff or functionally equivalent stuff for free.

Cedega is WINE++ with tweaks, MPlayer plays DVDs and audio/video just fine and clamscan and AVG are both free for Linux.

Having said that I have a Cedega membership just because I want to support it's development :-)

I also encourage everyone to support open source if they have the means to do so.

So anyway, if you really like it get it, otherwise download all the popular distros play with them and pick the one's you like best :-)

I generally recommend Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, SuSE, Debian, Knoppix, DSL, etc but this doesn't mean other distros are not really awesome as well :-D

Check out http://distrowatch.com/ if you haven't already.

GL :-D

i have it..and they have the latest in everything....all the programs r new
kernel, etc,,,,everything new...wonderful