Mandrake was my intro to linux back in 2003 as well. I ran it for a few months, but ended up going back to Windows for my main pc. I kept dabbling though, and decided to find a way to make it work two years ago. It’s not been totally smooth for me, but it’s well worth the effort.
To be fair, in Florida at least it referred primarily to the whips used to drive cattle, not anything slavery related.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker