Hi there.
Yeah, I am still alive. :) I had way too much work during the last months, which included lots of traveling (a journalists life can be very demanding from time to time), setting up my business, building up new contacts and aquiring new Photo-equipment (damn, it cost me more than my car...). So, as I wasn't (and cannot be) around here a lot, I cannot say for sure that Mandrivausers is dead. But I can assure you that the traffic on other forums (non-Mandriva related) also decreased dramatically as there abound less problems nowadays than a few years ago, when Linux-systems required some tinkering. There are enough distros that work okay out of the box now. Thus many people will not use a forum. No problem - no forum.
But I must admit that some distros take a bad path. Ubuntu is IMHO quickly deteriorating and CentOS and Fedora also move into the wrong direction. Suse was always quirky on my hardware and Mageia is still in development. :unsure: My Mandriva systems got replaced as they got buggy at some point. The switch to Ubuntu I made was not the right choice to make - a lesson I learned during the last months.
My hardware is ageing and I need something new in order to develop the huge RAW-files from my DSLRs in a reasonable time. (21MB and 18MB RAW-pictures take a looong time to develop on a five+ years old 1,6 Ghz PC). At my work-office, I use a Mac (i don't like it - way too many quirks). For home, I plan to stick to Linux on the new hardware I plan to buy. But I need to find something useful, as Mandriva, Ubuntu and CentOs just don't deliver, what I am seeking right now. Thus I will give several distros like Mepis, PinguiOS or MoonOS a try very soon. But I still hope that Mageia will finally release a very good product. ;)