Mandriva Linux 2008 is a very capable desktop operating system ideal for beginners as well as Linux power users. Those minor glitches that I have encountered were overshadowed by its rich features and outstanding performance. But, I do hope that those problems will be fixed on their next release. I intend to keep my Mandriva 2008 partition on my back up computer because I’m beginning to love it. I will be tweaking it and further use it for productive purposes.

Long story short: Fluxbuntu is a distributions based on Ubuntu which aims to provide a lightweight, productive, agile, and efficient system. It uses the Fluxbox windowmanager. If you now start thinking “And what’s the difference between Fluxbuntu and Ubuntu with Fluxbuntu?”, the FAQ gives a pretty good answer:

A bootable 4 GB Flash Drive containing a portable version of Mandriva Linux 2008 is now available from Mandriva for 79 EUR ($89) and from Amazon for $94. The general idea is that you can take this little memory stick with you and be able to run Linux from it, do Internet and Office tasks with Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice, and save your files to the free space on the drive. The Mandriva system can access Windows volumes, and the free space on the flash drive can be read from Windows.

Anyone who runs more than one operating system has had to deal with GNU GRUB (the GRand Unified Bootloader). Grub is the tool that allows you to pick which operating system to book when you turn your computer on. But you can do a ton more than that by configuring it and derailing from the standard configuration. Unfortunately, until recently users were forced to open up cryptic config files in text editors and try and figure out what to do based on the comments (or, more diligently, by reading man pages). Now, users can use QGRUBEditor.

The N810 is the latest addition to Nokia's Internet Tablet lineup. The Linux-based mobile device offers an assortment of new features and drops some of the familiar functionality found in the previous model, the N800. The N810 also ships with Internet Tablet OS 2008—the new version of Nokia's Internet Tablet operating system—which is built on Maemo 4.0.

It has taken more than two years, but the One Laptop Per Child initiative has finally released its much-anticipated laptop: the OLPC XO-1. The XO-1 costs $200 each to donate, but for a limited time — until Dec. 31, 2007 — people can avail themselves of the "Give One, Get One" promotion to give a $399 donation ($200 of which is tax-deductible).

Welcome to part 6 of our series. Today we'll be bringing you Rythmbox, Songbird, Totem and one of our previously missed media players, Aqualung.

Welcome to part 5 of our Linux Media Player Roundup! Today we'll be going over several more media players for you to consider.