Not a Tug o'War, but Convergence

I tested the Mandriva 2011 RC2 yesterday and what I never thought possible happened: I'm finally warming to the ROSA panel.

The words of an Ubuntu user upon transitioning to Unity still echo in my ears..."First you hate it, but then, you start to like it". Well, I'm sure I cannot claim that I like the ROSA panel, but I started seeing its functionality.

It's the first time that a Linux upgrade gives me this kind of anxiety. I have some questions on the table:

1. Do I want to erase Mandriva 2010.2, which works perfectly for me, in favor of the brand new Mandriva 2011? Can't I stay with 2010.2?
2. If I go for Mandriva 2011... Will I be able to type in Japanese? マンドリバ2010で、私は日本語を書くことができるので、新しいのではできなかったら、大ピンチだ！After all, this is a great advantage that Linux has over the trumpeted Windows 7: I don't have to pay more to get the features that I need for work and that XP did have.

If I switch to Mageia 1 as my main desktop OS, I know that typing in Japanese is not a problem, but maybe the software repositories will be a bit more limited.

I can also switch to PCLinuxOS, but then I will have to train myself in the way of the Synaptic Package Manager...which is fine with me thanks to Mepis, but I'd probably have to use the distro in English because of the problems with the Spanish translation...and I have to see if I can get the Japanese IME to work there, too.

So, this is my "existential" dilemma right now. Pretty prosaic, I know, but that's the worst I can get in the world of Linux... I no longer have to depend on the rip-off industry of anti-virus solutions, or get frustrated because of sluggish PC performance, or believe my computer is clean until someone thanks me for the link in a message that was sent from my email account but that I never wrote...

If I cannot make up my mind, well, ... I'll simply keep the four distros. That's the beauty of Linux; while some people see a Tug o'War among distributions, I can see the Magdeburg hemispheres: what keeps the Linux world united is stronger than divisions.