Joe
<rahmutheoriginal>Use Virtualbox, they have an open source edition that is by far the most advanced technology in virtualization. It's commercialized by Oracle (formerly Sun, the guys who brought us Java, MySQL, SPARC, OpenOffice.org,...). And yes you read correctly. Commercialized. Some day, when I have the time, I'll write a proper post on how to make money with open source software.</rahmutheoriginal>
@Kassem:
Stick with Mandriva for now. Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro. Their new version (10.04 the Lucid Lynx) is, judging from the feedback it got, their most successful one so far. Blogs and forums all over the internet are praising the Lynx. I have yet to try it. But I know your case (old hardware, limited connection, ...). Your bet bet is to wait and see Mandriva's answer to Ubuntu's success. Things travel fast in the open source world. Just wait for Mandriva's next release (which is already at a beta2 stage, so it should be soon). Mandriva, just like Ubuntu or Fedora, has a 6months release cycle. Other distros don't especially. Debian users have to wait for over two years to have newer versions.