Opening a terminal and editing config files is very cool and has its own place, but it's certainly not for people not too familiar with the command line, and/or various conJig file-specific texts. In fact, a lot of us don't even know where a certain conJig file is located. For such people the Mandriva Control Centre (1\'1 C) has always been one of the true benefits of using this OS-all system tasks are in one place, there's no need to hunt for them. And what's more? With this release, even this has had a facelift.

Although, from past experience you'd believe that anything that ever gets a facelift always packs in a performance penalty as welL That's, however, not the case here-the load time of !.'ICC has reduced to half compared to the earlier editions. As always au the tools are nicely divided under specific categories based on their functions and predictably the names of tools are clear cut to make even the newbies get started with administering their systems using this too One of the best features of Mandriva is how easily you can get started with using those awful Broadcom wireless chips as well.

You can simply navigate to the Network & Internet category and click the 'Set up a new network interface (LAN, ISD ,AnSL, ... )' icon. Once it launches, it will display a set of connection types. Selecting Wireless will ask you to enter your DVD, following which it will install a couple of packages including ndiswrapper. In the next screen, select the option that says use a Wmdows driver and point it to your Broadcom i7if file. Browse and locate it, then click OK! And there, your laptop's wireless indicator will come alive. Fill in the ESSID and IP address details to finish the set-up. A simple one-minute procedure, au without fiddling with the command line. Could it be any easier.