All of this fuss about KDE 2.0 is important to many long-time users of this product but, ultimately, this is just one environment among many included with Linux-Mandrake.

Taken as a whole, Linux-Mandrake certainly lives up to its claim as being a good entry platform for the new Linux user.

Beyond the standard workstation set of tools, Linux-Mandrake offers a decent set of server tools that allow it to perform as one of many different server types. There's not a lot of new stuff here, just an up-to-date server set that you'd find in most other large Linux distros.

If you want a server distribution, you would almost be better off trying out Red Hat. A lot of the same tools are there, with more configuration utilities.

For the workstation platform, Linux-Mandrake is a pretty good offering. If it can surmount the timing hurdles of the software market, it stands an excellent chance of becoming one of the premier Linux releases.

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