Newbie loading Mandrake with Win XP

[Lucite]

I am totaly new to Linux with very little programming experience etc and I want to load Linux onto my laptop that is currently running winxp. I have read that Mandrake 9.1 makes it easy to partition with XP, anyone have any suggestions? Thanx in advance for the help!

[mdwatts]

You can try searching this forum (Installation) for 'dualboot windows' as this is a fairly popular question of which I did see one or two posts on the same question within the last week or so.

First have a look through those previous threads and then post back if you have other questions.

[deathadder]

Before you resize your windows partition, make sure that you run check disk and defrag the harddrive, that will cut down on any possible surprises when you boot into windows again. Also make sure that you have a backup of ALL important, once you change the partition table, you wont be able to get anything back from the part of the drive you just made a new partition on.

I havent actually used Mandrake 9.1 so I can't help with tips for the actual install but I will say take you time with it and read, search for more advice, in this forum and on google, read a bit more and then have fun.

Make sure that you have a search for any problems you have before you post a thread about it, its probably been covered before.

[cereal83]

If you would have read just a little you would have found

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120379

which was about 4 posts down from this one

;)

By the way, I was asking the same question about 2 months ago. Mandrake 9.2 was the first linux that I installed. It was pretty easy for me. I got partition magic 7 and made a drive G (a,c,d,f) are used up. Then after the partition was done I formated and defraged the G drive. After that I was done i began the install. Change the BIOS settings so you can boot from a cd then restart with the cd in. The only hard part of the install for me was deciding which programs to install since I knew nothing. After you answer a few question, like which kyboard, mouse, and all that it installs. then it asks where you want to put the boot loader. I put it in the MBR first and when the install was done and I started up a screen asked me which OS I wanted to use. You choose. I didn't like the boot loader at the MBR because it screwed up my previous boot loader so now I have the bootloader on a disk. Sure it takes 20 seconds longer to boot but when I want to use linux, I just put in the disk, if I don't leave the disk out and it boots like normal from the store. Hope I helped

[JohnT]

cereal83 and it boots like normal from the store.


U-m-m, would that be "Home Depot"?:p

[Lucite]

Thanx again for directing me to the proper place, again im very new to all this!

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by Lucite
Thanx again for directing me to the proper place, again im very new to all this!

No problem at all. Just read the main thread page about search ideas and JL Help Files and also in the JL Community Help Posting Guideline sticky thread at the top of each forum for other suggestions.

Google for Linux ( www.google.com/linux ) is your new best friend. :)

Most if not all distros have online documentation/guides/tutorial on their sites along with knowledgebases and sometimes user forums.