Hi, I'd like to get started on Linux, and keep Windows on my system. (I only have one drive)
I downloaded Mandrake, and got to the partition part of the installer, but it didn't work. My friend is letting me use his copy of Partition Magic, so maybe that will work.
Does anyone have any advice on partitioning, or if I should get a different Linux distribution?
Thanks
First of all, you'll have to elaborate on what happened when you say "but it didn't work".
IMO, if you want a permanent installation of Linux, Mandrake is by far one of the easiest to set up. For partitioning, Partition Magic worked extremely well for me in the past. What I did in the past for simple to use Partition Magic to resize my current partitions so as to leave a large empty space (several GBs) for Linux to work with. I didn't bother to use Partition Magic to actually create any parititons, just resize and leave a large unpartitioned space for Linux use. Then, you boot with the Mandrake CD and use THEIR built-in partitioning software to create partitions in the leftover space on your drive. For the most basic setup, I recommend 2 partitions: 1 Linux swap, and 1 Linux partition (with ext3 or ReiserFS filesystem). This method should get you up and going very quickly and Mandrake should detect WIndows and set up a dual-boot configuration, but don't blame me if you lose all your data 
. Back up!
Also, have you tried any of the Live-CDs such as KNOPPIX and SLAX? They're great for testing Linux without installting them.
I heard that mandrake is not very good. I am going to switch to Kubuntu Linux soon...
Don't know if that helps though...
alright, I got mandrake installed using Partition Magic, but now I have some more issues. Im trying to install firefox, but dont know where to install it. I read that the default place is /opt, but it wont let me install there. its like i dont have the priveleges. whats wrong?
was size should the swap and boot sector be. around 500mb am i right?
For the swap, make it the double of size of your ram so if you've 512 MB of ram you make a swap of 1024 MB. And for the boot sector make one of 150 MB but it's not an obligation if you don't make one it should be (in recent distro) made automatically.
@bhound: installing packages usually requires root privileges. if you're logged on as a normal user and using a terminal, then first you need to
su <enter>
enter root password
urpmi <whatever>
you may also be able to use sudo by
sudo urmpi <whatever>
enter [B]your[/B] password
if you need to check the permissions on /opt you can
cd /
ls -l /opt
the line that says rwxr-xr-x or whatever states the permissions. you want to look out for the w (write permission). so in case you're root and the first w is missing, type in
chmod u+w /opt
you don't want to add write permissions for anyone else, to prevent accidental deletion of files
hope at least some of this jargon helps
I installed ubantu on a pc with 98 installed. Its duel booting fine. But i dont recall setting up my root password when i was installing. Now i cant access root. Ive tried all the passwords i use but none work. any ideas? also i have a directoy under / called windows with 98 on it. its it all right for linux to see this?
never mind i sussed it out.
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