Preparing to triple-boot. Need some hand-holding.
 

I've currently got Windows98 and Mandrake 9.1. I'm upgrading to MDK 10 and throwing in Debian as well because i'm tired of the "monolithic upgrade" path that RPM distros suffer from. Anyway, i need some walkthough for the procedure. I've read other threads regarding this sort of thing, so please tell me if i got it right.

This will all be done on (1) 80GB HD.

First, i should keep windows right where it's at. I would like to format the rest of the space and add the following partitions:

/[windows]
/boot
/swap
/home
/[mandrake system]
/[debian system]

For installation, i believe i should:

1) create and format the partitions
2) install mandrake and let it install the bootloader into the MBR
3) install debain but do NOT install the bootloader on the MBR
4) manually add debian as an option in the mandrake boot config.

Is that correct? Am i way off? Please correct me before i do something really stupid.


Also: How big should /boot partition be? I know i need one, but i'm not sure what goe sin it yet :-)

Thanks for your help. It's appreciated very much.

Well I wouldn't do it like that. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, I just tend to stick with what works for me. First off, use Grub for your bootloader. I've read other people have got lilo to triple boot but I couldn't get it to work. You can change your bootloader to Grub in the Mandrake Control Centre. Then there's the partitions. Why would you want seperate partitions for home and boot? Of course, a common swap partition makes sense, but I would then install each of the other distro's on a seperate patition. I keep grub's menu.lst on whichever is the default boot and I also have a seperate "save" partition which I use to keep source tarballs, important documents and my email on. But it's your computer. Do what you want. Go with what works for you. If you backup your data you can't go wrong. One last thing, it's good to try all the distro's as there's something to be learned from all of them so go for it.