The French company Mandriva, which creates and sells the Mandriva Linux distribution, appears to be up for sale, according to information at a website dedicated to news about the distribution.

The site, Mandriva Linux Online, said the distribution had hit financial problems two years ago and things were now at a critical stage.

Two companies, LightApp and Linagora, are said to have expressed an interest in purchasing Mandriva.

The distribution began life as Mandrake Linux in 1998. It was based on Red Hat Linux, and for a long time was known as "Red Hat with KDE", a reference to the fact that the Red Hat distribution used GNOME as its desktop environment.

The name of the distribution was changed in 2005, following the loss of a case filed by Hearst Corporation which had the rights to the name. The company changed its name from MandrakeSoft to Mandriva and acquired Conectiva, another Linux company.

Financial problems are not new to the company; in 2003, it filed for bankruptcy and then emerged from that state the following year. In 2008, the company was hit hard by the global financial crisis.