Excellent. Now, will the Reg hardware people be using this on laptops as part of their test suite?

Not being snarky here, I would genuinely like to see this as it will be a criteria for my own purchasing plans.

I've bought these before and they are really handy. The problem is that the cost of shipping makes the deal unafforable in the USA. Thankfully, they sometimes have sales.

Today cost of item in USD 59.90

cost of shipping 29.09

Twenty nine dollars to ship a USB key?

No thanks.

.....beats the paps of XP and Vista, no doubt.

I've been using Mandriva for around 18months on my home laptop. Works like a treat.

Would recommend it without a shadow of a doubt.

AS for the usb stick, well, if you already have Mandriva there is a 'save as a bootable....' option, but you still have to buy the 8gb stick to put it on ; £15 for the usb and 25 for the 'ease of having it done correctly...', is perhaps not a bad return.

P.

Nice 8gb pendrives only 8 quid these days.

+ http://www.pendrivelinux.com

It's hardly rocket science.

I'll stick with Ubuntu. Free download direct from their website. Burn a boot disc, boot, install, end of story. Still haven't spent any money and I have a full working system with office suite, games, music recording software, the works.

"I'll stick with Ubuntu. Free download direct from their website."

Guess what - if you bother to check their website (www.mandriva.com) you'll find that Mandriva is also a free download. Not having an entrepreneur and his millions behind them Mandriva tries to make a bit of cash from their desktop distro by selling merchandisey things like this (they've also got an 'enterprise' version on a similar pay-for model as RHEL).

The entire distro and all the extended repositories are still availble for free online though if you just want to download it.

They want me to PAY FOR it? For a free, open-source operating system which I could download for free and stick on a USB disk I already ahve? That's ridiculous. I'd rather stick with Ubuntu.

Yes, they ask that you pay for some merchandise thereby supporting development. You are more than free to download for free. To compile it for free. To take a free USB stick and put it on there for free. To ram said USB forceably wherever you want for free.

But if you feel like giving something back to a community and have the coding skills of a cock-fingered rabbit you are also free to give some money to the foundation and recieve a fancy little USB stick in return.

Incidentally... Ubuntu also sells a USB stick preloaded with 9.04. Yes, they want you to PAY FOR it. For a free open source etc, etc, etc...

I think I just wet myself laughing!

Remember free as in freedom, not free as in beer. This is precisely the sort of added value product that free software companies are supposed to make their living with, innit? If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it - the price will come down or the product will disappear if it really is too expensive. In an environment where people will pay top-dollar for a mediocre mobile phone packaged as an alien tampon-applicator, I'd say anything goes.