Mandriva is the name of LinuxDistribution published by a French company called MandrivaSoft.
Originally known as Mandrake, they changed their name after buying Brazilian distribution Conectiva and being sued by Mandrake The Magician.
Mandrake was originally forked from RedHatLinux, to use KDE as the default desktop, instead of GNOME. The paths have diverged substantially however, and while it's RPM based, you can't just use packages for one system on the other.
Mandriva has a reputation of being good for beginners.
Part of CategoryDistribution.
23 pages link to Mandriva:
