These distributions have a great deal in common, but the lineage of each remains clear. Some, such as TurboLinux offer a traditional, almost purist approach to Linux, but are too arcane and unintuitive for 'newbies'. RedHat and SuSE are very flexible packages, and would both be very capable running on an office server or as a Web server for a company intranet, without requiring expert knowledge. Both can be used on a desktop system, but Red Hat is quite clearly a server-oriented company, while SuSE suffers from software bloat so badly that even Microsoft operating systems look slim by comparison (although at least here it's all optional!).

At the other end of the scale, Corel is a desktop operating system at heart, with few server features, but would fit in well with existing Microsoft machines on a network. But for us, the clear winner for use on workstations was Mandrake. This new version delivers even greater ease of use than the renowned version 7.1. It offers a well thought-out graphical installer, DrakX, with good features, excellent hardware detection and support, well thought-out default configuration of the desktop environments, and a broad range of software packages.

What's more, it's got good server features such as pre-configured Web administration tools, all the usual servers such as Samba for sharing files with Windows machines, and Apache for serving HTML pages. Whether you're new to Linux or an experienced user, Mandrake deserves a look. While not the cheapest distribution reviewed, it won't break the bank or the budget, and we think it represents the coming of age of Linux as a desktop operating system.