I'm about to Install Mandrake 9.0 on a dual-boot system with Win 98SE, but while I have my HD defragmenting, I'd like to ask a few questions (as this is only my 2nd encounter with Linux):

1. Out of a 25 GB Hard drive (Yeah, it's kinda small but I haven't bought a Linux-only drive yet), how much of the remaining 16 GB should I give to Linux (and how should it be mounted) for a "basic" install?

2. The only way for me to get online from that computer is via a WMP11 Linksys PCI card. If there a relatively easy (GUI even?) way to set up this card? I am unsure of the version information, but could look at the card if needed.

Thanks for answering these.

I would allocate 8GB to Linux, and 256MB to swap. I wouldn't care about mounting; let Mandrake decide.

Mandrake has a bunch of GUI tools, so I'm guessing that they do have a way to install your card.

Good luck!

mandrake does a good job of finding the drivers that it needs to get things going. do a expert install, don't worry it's pretty easy. when you get to the part about formating let mdk do it on the unused area. it will set it up for you pretty well. then when you look at your packages, on the bottom of the options will be a another option to select individual packages. take a look at them slowly, if you have a question about one, read what it does and then if your still not sure go ahead and install it. you can remove them with ease.

when you get to the part about setting up the network check on the auto and let it go from there. you can input a hostname if you want. this only names you box and not what the web sees.

best of luck and have fun.

Just curious, when you say "unused" area, are you talking about the free space already on my Windows partition or unpartitioned area?? The first time I used Mandrake, I used Partition Magic to reduce the size of my Windows partition, and then set up Linux partitons for each of the different mount points (If I let Mandrake do it, PM would give me an error whenever I tried to start it up). Is there another way that I should be doing it??

it will be the unused area of your disk.

i would let pm reduce your windows and then let mandrake make the partitions that it wants on the unused area. if you don't want mandrake to be that big, then jot down what the sizes of the partitions that mandrake made and reduce these according to the final size that you would like. make sure to keep your swap at least as big as you ram. some distro's will say to have it twice the size. i have 512 ram and my swap is next to never used. so i wouldn't make yours any bigger than that, and a crichards said you could do it with 256.

for the partition reduction, think of reducing a recipe, a formula, a drink, any thing that your comfortable with. think of it in those terms and you won't have any problems.

drop back if you need more help.