I had to use Partition Magic in Windows to create enough space for Linux to run. When I installed SuSE for some reason it would only give me a couple gigs. I just figured that installing partition magic and creating an empty space for Linux would be easier than battling Winblows for the space I need.

One note: Partition Magic isn't free... so that may be a problem.

i've finally decided to install mdk 10 only because it seems easy enough but also advanced enough so if i ever do learn anything new out of linux, i can do it with ease on mandrake.

two or three more questions:
first of all thanx to ppl who have sent me screenshots and to amosf for the perfect timing that you had for installing mdk on ur daughter's winbox, and for a great detailed explanation, however i dont get what u mean by command prompt, i know what one is lol, but you kind of left me hanging there...i just ran chkdsk overnight and defrag ran quicker than i thought it would lol.

second: if i'm really unhappy i can uninstall mdk right? but will i still be left with a partition just for linux, right?

lastly: becausei have ntfs i can access windows files from linux w/ease, but not the other way around?

By command prompt I just meant running chkdsk in a DOS prompt in windows. That's what mandrake said to do...

And yes, if you don't like mandrake you can just install Suse or slack on the same partitiions.

You can read ntfs from linux and there are programs available to read linux ext2 partitions from windows...

And if you have XP maybe it's posible to resize the partitin from windows first to make space? You can with XP pro, not sure about home. Not sure whether ntfs is harder to do with linux or not. Anyone know?

Thats a good question about having a linux partition left over if you decide you don't want Linux anymore... Is there an app that will incorporate free space back into an NTFS filesystem? I know you could just format it in FAT32 or NTFS and then have a D drive under My Computer.... I'm sure there has to be...

You could use an app, partition magic, knoppix, whatever to size it back up again, no doubt...

ONE LAST QUESTION: thanx all for bearing w/me here lol

burning the iso images onto cds...i read somewhere u have to burn at 4x because if you burn any higher errors will result, is this true? because it's gonna be a while for 3 cds to be burned....


until when i actually try to install.....that's the last questionf or now

thanx from a

You don't HAVE to burn at 4x..... Not sure where you heard that. It is true that the higher speed you burn at the more LIKELY you are to POSSIBLY have errors..... I always burn my ISO's at 8x on my 48x burner just to make sure I don't wind up with coasters. Actually, I burn EVERYTHING at 8x..... It's overkill but I do it anyway.... It'll take about 7-8 minutes per disk on 8x.... Thats not overly long...

takes maybe 30 minutes at 4x oh well, slow but steady wins the race?

btw: i think xp never had that possibility..but oh well. i'll just let mandrake manage my ntfs partitions...

also btw: how long does formatting a partition take on linux...i've been with the watch cursor for about 10 mins now, with no other screen except the setup screen and nothing in that big box..if u know what i mean?

CRAP
i did something wrong

i think when i made the new partition, i only let it have like 252 mb because when i tried installing packages, it said 1465/252

now the question is what do i do now? do i try to create a new partition (custom this time)? or do i just scrap the whole project?

Yea, just make a new partition. You'll want a couple gigs atleast if you can spare it... I always just make a '/' and a 'swap'.... If your just starting out theres no need really to have a seperate '/boot' partition.... Or even a seperate '/home' partition.. Up to you... Some people like to keep seperate partitions for various purposes but all-in-all it's not necessary...

Don't give up now!!!

Crap I really screwed up now

As I think when it was installing SuSE...it kinda screwed up partitions.....leaving me when I rebooted a simple line of letters spelling G R U B. and that's it. I know GRUB is the bootloader..and that may be the problem....

I've dug myself a real deep hole now.....haven't i.