Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 1


Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon-PECM, 908 MHz (4.5 x 202)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-7IXE4 (2 ISA, 5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset AMD-750 Irongate
System Memory 128 MB (PC133 SDRAM)
BIOS Type AMI (08/21/00)


Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (64 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Monitor Compaq 7550 (12511094267698)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter ESS Technology ES1938/ES1941/ES1946 Solo-1(E) AudioDrive

Storage:
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive WDC WD84AA
Optical Drive ATAPI CD-RW 32/12/40X
Optical Drive CREATIVE CD5233E-CF (52x CD-ROM)

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 8056 MB (1042 MB free)

Input:
Keyboard PC/AT Enhanced PS/2 Keyboard (101/102-Key)
Mouse Microsoft PS/2 Mouse
Game Controller Microsoft PC-joystick driver

Network:


Network Adapter WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Modem Actiontec 56K External Modem #3
Modem Lucent Win Modem

Peripherals:
Printer Lexmark X5100 Series
USB Device Lexmark X5100 Series
USB Device USB Composite Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Printing Support

The latest stable release of Mandrake is 9.2, and there's a seemingly very unstable 10CE. 8.2 is pretty out of date. The standard Mandrake installation requires the first three CD's, but I just installed a Mandrake Linux system from only the first CD. The only thing I did different was not install KDE. I'm not sure what the CD structure is actually like. It seems that the entire base system is contained on CD 1. This is Mandrake 9.2 I'm talking about. If you're getting it, though, you should get the three CD's, I think. It really doesn't matter, both Mandrake and Fedora are good systems and install easily.

8Gb is more than enough for a Linux system to exist on. If you're dual booting with Windows, I would think you can get by. Depends on what sort of data you keep on your hard drive. I, for one, would fill it up in no time.

I didn't see your last post. So, you only have a Gb free. Hmmm... That could be tight. Especially since it is difficult to re-partition NTFS partitions very tight. They tend to be really fragmented in my experience. On my Mandrake system I currently have 1.6Gb of space taken up, not counting the /home partition. Maybe you should go for a smaller distro. I seem to recall that you can do a small hard drive installation from a SLAX Live CD, but I'm not too sure. Maybe somebody else knows...

I can make more room easily.

Well it's

Fedora or Mandrake 9.2 = Il'll decide since both only need two discs.

I guess I'll flip a coin.

Thanks (Since it only requires 2 Discs)

Please check what's contained on disk 3 of Mandrake if you go with it. I don't want to cause you a problem. If you want KDE, I think you will need the third disk. Then again, you could probably get KDE through the network later on. By all means, though, go for Mandrake. It's really great to get started with.

Most of what's on the third Mandrake disk is Internationalization, so if you don't need other languages than English, you can most likely miss it at first.

There are also some libs for some of the servers on that disk-- wait a minute, let me look at it and see.

OK, we've got:

OpenOffice.org english help and internationalization files (other languages for the program to use by default)
Apache
Borges, Eterm
Aspell dictionary files for languages other than english
bittorrent
dhcp
docbook
alsamixer-gui, sdl-mixer
fax4cups
freeciv server
freetype tools
gstreamer
ispell dictionary files (non-english)
kde internationalization files
kOffice internationalization files
jabber plugins for other IM networks
a bunch of libs, mostly -devel
Mandrake documentation for both MDK and Drakx Tools- english, french and spanish
Mozilla extras (enigmail, spell checker, DOM inspector, js debugger)
myspell dictionaries for languages other than english
a bunch of networking stuff (possibly server), such as openldap, openssh, netsmap, netatalk
pam devel
parted
Perl extras (Apache filter, CGIFast, Filter, much more)
rp-pppoe
rio500 -devel and -share
rpmrebuilder
some sendmail stull (devel and cf, plus docs)
shorewall docs
setserial
a bunch of snort plugins
a bunch of tetext plugins
wvdial
xawtv plugins/extensions
xchat extensions (perl, tcl, etc)
xine and plugins
GL screensavers

and a few other things that I don't know what they are, but are most likely equally missable.

Basically, CD 3 contains essential files only if you need files for another language or Apache installed, and otherwise has a lot of stuff that it would be nice to have, and may well need at some point, but not necessarily right at this moment if downloading CD 3 is a problem.

And of course, all this stuff is on the repositories anyway, so if you install a program that needs 1 file that would normally be on CD3, it should be downloaded and installed as well-- meaning you don't necessarily have to download a whole CD just to have a few files that you might need at some point.

Hope this helps, anyway.

Well mate, if my experience a year ago is anything to go by, you'll ask a question, get told by one of the moderators to "use the search" say "Thanks for nothing" then get flamed by another Linux officianado prat who'll label you amongst other things as "Lazy" for expecting people to help you. I'm not saying it was on here, but between the pair of them they put me off Linux and Linux people since then. The amount of help I've got (and given) on Windows is very large indeed. The amount of help I have had on Linux boards is ZERO.

Mind - they WERE both british, and being british myself, I know what a small amount of them are like.

Are you in the wrong thread or something, Phil K? What's up?

Geez, Phil K, so nice to meet you.

You certainly have an... unforgettable.... way of using your first post to endear yourself to the forumites who you hope to make your new friends and helpmates.

Maybe you ought to hang around here for a while before posting your predjudices based on other forums you've been on, and maybe you ought to think about how helpful your post is before saying that others aren't as helpful as you would like.

"Do unto others," y'know?

Just a thought.

thanks

My parents are going out of town what does that mean?

Changes everything. I'm going to get Mandrake 10 Community,
Or does it have some kind of errors?
If it doesI'll get Fedora 1.

Yes, Mandrake 10 Community does have some bugs. If you would prefer to use Mandrake, then get 9.2 instead (which I found quite excellent and it served me well), otherwise, go for Fedora 1. I myself am no fan of RedHat and its ilk, but many people like RH9/Fedora 1; you might, too.

thanks

Yeah, if it's a first time effort go for Manry 9.2 coz 10 does have a bit have a few bugs to be resolved. I personally am very happy with it but a few people have had problems with it.
But then again, many of the bugs are probably resolved in the updates(many megabytes of them).

For an NTFS partion do you still reccomend Mandrake 9.2 or Fedora Core1?

The 8Gb HD will affect how much space you have...... that's about it. Linux takes about 500Mb-1Gb, unless you just install everything to have a look. Mandrake is easiest to install (IMHO), Red Hat or SuSE is the most stable, Slackware is the most flexible but hardest to master, Knoppix is full auto - cannot be configured, but doesn't need to be-IF it has what you need..... Debian is reliable and feature rich, different from Mandrake and RedHat (that are very similar and share code) but has everything they have, just some of it is in different spots. Learn one, you can use them all. They all beat the cr*p out of Windoze. The new Mandrake 10.0 2.6 kernel is really fast, but has some bugs (but it's pre-release). Since you have been running Lindows, you probably want to go with one that has a pretty good setup program. Also, there are about 20 moere kinds I have not mentioned. Gentoo is real good. I use mdk10.0 and RedHat9.1.