Mandriva was one of the first Linux distributions to attempt to build support for netbook hardware into the standard operating system. Instead of downloading and installing a custom version of Mandriva for an Eee PC, for example, for the past year you’ve been able to install the standard version of Mandriva Linux on Eee PC netbooks and expect most of the hardware to be supported.
Now the latest version of Mandriva adds support for aditional netbooks including the Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind, and several other mini-laptops with Intel Atom processors. Additionally, Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring RC2 works with every existing Asus Eee PC model. Of course, Asus keeps putting out new models to keep Mandriva and others on their toes. But if you download now there’s a good chance that the latest Mandriva release candidate will work on your computer.
Mandriva 2009 also ships with new software including the Songbird music player and the latest versions of OpenOffice.org and VirtualBox. Sugar OS desktop designed for the OLPC project. All you have to do is install the task-sugar metapackage.
via OSnews
I’ve always enjoyed Mandriva’s releases, even back when they were Mandrake and I was just starting to explore alternative OSes(Remember when you could buy the OS in stores? Oh, those were the days…). They’ve been quiet and consistent. You don’t hear about them every few seconds like the Suses and Ubuntus of the world, but they’re still always there, quietly making a solid OS that its devotees adore. I’ve also like them for their app choices in the main distro. You can safely explore some nice, different options without too much worry of machine destruction.
It’s a solid OS and adds nicely to the ecology of alternatives for Netbooks.
More information about getting Mandriva 2009.1 on a netbook can be found here:
https://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.1_RC_2#Hybrid_ISOs
If you have a Mandriva One Live CD .iso file, then instead of burning the .iso to a CD you can instead use the dd command (available in Linux and also for Windows) to use that .iso file to create a bootable USB stick.
dd if=mandriva-linux-one-2009.1-rc2-KDE4-europe1-cdrom-i586.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M
where /dev/sdX is the device ID of the USB stick. You can find out what letter you should actually use in place of the “X” above via the output of the dmesg command after you have plugged in the USB stick.
Once the dd command completes, take the USB stick out, plug it in to the netbook, and then boot the netbook from that device. The Mandriva One LiveCD environment will boot. There is a graphical installer included in the LiveCD environment.
Installing Linux (or ANY OS for that matter) on a netbook has never been easier. It takes about 20 minutes.
Mandriva includes a comprehensive set of GUI configuration applets to configure your computer and your desktop. It has a good claim to being the easiest Linux distribution to use in that respect.
PCLinuxOS2007 was my choice for friends and family who wanted to switch to Linux these past two years (PCLinuxOS is based on Mandriva, just like Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian)..
But now that the KDE4.2 desktop is ready for mom and pop to use, Mandriva 2009 will be the one I will install for newbies once its released in 3 weeks.
My mum has been using it for the past few weeks and loves it on her 5-6 year old laptop.
I havent gotten around to trying it on the Dell Mini yet but Kubuntu 8.10 w/ KDE4.2 has been on for the past 2 weeks and its very nice so Im curious to see the difference installing it (lets be honest, the difference in distros is minimal and your big choice should be whether you want KDE, Gnome or XCFE).
Friends of my wife have seen her use it and want to change the default Ubuntu that the Mini 9 comes with.
Mandriva has been doing user-friendly for years and is actually a publicly traded company so they really put their money where their mouth is.