The problem with OSes for the average user is that he is the administrator. He is the one that has to figure everything out if anything needs changing, or anything goes wrong, or if anything needs to be added. Windows 98 was the best ever x86 OS from that standpoint, although maybe not from others (and XP took a leap backwards.) Linux has been terrible and now is somewhat passable. Linux starts out being terrible, because it is a version of Unix, and in "big iron" computers it was always expected that there would be technical specialists that were super-knowledgable, who would take care of administering. The main reason linux today seems OK in this respect, to many people, is that everything is aleady set up by the installation program. The installation programs of both RH 9 and Mandrake 9.1 are both very good. And unless you have put a patch on the OS for your video card and then switch video cards, every time you reboot, linux (kudzu?) will redetect and install whatever is needed for hardware changes.
Mandrake sets up a few more things automatically, so that users will have convenient use of them. Mandrake 9.1 has a fairly passible GUI utility that will help users administor their computer after installation. A similar seeming utility in Red Hat 9 is not very capable. To me, it seems Mandrake has a better handle on what average people are going to need in order to make use of linux on home computers, or maybe RH was a little slow in getting its vision in place, and we will see in RH 10. Red Hat is more cautious about adding to and changing their distribution, I gather. Mandrake presses open souce to the limits to maximize convenience and usablilty.
One thing you have to remember about OS nerds, if you don't happen to be one, is that they don't mind having to memorize dozens or hundreds of command names and switches, and configuration file names, and directory names, which they type in at black screen. They like it. It is mainly because Windows goes around this that they hate Microsoft so bad. Black-screen linux is a "real" OS to them. So look out when one of these OS nerds lays out advice. You have to appreciate what they like, and there are not many people like them.
It was not long ago that I installed both Red Hat 9 and Mandrake 9.1. Over the years I have installed quite a few linux distributions, just to see how it has been coming a long. I've accumulated a stack o them. I'd just about given up on the idea that linux was ever going to be in a format usable by ordinary people. I must say, I was shocked, expecially by Mandrake, when it just about set itself up by itself without asking mysterious questions, without one glitch, and everything worked at the end, and looked pretty. I think even MS could take some notes for the next XP setup program. One wonderful thing: no infinite length serial number to type in. What a pleasure! That is thing I hate worst about installing Windows, besides it taking so long. It takes me forever typing in the serial number.