Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
As far as configuration and structure, The difference between Mandriva and Fedora is about the same as the difference between different releases of ether line. Compared that to the differences between Debian/Unbuntu, Slackware and Fedora. (I do not know from personal experience, but I have heard that the difference between Debian and Unbuntu are about the same as between FEdora and Mandriva.)
Mandriva have deviated very much from the original Red Hat Linux roots. They have for instance package naming conventions that is actually similar to Debian now.
Rahul