Mandriva Linux 2009 was developed by the Mandriva development community, based around their development distribution. This open, community-driven development system has been in place since 1998, making it one of the longest-standing open source development communities around. The involvement of the Mandriva development community helps make Mandriva Linux one of the largest, most up-to-date, integrated, internationalized and standardized distributions available.

Mandriva Linux is well adapted to a wide array of personal computing requirements. It is a full-featured desktop including everything for office, internet, multimedia, and software development. It is ideal for the needs of all Linux users, from the beginner to the power user.

Mandriva Linux 2009 is a bold release which brings the new KDE 4.1 as the default desktop, along with a re-designed installer and Mandriva Control Center and many other new features. Other significant updates include GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3, Mozilla Firefox 3, and kernel 2.6.27. Key features include new graphical in-line upgrade capability, netbook compatibility, class-leading hardware support, and support for working with mobile devices.