Figure 1 shows the default KDE 3.2 desktop adorned with the Mandrakegalaxy 2 theme.

The anti-aliased fonts throughout are easy on the eyes, the menus are spare but sanely organized, and, as befits a 2.6-based desktop, the system is responsive and snappy.

Although I don't typically use such unified configuration interfaces, I really like the new Mandrakelinux Control Center (shown in Figure 2).

Some icons, even at the top level, take you directly to a configuration interface. Others, such as the System and Software Management icons, take you one level deeper into a tree of options. I hope that MandrakeSoft will add the capability to view the Control Center as a tree rather than just as icons because doing so will make it easier to navigate. Figure 3 shows the disk partition editor running in basic mode. Clicking the "Toggle to expert mode" button converts the interface to a power user's tool, which, presumably, makes it easier to turn your hard drive into spaghetti.

Figure 4, finally, shows a few applications, Quanta HTML editor, the KDE System Guard monitoring application, and the Konqueror Web and file browser. All of the applications with which I played were snappy and none crashed. Overall, I like it.

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