Support

Summary:

Official Mandriva Support
Community Support
Red Hat Support
Generic Support

Official Mandriva Support

If you've bought the boxed version of Mandriva, you are entitled to get installation support for a specified period of time. Register and you will receive a registration number. Since release 8.1 on you can use the included registration wizard (Mandriva ~FirstTime) to open an account on ~MandrivaOnline and thus create a focus point for all your Mandriva Linux related activities.

For high-level b2b support, visit Mandrivasoft's business support page.

The central platform for official as well as community support is ~MandrivaExpert. Here you can search if your question has already been answered, then either ask your question for free to one of the volunteers community experts, or you pay to get an guaranteed answer from the professional support staff in a specified amount of time. You are also invited to become a community expert and provide help to others.

You can also get some kind of 'indirect' official support by searching for software error reports in Mandrivasoft's bug tracker.

Another place to check is the Mandriva Linux Update and Security Advisories collection for all Mandriva Linux products. Here you will find news on security updates as well as the 'Errata' pages covering release errors.

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Community Support

Linux is free. Software covered by the GNU GPL can be downloaded and distributed by everyone at whatever price he or she sees fit. Mandrivasoft doesn't earn a penny from these self-made copies and therefore provides no official support for users of these copies, but only for users of the official, boxed version or for users who pay Mandrivasoft for supporting them.
Mandrivasoft is a company like others and must make a profit.

There are several platforms for user to user support, though, some provided by Mandrivasoft, others based upon independent community effort.

When you use these platforms, please keep in mind that no one there is obliged to answer your questions. In order to get answers, it is therefore a good strategy to be polite. It is also advisable to ask your question in an easily comprehensible manner.

The mailing lists offer a platform for peer support among users of ML. Some people at Mandrivasoft have half an eye on these lists and answer questions from time to time.
Note that you can subscribe and unsubscribe via the same form. Do not send (un)subscribe messages to the lists.

Further read-only lists include: 'Development', 'Announcements' and 'Security'.

Most of the mailing-lists are archived at The Mail Archive:

You can search these archives. They are quite a valuable resource: chances are your problem isn't unique and has already been addressed in one of these lists.

The Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva (aolm) is another peer-support forum. You can search archives of messages posted there on Google Groups. To post to this newsgroup you will need a newsreader like Pan (it's on your Mandriva Linux CD) and access to an NNTP server, usually your Internet Service Provider runs one.
There are several IRC channels created by Mandriva Linux users, usually called #mandriva on several networks. If you are new to IRC, visit the Mandriva channels on irc.openprojects.net.
Valuable information on Mandriva Linux in general and answers to commonly asked or burning questions can also be found on Mandriva Forum, a news and discussion forum.
In the Mandriva Club Chat you can ask your questions to experienced people and get an answer immediately, if you meet the rigth person.
The ~MandrivaUserNet web ring connects sites made by or for or by and for Mandriva users.
Have a look at the Online Documentation, and the Demo and Tutorial Center.

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Red Hat Support

Red Hat Linux and Mandriva Linux have a lot in common. Therefore you should consider using Red Hat's free support resources, too.

The Unofficial Red Hat User FAQ is an old but still awe-inspiring archive which has answers to a lot of basic questions. Notice that the link takes you to the last version archived on web.archive.org. In order to browse that site there, you'll need to have ~JavaScript enabled.
The Red Hat Knowledgebase. Its search capabilities are somewhat limited but it covers most of the basic questions and much more in easy English.
The Red Hat Linux Installation Support FAQ
The (search-able) Red Hat mailing list archives.
Since digests of most of these lists are also mirrored on Usenet ('lists.redhat.' hierarchy), a search via Google Groups also yields results from them. I wouldn't consider it good manners to post Mandriva specific questions on Red Hat Linux mailings lists, though.
The Red Hat Support Forums are a bit awkward to handle, but you may find one or the answer there.
Older Mandriva CDs come with The Official Red Hat Installation Guide ('rhl-install-guide-{version}.rpm') as well as The Red Hat Linux Getting Started Guide('rhl-getting-started-guide-{version}.rpm').
Online versions are available, too.
There are some 20 Red Hat-Linux related Usenet newsgroups in the redhat. hierarchy.
Last but not least there are several books about Red Hat Linux available, like for instance the entry level 'Red Hat Linux Unleashed', which seems to be quite popular with new Mandriva users.

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Generic Support

'Do it yourself' is the philosophy behind Linux. Therefore it features a thriving culture of user support forums:

mailing lists,
websites,
discussion and support forums like Free Linux Support or Netalive.org,
IRC channels,
Usenet newsgroups,
commercial support,
online magazines and
Linux User Groups.

Most likely your questions aren't Mandriva Linux specific and can be answered by anyone using Linux. Look at the other pages in this section, especially at the article on Linux resources. Keep in mind that in order to get a good answer, you have to ask a good question.

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