I've been using Mandriva since Mandrake 8.2. I've always been happy with it and decided to support the distribution by paying for my next upgrade. I attempted to buy Mandriva 2009 powerpack. The entire experience was unproductive and unpleasant. The vendor was rude and unprofessional. The package was sent to my address - but they left out the street name so it took a while to arrive. Then it was the wrong disk. They shipped me a CD with and ISO, not a bootable disk. I eventually turned it into a boot disk and it turned out to be Mandriva Live. One of the reasons I like Linux is that it plays nice with others. I don't like Windows but occasionally need it. The Mandriva 2009 powerpack install attempted to format the windows partition on the disk, despite asking it to use "existing partitions". I circumvented that disaster and when it finally installed, it didn't recognise all the HW on my machine (2008 doesn't have a problem with it). It took forever to boot (promised to boot faster!). I'd now spent several days trying to upgrade. Fortunately the disks arrived before I'd processed the payment. I offered to send the disks back but didn't ever hear back from them. All I get is an inbox full of harassing reminders from paypal. Mandriva 2008 will be my last Mandriva.

biggles1963, it's what you get from commercial systems like Mandriva or RedHat. You should try to build a system in your own likes, i did it and it's not as hard to do as they say. Also, you should have asked it to use "free space" if you wanted to not erase your windows